Where The Faeries Come To Land

It’s all about the joy, apparently!

When you google “fairy” hundreds, if not thousands, of references, websites, ning social media groups, forums and more come up. There is a lot of cyber space dedicated to people approaching the subject from the playful, fantasy perspective – huge fairy festivals, for instance, where folks are dressed in lovely costumes, faces painted, wings on their backs. It seems pretty joyful and playful but I’ve never been able to relate to the elemental world in that way. I wish I could because it seems like so much fun! The elemental world has never presented itself like that to me, but I accept that it might to someone else. I related to the description by Marcel Vogel* of his experience with Roc Ogilvie at Findhorn in Scotland years ago (Secrets from the Lives of Trees, Jeffrey Goelitz. Planetary Publications. 1991)

“We went out early in the morning the next day, into the garden at Findhorn with the beautiful shrubs with yellow flowers that they had there. We sat down in front of one bush. He (Roc italics mine) was on one side and I was opposite him. We started breathing together, creating a humming sound, and as soon as I looked at the bush, it started to move. As it did that I felt wind go past my head. I could just feel the hair move. These were the nature spirits, non-material. They have no physical form. I didn’t need to see a form to experience them. When I started to project the thought of love and well-being to it, the whole bush would just shimmer like that. It would just shake. Then I started to breathe deeply. For many hours we were together that way.
It was a total transcendental experience. Whatever these spirits were, these devic spirits, they were having a ball. It was totally free from phenomena, except just the movement of air. But see, I asked for that. Because otherwise they would present themselves as a form. But that’s not reality. That’s what they release to make themselves visible so they could be seen or identified…It’s a construct on their end to communicate…”

In my googling all things “fairy” I came upon a lovely blog written by Ronniann Hall. Then on, of course, on to her website http://www.ronniannhall.com/ and, lo and behold, the talented Ronniann offers beautiful design services PLUS an OnLineFairy School. Ronniann felt like a good match for me, willing to share who she really is but, like me, “conservatively.” An empath and animal communicator we shared a connection with Best Friends Animal Society http://www.bestfriends.org/so I was sold. More on Ronniann later but suffice it to say I signed up for a brief taste of what she offers and there it was!  Talk about law of attraction and synchronicity!

The First Secret

“There is only one way to reach the Fairy World. It is not through sadness, or feelings of lack, it is through Joy. To reach the fairies, you must raise your vibration to the level of Joy. How do you do that? It’s easy! …” (Go to Ronniann’s site for more information).

Especially, if you’re like me, likeMarcel Vogel, and need to experience your joy uncostumed and in less of a crowd!

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Vogel

November 7th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In writing Sacred Gardens we were presented with the challenge of needing to be a legitimate gardening book, while at the same time including elements of the spiritual which you might not find in an ordinary gardening book. Yes, I know, the very act of gardening transcends the parameters of normal space and time, but not all gardeners are comfortable with naming or discussing that phenomenon.

In a chapter entitled “Elementals, Fairies, Gnomes and the Others” we spoke of our own connection to that experience and re-told the Reuters’ story by one Rolf Soderlind titled “Elves in Modern Iceland.” Mr. Roderlind wrote of the problems which began when construction equipment started mysteriously breaking down on a road building project outside of Reykjavik, the capitol of Iceland. Work ground to a complete halt, in fact, in front of one particular stone.  The problem was approached in rather a unique fashion, many Icelanders being open to the existence of elves and the “others.” A medium was called in to see if the fairy folk were behind any, or all, of the shenanigans.

“Our basic approach is not to deny this phenomenon,” an engineer with the Iceland Road Authority, told Reuters.  “We tread carefully.  There are people who can negotiate with the elves, and we make use of that”. *

Imagine my excitement when I discovered an actual Elf School, with a text, curriculum and certificate!  Here’s the a part of the wiki description:

“Also known as Álfaskólinn in Icelandic, The Icelandic Elf School teaches students and visitors about the hidden people and the 13 different kinds of elves  that inhabit the country of Iceland. According to the school’s headmaster, hidden people “are just the same size and look exactly like human beings, the only difference is that they are invisible to most of us. Elves, on the other hand, aren’t entirely human, they’re humanoid, starting at around eight centimetres. The school is located in Reykjavik the country’s largest city.

The school is headed by Magnús Skarphéðinsson. Magnús has a full curriculum, and certificate programs for visitors that can be earned in as little as half a day. However, the school also publishes texts on hidden people, partly for its own use in the classroom. There is ongoing research on the elves and hidden people of Iceland. He also collects stories about trolls, fairies, dwarfs, and gnomes, but says that “nearly 70 percent of our stories are about hidden people, because they are most seen here.”Magnús organizes five hour long educational excursions for visitors, and finishes the tour with coffee and pancakes at the school. Despite never advertising his school, Magnus typically gets 5-10 people per excursion.Since opening in 1991, over 9,000 people, most of them foreigners, have attended the school.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Elf_School

I also ran across a great post by a travel writer who attended the school on one of her adventures abroad. For a delightful discussion of her experience go to: http://www.gonomad.com/features/0101/waigand_iceland.html (This is a great travel site, by the way.)

Elves certainly could live here (Photo from our amazing friend, Thea's 2009 trip to Iceland)

I wonder where I can get one of those texts?

* Full article – http://www.ismennt.is/vefir/ari/alfar/alandslag/aelvesmod.htm

Or here

November 7th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (2)

This picture was taken on the Mad River where we were vacationing in Vermont. We had a very interesting experience here and when we returned to the bed and breakfast where we were staying, and told our hosts where we had hiked, the innkeepers, two transplanted business owners from Boston, asked “Oh, did you see the fairies there?” I guess we probably did!

When we began our plant nursery a woman who claimed to talk with these other dimensional creatures people call elementals, fairies, gnomes, nature spirits,etc. would visit regularly, play her recorder in one of the greenhouses and appear to have animated conversations with these beings. In writing Sacred Gardens we encountered many, very respectable members of their communities, who fully accept this realm of consciousness. And to be perfectly honest, and ready to accept the derision other “serious” gardeners might heap upon us, we do too. We’ve had too many unmistakable experiences, dating from childhood, really, to deny the possibility, no, the probability, of existence beyond the three dimensional world of the five senses.

People generally line up on classifying elementals, gnomes, fairies, elves,nature spirits, etc., as either existing as folklore and fairy tales, being real in some other dimension or consciousness, or they are simply unsure of whether they’re real or not. Different cultures have different names for these beings, which have included gnomes, elves, fairies, nature spirits, elementals, angels and on and on. Countries all over the globe have a place ( and names) for this in their folklore – Shedim (Jewish), afries (Egyptian), devs (Persian) to name a few.

In William Bloom’s little book Devas, Fairies and Angels. A Modern Approach he asks,

“Well, what are we to make of all this? There seem to be three possibilities: The first is that for thousands of years storytellers, in folklore and religious text, have enjoyed simply inventing these things. The second possibility is that the human brain and human psyche are structured in such a way that regardless of time, culture or geography, people always imagine and hallucinate in the same form. The third possibility is that devas are indeed a reality, but that they exist in a dimension normally not perceivable by the usual five human senses, therefore, incapable of being proven by contemporary science.” (Bloom, 1986)

Over the years we’ve met hundreds of people, well respected symphony musicians, folks ensconsed in corporate America jobs, social workers, and gardeners like ourselves who have shared lovely stories about encounters with this type of other dimensional level of consciousness they clearly saw as real experiences. I recently spoke with a lovely woman who spent years in the investment banking industry. Our conversation made its way around to elementals and her very interesting experiences in that area. She said she spent many years keeping her experiences under wraps, although they probably dated from childhood. I asked her how she perceived this world. She said, “Sometimes simply as sparkles, sometimes as mists and occasionally as full bodied beings.”

I realize that some people become frightened or threatened by others who talk openly about their perceptions of reality especially when these perceptions differ dramatically from accepted or popular belief systems. Or they judge the beliefs of others as nonsensical, crazier,or something less than their own. There are probably as many belief systems as there are believers! Some people may come together in groups of more or less commonality of belief and others of us go on our merry way, trying to listen to our inner beings, staying connected to pure, positive energy,  feelings of joy and living life for the fun of it. Lucky us, we get to choose!

Good books, if you can find them: The Magic of Findhorn by Paul Hawken (the Smith and Hawken one)
Behaving as if the God in all Life Mattered by Machelle Small Wright

October 28th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment