In my heart of hearts, I’m a philosopher, which means that I like to have thought through logically the reasons behind my beliefs. (This is sometimes like opening Pandora’s box… so here’s a disclaimer; these are my beliefs and thoughts, so I don’t expect everyone to agree with me by any means, I’m not out to convince anyone! I do find it interesting to hear why people think and say what they do though, so let’s have a discussion!)
In my last post I talk about pondering Faery Theology (there has to be a better word for this… any ideas?) so, by way of preliminary thoughts, here is an extract from chapter 3 of my book “Pagan Portals; Your Faery Magic” wherein I ponder the nature of faeries (as I see them) and the value of working with them.
If we look at the stories of Faeries, all the myths and legends, we see a common theme; they are all very strongly connected to, or embodying, nature. They are not, however, merely the plants or trees or forces they embody, they are beings that are inherently magical, beyond limits. Faeries are natural magic and, as part of nature ourselves, the magic within us is fey.
Humans are lured into Faeryland by beauty. Beautiful music, beautiful visions, beautiful food. And this beauty, once we return to earth, we pine for. So Faeryland is that place within the world, and ourselves as part of nature, in which the sense of magic, wonder and beauty lies, the natural core of our being. The heart of the world we reach through connecting to our Faery Heart.
If our hearts, at their untamed core, are places of beauty and magic, then following the call to Faeryland will open our hearts again to the beauty of the world. If we learn to touch the fey parts of ourselves then we can move through our lives open to the beauty that surrounds us and so we can reconnect to the natural world, with the other beings on the Earth as our brothers and sisters and kin.
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And, of course, we recall the other parts of the stories of the fae…the wilder parts…the dangerous parts… They are untamed and not human and so their ethics are a little less strict than ours tend to be. In our heart we are natural beings, just like them; we have learnt really wonderful human skills, such as compassion and language, but in our search for order we have tried to tame our essential Selves and instead we have locked them away. These parts of ourselves hurt, so each day we die a little inside.
Here we choose to walk down a path that will lead us back to the parts within us that hold who we truly are. We seek all our parts, those that are good at communication, at compassion, and those that are good at standing up for us and being free. We do not have to give up the gifts of humanity in order to find our Faery Hearts and heal our lives, we can free ourselves of those things that do not serve us, release those things that hold us back and fly, carrying both gifts of humanity and gifts of Faery. We can choose to be both human and wild. That is what it means to be fey.
Fey means free. Free of the locks we’ve used to keep ourselves acceptable and free to choose to move in compassion and beauty. Fey means to be free to be our real Selves, to live our lives without unhealthy compromises, to dance to Faery music so we are filled with love and joy and deep feelings of connection even in a business meeting or on a busy, grimy underground train.
Fey means so full of shiny, happy, beauty, that you cannot help but share it.
Faeries are the conscious manifestation of the wild magic of the natural world. At our untamed core we are also part of the world, so part of our heart belongs to the realm of Faery… in which case, those of us that find our hearts singing with that wild magic? We are Fey. And when we allow ourselves to express that magic in ourselves we feel happy and we can share that happiness with the world.
It is always important in the stories to be respectful and to cultivate a good relationship with our “Good Neighbours” with whom we share a kinship, and the stories are where we first learn how to approach this people. In the same way we must learn to respect the wild world around us, to take only what we need and not deplete the land and her resources.
Growing up I was taught that the trees are conscious and aware. I was taught that the plants have feelings which deserve to be respected. I was taught that non-human animals are people just as we are. I learnt that the world around me was alive and the spirits dwell within everything. I have to eat to survive, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need to say thank you.
We are given masks to wear in our lives, but I have seen that we are much happier when we learn who we are under the masks and choose which masks to use and which to discard… and when to cast them off entirely and dance under the starlight with our friendly cousins.*
*And it’s good to know which cousins bite, or don’t want to dance with you! You might swim in a river you know well, or cuddle your childhood canine-friend but you wouldn’t swim in a storm-tossed sea, or pick up a wild-wolf-cub with mamma wolf about to pounce, now would you? The Fae are the spirits of the wild, with all that entails.
