This is the second of a series of suggestions for re-enchanting your life, one pixie kiss at a time. The introduction is here, and you can watch the path unfold here. This post was originally posted here.

We started by making some space. Space for enchantment, space for the Fae.

Now we can continue this process, making more space in our lives and our minds, and charming ourselves with what we choose to attract.

Following the principle of magic that like attracts like, fill your life with the kinds of wonder and stories of the magic you choose to tap into.

Collect stories, poetry and art about the Fae, about enchantment, about wonder.

Surround yourself with beauty, with enchantment, and become enchanted. Share what you find with friends, post links here if you like… better though, to meet with soemone in the flesh and share what you have found and loved! Enchant each other!

Then, take your favourite words – poems, songs, stories – out to somewhere beautiful and dedicate them to the Fae. Speak them aloud, with feeling, tell the stories to those beings you may not see but can feel nonetheless. They love a good story!

Telling stories is, in itself, a magical act. We live our lives through stories, absorbing images of the world, telling ourselves stories of ourselves and our world. We take on board the stories that the news tells us, that our friends repeat, that we learnt as children. We live our lives by these stories. And we can choose new stories for ourselves. Stories full of beauty and wonder and magic.

How many times do we say to ourselves…

I’m too…

I can’t…

The world is horrible.

Life sucks.

Its too hard.

And so on? Sometimes its true, I am too big for size 8 jeans (or size 12 for that matter). As soon as this story becomes ‘I’m too big.’ however, there is a problem. ‘I’m too… anything’ can lead to guilt, shame, disappointment, bitterness. All unnecessary and unhelpful.  My point here is not to go into important discussions about body image, but to illustrate how the stories we tell ourselves effect the way we think and feel. Plenty of people are able to help you if you’re dealing with these kinds of harmful thought patterns, here we’re going to choose to shift focus.

Collect enchantment, and begin to re-enchant yourself with words and pictures. Choose the nature of the stories in your life…

Let me know how you get on!

I’ll be posting Pixie Kisses each week, if you’d like to subscribe to these suggestions for re-enchanting your life and to receive the occasional extra sparkle in your inbox which won’t be posted here, email me at: craftyhalo@gmail.com with ‘Pixie Kisses’ in the subject line.

In the meantime… may I recommend:

Goblin Fruit – a delectable online treasure trove of fantastical poetry, make your choices with care as some of the fruit bites back…

Oliver Hunter – The artist who adorns Goblin Fruit has some wonderful words and pictures about wonder… when I read his words about ‘embroidering everyday life with jeweled colours’ and finding enchantment in everyday life I was enthralled.

Brian Froud – a well known favourite of many, the Fae are known to pose for his paintings, and can easily be seen in his wife’s work too!

Paul Rucker – rich colours, divine inspirations, gods and spirit beings populate his art and his life as he adorns himself with fantasy and steps into the world.

Havi and Selma – Havi writes about getting unstuck, noticing and working on thought patterns and using metaphor to transform ‘grown-up’ bits of life into playtime. Selma is a duck.

Scarlet Imprint – Actually a publisher, the writings Scarlet Imprint publish are well worth hunting down if you can. Their recent poetry anthology in particular contains some gems of enchantment…

Victor Anderson – One of the founders of the Feri tradition, along with Cora Anderson, Victor wrote poetry as love songs to the goddess, and she sang back. What better endorsement do you need?