“At first the melody would come and walk with me through the mists in North Cornwall England. I would take this melody back to the Hammond Organ, the B3. I would sit and play with this for hours. Soon I began to have to deal with my mother’s heart condition and she survived a cardiac arrest in September. Because of this I began thinking about the life cycle and that dying is part of the life cycle. Even though I realized this, logically, I couldn’t accept the idea of losing my mother emotionally. The song started to become clearer as the days went by and I began to realize that the Beekeeper that had taken my character in the song, to death, to plead for my mother’s life, the Queen Bee in the song, little did I know that although my mother would survive and that death did pass her by it would be the last time I saw my brother when I went back to stand by my mother’s bedside. So life/death has it’s own rhythm and it’s own rhyme. The Beekeeper really acts as a Shaman, similar to the Medicine Man in the Native American tradition. We have the Beekeeper in the Celtic tradition”

Tori Amos – MSN Chat 2/22/05

I understand now, more than before, now that the proverbial wolf is finally right outside my door, just how much the soul can ache to travel to the keepers.  How great the longing is to offer every exchange, including one’s own life, to spare the loss of one so beloved.

This is my bargaining stage.  This is me asking for time to stand still, to wait, to slow down.  This is me not ready.  This is my rage at life’s cycle, despite a long-term respect of nature borne of my personal beliefs, storming the castle gates and insisting I will not relinquish my King.