If this is your first visit, please read this.

Feb. 12, 2009
Between the rain torrents of my last blog entry and the almost-spring sun glow of a few days since, sits today. Gray. The sky, the river, the bare branches of the alders – even my breath in the early morning chill floats off in a swirl of gray. When faced with a world of non-color, (OK, not totally – the fir trees and the grass are green) I do one of two things: I put my head under the covers, close my eyes, and watch a movie, or I go hunting for a gateway into Faerie. This morning I did the latter.

The main gateway we’ve always used broke apart in a fierce storm this Winter and now only works intermittently. Here’s what it used to look like.

When it was open, I could always find sparkle and color on the other side. Bright red holly and huckleberries, or pink and golden apples, depending on the time of the year, of course. But no matter what time of day or year, the light was always different on the other side of the gateway. If I came to the same area of the woods from a different path, that special spot just stayed the same as all the other places at Woodland Springs. But when I entered that portion of forest through the gateway, having first paused and asked permission and made the secret sign, then everything changed when I stepped through the doorway.

It reminded me a little of Star Gate – or, maybe more like the doorway in the back of the closet that leads to Narnia. Magical gates are never open all the time and they often require some kind of secret word or symbol to open them. Gates to Faerie are like that. Have you ever come across a natural archway or crossing of branches that made you stop for a second and wonder what would happen when you stepped through? If you pause and lay your hands on either side of the opening, close your eyes, and ask for the secret to shift the doorway, you may be given a song, a word, or a symbol to trace in the air. You might also be told to stand on one foot and hop through, turn around three times moon-wise while standing in the center of the gateway, or to sit down and wait until the sun touches the top of the arch. Or a whole world of things the Fairies are capable of thinking up!

The main thing to remember when you stumble upon a place that might be a doorway to Faerie is STOP! Recognize that you have found a potential treasure, honor it from your heart, and let the Fairies see who you are. If they know that you are a Fairy Friend and if the energies are aligned the right way, they may invite you to cross the threshold. Just remember that it’s easy to get lost in Faerie and some mortals choose never to return.

I didn’t find a gateway today but I had a great walk. Soft rain left shining beads hanging on the ends of the gray branches, reminding me that, even in the gray, this world is beautiful, too.

I am called Light That Listens and I speak with permission of the Faerie Council of Elders in the part of our realm that touches the edges of Woodland Springs, the home of Fairy Woodland.

I am called Fairy by your people but most have no idea what that means or who I really am. I am called that because when we take form in your world we occupy a small space in relation to you, and our locomotion is by air via what you call wings. That is not our true form. In our world, we are much like you. I am one of the old ones of the Earth, a spirit of the patterns and cycles of life, one who was here at the creation of rock and, later tree. I have witnessed the coming of the young ones, the animal children, and the youngest ones still, the humans.

I am the voice of trees and wind and sparkling water. I whisper the seasons, the birth of life from seed, the play of wind across sky. I fly on the wings of a crescent moon. I am the ancient voice echoing from stone. I am the whisper in the night, the walker in your dreams.

I have not spoken to mortals for many ages, not since the great separation when Faerie was hidden in the mists of the Otherworld by powerful magicians to keep our realm safe from mortals who wanted to eradicate our kind from the Earth. I will tell you those stories if you wish, but at another time. Today, I want to tell you why I have chosen to speak – in fact, why many of us are choosing to speak to you, in many different formats.

The Faerie Realm is in great danger. I have come to ask for your help. Fairies are the eldest of the intelligent energy on this planet. We were born of rocks and stones, of water and air, or earth and green growing things. A crystal found its own vibration which was separate and different from the vibration of the matrix in which it was formed and that sense of individuality became an energy that separated from the body of the crystal and could see the mineral that it came from, that gave it birth. As each clan of substance woke up to its conscious self, the spirit of that consciousness was able to separate from the substance and have separate movement and life, eventually finding ways to take form. These were the first fairies.

That is how many of us became linked with particular life forms. Clans gathered around the mineral, plant, or animal world energies to which they were linked. We are inexorably tied to the physical forms that exist on the Earth Mother, which is why we are so concerned with Her health. And that is why I have come to talk to you  - because the health of the planet affects the survival of Faerie.

It takes a great deal of energy for me to communicate in this much detail in your world and your language, so I tire quickly. I will continue my story another day. Thank you for listening.

If this is your first visit, please read this first

If you would like me to dream with you, print out this photograph of me and keep it near your sleeping place. As you fall asleep, call my name and ask me to come and visit you in your dreams. I will come.

If this is your first visit, please read this first

I danced in the mists on the water this morning, flowing with the hovering cloud downstream, chased by the rising sun. The early rays touched each water droplet in the cloud like the facets on a crystal, sending shards of rainbow light everywhere around me. I swirled, twirled, and sang the sun greeting songs until the doorway opened and allowed me to slip through to your world. The mists are almost gone now, so I shall have to find another way to return when the time comes.

The sun has risen far enough to turn the dew on the grass to diamonds. How wealthy we are to have eyes for such sights. In the woods, a spider web shimmers like liquid crystal when touched by the sun’s rays. Shadows linger in corners which the light has not touched, places where direct sun will probably never reach. They also contain riches, deep, loamy, compost to feed the forest, but that’s not where I want to shower my attention today. Today I choose to see the sparkle of the diamonds on the grass, the crystal shards in the mist throwing rainbows across my path. It’s not that I do not see the shadow – today I choose to focus elsewhere. There is enough time in the cycles of things, to smell the dark.