I am grateful

I am grateful in a way words do not describe.  In a deep, quiet way that is frustratingly impossible to describe. 

Today is a day that was never given much more than a second thought in my youth.  A day no one bothered explaining in much detail.  Or perhaps they tried, falling short of words as I am falling short now.

I am grateful because in my adult life I came across veterans who put their lives in danger to protect mine.  I am grateful because the collapse of the World Trade Center shook me to my very core, as if I myself had felt the buildings tumble at my feet.  Because in a way they had, and my life would never again be the same.  I am grateful for those that enlisted in the following weeks and months, those who showed the world that the United States was not a country to lie down and take a beating without a fight.  That we are a force to be reckoned with.  

They call the government “big brother,” and although that’s generally not a positive connotation, in those days following 9/11 I did feel as if my government - specifically our military - were the big brother I never had.  The big brother that stood strong and protected us against the dangers and bullies I had previously taken little notice of, and still could not fully comprehend.

I am grateful because I know the toll that protection has taken on those who stepped up to duty. I recognize the toll taken on those who served without going to war.  I can see the toll taken on the families of those who serve.  How it ages them, strengthens them, the pride the feel, but at great cost.  I know that this is a great sacrifice - clearly greater than any sacrifice I have made… and as if they were my own, I feel great pride too.

I am grateful for all of you whom I have met - both young and old - who have served.  Who continue to serve our country with your sacrifice.  The feeling I feel is deep, so deep it’s hard to see, and yes even for me, it is difficult to express.  

At my daughter’s school they had a Veteran’s Parade, and I was thrilled to see that.  Excited that she enjoyed herself and enjoyed it.  Wished beyond wishing that I had the words to explain to her what it means to be a veteran.  Yet each time I try, words fail to express what it means to be protected and safe… 

Instead I try to teach her the Star Spangled Banner.  It is the reason why we have pride as Americans.  Because we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And I am grateful to those of you who are brave enough to keep it that way.

What is a faery

Faerie, or faery, is a broad term for the millions of different kind of elemental spirits that live with and among us.  They embody the magic behind the science of things.  They are the reason the flowers bloom, the snow glistens, and the waves crash upon the sand.  Sure, science has these things figured out, but the spirit behind them is purely faerie.  

Faeries are not simply pixies with wings.

Brian Froud's "Ekstasis"
A Singer that represents the vibration
common to us all

Singers, as portrayed by artist Brian Froud, and described by Jessica MacBeth in “The Faeries Oracle,” represent the purely energetic form of the faerie realm, with practically no physical form. Underneath our skin and our organs we have a similar energetic framework, but since we live physically on this plane of existence known as Earth, we cannot live without the physical trappings that cover and support the energetic framework of our soul.

 On the other end of the spectrum lie the trolls and gnomes.  These guys are more energy than humans, but they have a physical aspect that the Singers seem to lack.  This mix of both allows them to take form while here on earth, but blink out into Faerie at whim - ie: the leprechaun who slips from one’s grasp, or the house brownie that skitters across the floor out of the corner of an eye.  They are also the spirits of the stones, embodied in that seemingly lifeless, unmoving grounded-ness that is the Earth itself.  So impossibly physical that they don't seem to change or move at all - at least to our human eye.

A gnome-like pixie
by Brian Froud

“Some [faeries] have wings, but they kind of look like walking elements of the earth,” Mind Key artist and Froudian student, Grace Ng Dung explains.   

Like me, her boundaries of the faerie realm began to stretch upon picking up a copy of Brian Froud’s “Faeries.”  When she saw Brian’s depiction of the faerie folk she said they just “felt right,” something Brian has often taught in his students when trying to discover a fae in their art.  In addition to Brian, other poets, artists and books also influenced and inspired Grace’s belief.  

“Living through them and connecting to their experiences and art that they made out of it was what kept my belief strong,” Grace said.

Norwegian artist, Soso Erlenkamp not only believes in and depicts faeries in her art, but she lives alongside them and dragons alike.  

“I believe that there are different energies in the world, humans being one, faes being another,” Erlenkamp said.  “Those energies are in some ways connected and intertwined, and I believe that our actions affects the fae world and the other way around. The world of fae - as I prefer to call it - is a dimension next to ours hiding behind veils, but these veils can be lifted and the boundaries between them and us can be crossed, as has been done for thousands of years.”

One of the most likely times for lifting that veil is now, during the height of the Samhain season, which the Celts consider the New Year, and other paradigms consider the “dark” time between the end of one year and the beginning of the next.

New York City tattoo artist and student of Brian Froud, Scarlet Sinclair, believes that any in between time such as this is a good place for encountering fae folk.

“I feel the faeries exist in all things but most intensely they manifest in all of the IN BETWEENS,” Scarlet said.  “In all of the places where some kind of shift occurs. To me, that is where you find faerie energy. The moment when day turns to night, spring into summer, summer to fall, awake and asleep, light and dark… As well as in nature – where two places converge/meet… where the water meets the shore, the reflection of a footbridge over water becoming a portal into the Other Realm… intricate knots in the roots of trees that create a dark entryway to another space. The idea that transformation has a very specific moment of going from one thing into another and it’s in the in-between, when that change is actually happening is where you will find faerie energy.”

Time

A gnat meanders strangely lazy, a zigzagged path devoid of structure or line.  A dandelion throws seed to the wind.  A lens, the human eye, scanning history books, film photographs, attics musty with clutter.

     

Last night the clocks went back and we gained an hour.

How ridiculous that sounds.  How could we possibly gain an hour any more than we lost one last spring?  As educated humans we tell ourselves the truth - that nothing was lost or gained, that we simply changed the clocks to better serve our needs.  And this we call “Daylight Savings Time…”  as if we actually saved any time, or daylight for that matter.  

"Broken Time" by Danielle Rose

How silly are we to think that we have any control of time, that time can be controlled, or that it even exists.  If we lost an hour in the spring, or gained one in the fall, or gained a day every four years, who is to say that once upon a time, perhaps when Julius and Augustus were fighting for days, we didn’t somehow lose hours or days that were never given back?

In the end would it really matter if we had?

The faeries titter in my ear when people ask for “timing” during a reading.  Faeries just don’t see time as we do.  Time is not measured in hours, days or minutes in their eyes, it’s measured in moments, achievements and in events that pass us by.  What does it matter if something is supposed to happen in two months time, if we never actually completed or achieved what we needed?

Brian Froud said that teeth mark the passage of time… and indeed they do.  We watch and wait, often sympathetically, as our children sprout their baby teeth, then lose them, then grow new ones, which eventually decline with age.  Animals such as horses can be aged by their teeth.  “How old,” “how many years,” and “show me your teeth” are all phrases by which to mark time.

We are told to leave the past in the past for we cannot change it.  But time travel isn’t any more absurd than thinking we could gain or lose an hour, or save daylight for that matter.  When something happens that’s so terrible our lives are forever changed, such as with a loss of a loved one, abuse, or a divorce, it’s essential to go back to it and reevaluate who we are and have become as a result.  Usually that happens at least once - shortly after the incident, when we put it in is place and move on.  Sometimes we are brought back to that incident years later and discover that we have changed so much that our view of the event is outdated and needs changing as well.  As we continue to grow we can continue to recognize how our view of this life-changing event has and continues to shape our present and our future… and YES, we can indeed go back and reevaluate our perspective in such a way that this past event, the one we thought we could never, ever change, suddenly changes.  It changes us, and we change it, and if that isn’t affecting time, then I don’t know what is.

When I was a little girl I used to say time wasn’t a straight line.  It was like a dandelion gone to seed, points in “time” floating on the breeze.

I don’t think I ever understood, even then, what that meant as much as I do now.  We cannot control time, and time may not in fact exist.  Even our biological clocks are no longer tied to time… women having children longer and later, and families being begun by grandparents… Time is just a word, and we are just players in a great game, looking for some order by placing events and incidents in a great imaginary line we call “time.”

The Faery Hare (or the cinnamon bunny)

2,705!

That’s how many words I wrote today.  Terrible, miserable, no-good very bad words, but whatever.  I’m writing and it feels great, even if plenty of other things have fallen by the wayside.

The Faery Hare, by Brian Froud

I also did a lot of reading, which was kind of encouraging, because I was reading old stuff I had written… stuff I still thought sounded pretty good - and that’s always encouraging.

Plus the read was inspiring.  Inspired me to write my own story of “The Faery Hare,” one of the most resonant stories from me from the Frouds’ “Faeries’ Tales.”

Anyway, here’s a little snippet of my original story that I wanted to share.  It was from NaNoWriMo 2010.  Maybe later this week I’ll post a snippet from my personal experience with a squirrel, a beaver and the faerie hare I wrote today… but for now here’s the history of the bunny instead:

*   *   *

Often, she left her dolls under the hemlock at night. Arden would cover them with leaves before dark and uncover them for her in the morning.  He would delight in the little girl’s excitement as she found them drinking tea from little acorn cups and saucers.

As she grew older would sit together, their backs against the hemlock’s trunk, and although he had not learned how to become tangible in the way of humans, she never questioned whether he was truly there.

“It’s because she’s a baby,” the trees told him, the faeries sang.  “It will change.  Times change.  Humans grow and they forget.”

“She remembers!”  He’d cry in response. “She’ll remember.  Wait and see!”

And as he called defiantly out to the sprites and spirits gathered around him, Arden knew he was growing up, too.  That he was learning what it meant to be human.

One spring afternoon when the windows were thrown open to the fresh April air, the girl’s father came home early.  When he slammed the front door closed Arden heard her scream.  Then the patter of little feet as she ran away crying.  Her sobs echoed from her open upstairs window.

Arden flew from the branches of his hemlock and shadowed the bed where she lay, her face reddening with tears and a large pink welt.

Slowly the sobbing subsided.  “Arden?” 

“I’m here,” he whispered into her ear.

“I’m scared,” she whispered back.

There was a pile of stuffed animals in the corner of the room.  She kept none in her bed like most children, so he took the one that struck him the most and handed it to her, a soft, cinnamon colored bunny.  “Miss Cinnamon will watch over you,” he said, infusing the cuddly toy with his protection, his essence, and the love she was beginning to cultivate in him. “Remember that when I am not here, she will protect you for me.”

Noe took the plush rabbit in her arms and rolled to her side.  Although he knew he would need to leave her soon, for the time Arden allowed his spirit to rest beside her, feeling the power in her breath as it rose and fell.