Deep healing: a case of Bombus sylvestris

The accident was sudden, unexpected. Our car had stuck on a large steel plate in the road placed incorrectly by a work crew. I remember hitting my face hard with my left fist. I also remember being uncertain and dazed, not even understating what happened at first. The doctors didn’t quite know what to say about the pattern of my illness after the accident but finally came to agreement: Diffuse Axonal Injury with shearing of the 3^rd cranial nerve.

Head injuries are no joke. They require hard work to overcome. I was typically quite energetic and engaged, rarely depressed or anxious. I saw the trials of life as opportunities to learn grace and strength. Now, I was exhausted and anxious. I didn’t understand the changes in my brain and thought pattern. I didn’t understand that confusion and brain fog were a part of it. I couldn’t comprehend the extreme difference in how much energy I had. I was merciless with myself, berating the differences as if I had caused them. I didn’t realize that my eyesight was severely impacted.  

I was seen by a homeopath and was helped with some of the acute symptoms with Lecithin 30C and later 1M. Later Apis was given in multiple potencies over a two year period of time. Historically, before the accident, my symptoms had been:
Ovarian cysts (mostly on the right)
Irregular periods
Heavy periods with clotting
Extremely painful periods (first day)
Burning pains in various places
Water retention
Thirstlessness
Kidney Stones
Busyness
Clumsiness

Between my taking the remedy Lecithin and the remedy Apis, there were a couple of years of trying many various remedies with little success. Almost all of them exacerbated the remaining head injury symptoms which included:
Wooziness
Dizziness
Extreme issues with certain types of light including: fluorescent, LED, and Halogen lights. All of these created brain fatigue and tiredness after exposure for any length of time. Also near fainting when fluorescent lights were numerous or flickering.
Environmental sensitivity: this included dizziness when confronted with areas of heavy electronic usage, such as an airport, or an office with lots of computers or other electronic equipment.
Issues with my eyesight flexibility: it was hard to drive in traffic, especially with cars coming head on or during rain. Even watching TV with rapidly changing pictures was difficult at first.
Palpitations
Diabetes Type 2 which appeared after the head injury but there is also family history.
Impulsive thoughts, but NOT impulsive actions: impulsivity is VERY common with head injuries.

My recovery therapies had included: neuro-optometry therapy, inner ear therapy at a head injury clinic, and chiropracty (including cranial-sacral adjustments).                                                                                                                         

When I entered school to become a homeopath, I learned more about remedy families and how remedies within the same family can be similar, yet also quite different in certain aspects of their actions. Knowing this, I looked for a “kin” to Apis. I had tried Vespa with no success at all, but looked for something that might be closer. In the end, I looked for a source of bumble bee. After quite a search, I found Bombus sylvestris and tried it.

The first evening I took it, I felt a surge of energy and also a vague feeling of irritability. I had trouble sleeping because of the energy I felt surging through me. When I woke up, I felt different, it was as if I had just come off a boat and the world was at last standing still. It had been seven years after the accident and I had felt woozy the entire seven years. It was the kind of feeling you get after a carnival ride has spun you around a bit. I had learned to accommodate but the feeling never really went away. Now, for the first time, the world actually stood still! It wasn’t until later in the day, the biggest change was felt...

When I started homeopathy school, I had multiple problems with the lighting. They had to turn the lights down or off, or I had to wear sunglasses and a hat while in class. I had been told by my neuro-optometrist that the issue with lights was incurable and that I would have to avoid them permanently. When I went to school that day, the most amazing thing had happened. I could be under the lights with very little discomfort! It wasn’t perfect, but so much improved that I could be in class and with no special precautions; they didn’t have to turn down the lights. I could actually work in an office setting again. This was with one dose at a 30C potency!

So, what is different about Bombus? Why did it work so much better when Apis was a relatively good fit? I think it’s because there are some significant differences between the honey bee and the bumble bee in the natural world and we can understand the remedies better by examining the differences between them.

Apis is busy but it can be fruitless busyness. They are busy to be busy. They have a strong sense of community but typically on a more global scale.

Bombus can be this way but typically their busyness has more of a point and purpose. They can work fast and efficiently but with more focus. I believe they do this because they really want to get things done quickly so they can play. They REALLY like to have fun and just relax with their friends and family and they will do whatever they need to do in a hurry so they can get to that. 

In nature, bumble bees will go out earlier in the year at lower temperatures and even stay out in a light rain to do their work. They will also work later in the day. Honey bees will revisit flowers already emptied by other bees, while bumble bees will never go to a flower already emptied. In this way, they are more efficient. 

I think the biggest difference though, is in the area of introspection. Apis is not typically introspective while Bombus is deeply introspective, too introspective; they will get stuck in their introspection. I think both remedies like to do good. Doing good is important to them but to Bombus, it becomes their motivating theme. They don’t feel that they will be punished by God by not being good, rather it is important to be good just for goodness’ sake. If they feel they’ve failed in this task, they will become withdrawn and really beat themselves up about it. They have a very hard time forgiving themselves for a wrong they have done. We see the themes of the Animal kingdom in “it’s me against myself.” 

Interestingly, Bombus, while concerned with being good, well motivated people, are also amazingly competitive with themselves and others in most aspects of their life. This is one of the ways they get things done. They compete with themselves to increase speed and time when doing a repetitive task.  Unfortunately, this competitive spirit can cause a war within them because they still want to behave in a good way but, competition, by its very nature can mean running over (or through) your competitor.

As far as family connections and genetics are concerned, I do believe my father needed the exact same remedy and I am very much like him.  

He would always use the phrase: "I am going to go bumble around." He loved to window shop and loved going to Lloyd Center in Portland to just wander around and take things in. He was very social and loved to travel. He loved music and would feel it to the depths of his soul. He loved to feel surrounded by it. The love of music is almost like the spiders in this regard.

We both had a similar temperament. It took quite a lot to make him angry but when he was, he would explode and then be perfectly fine. I am much the same. It takes quite a lot to make me angry and even more to make me explode, but I can think of very stinging remarks even if I don’t say them out loud. I could see that this remedy in an uncompensated state could be a very frustrated, mouthy individual when angered. They feel frustration more predominantly than outright anger. They do not hold grudges and get over things really quickly. I believe this is because they do NOT like to hang on to negative emotions and will work hard to overcome them. As a rule, in my opinion, they are generally quite happy and contented.

They can be nervous as children; almost a little hyper-active. They are precocious and talkative at an early age. While fearful as a child, they tend to overcome their fears and become the opposite as adults (this ties in with their desire to rid themselves of negative emotion). I think the fear set includes a strong fear of losing their mind which can continue into adulthood.

They can be empathetic to an extreme degree and they feel another's angst easily. The best way to think of the differences is to think of a Phosphorus bee and you come up with Bombus.  They often do not have the best boundaries and will work and play themselves sick because they do not rest. Apis runs too hot and Bombus is cold, though they both dislike excessive heat.  Apis injuries are ameliorated by cold applications and Bombus by heat.

In my experience, Bombus sylvestris dreams are interesting with themes of hunting for houses, falling (not flying), storms (specifically tornadoes), and action adventure. They rarely have real nightmares. This is interesting because in nature Bombus sylvestris is a Cuckoo bumble bee.  This means they take over the nests made by other bumble bees (house hunting). 

Three different Bombus remedies have been made. They have somewhat different emphasis from each other in practical use. In my experience, Bombus Pratorum is much sadder and more depressive and also more impulsive. I remember taking it and then within 24 hours went shopping. I kept wandering around the store picking up things to buy that I had no use for but felt I absolutely needed. When I stopped to look in my cart and realized what I was doing, I knew the source immediately. I, of course, put the items back, but it made a lasting impression.  I felt sad and depressed while taking it. Otherwise the remedy is much the same. I tried Bombus Melanopygus because I wanted to know if bees from my blueberry farm would have a more profound effect being sourced from the same region that I live. The difference I noticed was a great exacerbation of my dizziness. I had experienced vertigo before but while taking the remedy, it never ameliorated. Once the remedy wore off, it went away, but it happened again each time I took it. Thus, I could see B. melanopygus as being a good Menière's disease remedy. Otherwise, it was much the same as the other two. Both Bombus pratorum and Bombus melanopygus are true bumble bees, and therein may lay the difference from Bombus sylvestris. 

In what ways are Apis and Bombus the same? Both like to travel and have very similar physical complaints. They can both be quite compassionate. Both can be irritable and have jealous natures. They are both frustrated more than angry. Both are not very thirsty. 

How does my Bombus story end? As I slowly increased the potency, many layers of the accident-induced dysfunction went away. Earlier, I had a hysterectomy because of the severity of the ovarian cysts (this was before my introduction to homeopathy), so nothing there could be learned, but I no longer had water retention and I was much thirstier. Kidney stones have become far less of a problem for me. My energy level came back to normal and the wooziness resolved. The impulsive thoughts are now almost non-existent, and when they occur, they don’t cause high anxiety. I could finally accept that thought doesn’t equal action, and I could let it go.

It is now seven years since my first dose of Bombus, and I am doing really well. I still have some issues with my eyes and motion/lights, but I am able to do the things I need to do with relative ease. My energy is back and more importantly my perspective. This is the biggest gift of all.

Photos: Shutterstock
Broken windshield; Ocskay Bence
Dizziness; Dirima
Bumble bee; Sergey Lavrentev