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.
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| 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.
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| 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.”
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