Bee Divine Hive Temple
Black Rock City, Nevada
The Location
In 2019, Matt drove across the US in a cargo van to bring The Good of the Hive to one of the world’s most extraordinary gathering places — Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada to collaborate on a Temple to the Divine Feminine. With hand-woven walls and an open central ceiling, the Bee Divine Hive Temple became a tiny oasis on the Playa.
The temple was a collaboration led by visionary Elizabeth Huebner, who invited the collective in at every turn — building a space where any female identifying human could embody the goddess within and where spirit flowed through all who entered. Seasoned artist and priestess Elizabeth Score-Jones headed up the art aspects. Matt considers this project - without a doubt - one of the most profound experiences of his life. The celebration of women held a sacredness and a truth rarely seen in the male focused world we all live in. Much like the seeing that bee differently for the first time in 2008, Matt was shown something different and profound about the feminine. This project changed The Good of the Hive and Matt in ways that would resonate through every project that came after.
Scroll through the photo gallery below to view images from the project.
Why Honey Bees?
Inside the temple, ceremonies unfolded that rivaled the beauty and awe of the massive fifty-foot sculptures elsewhere at Burning Man — including an anointing ritual where priestesses dotted participants’ foreheads with oils, frankincense filled the air from a beekeeper’s smoker, and vestals drummed as the space was consecrated as sacred.
In a deeply personal act, Matt symbolically burned a bee that had been signed by all of the temple’s collaborators — blessing and releasing an older, more exhausted vision of the mission, and creating space for a new phase of the journey to begin..
