The light of Autumn is like no other. All of our green growing friends seem to have spent the last three months storing the brilliant light of the summer sun and are now, with the delicate touch of a Fairy brush, releasing it in one huge blaze of color. Red tomatoes, pomegranates, apples, and maple leaves. Orange pumpkins, golden, glowing aspens, purple grapes, and the last of the huckleberries are all shouting the glorious colors of life.

This is the harvest time, an Ingathering, a time to reap what we have sown in the spring and tended through the summer.

It’s the time to pour simmering sauce into hot jars, to watch the magic of bitter, golden quince turning bright red and sweet. (Even the Fairies are in awe of that process.) It’s the time to steam up the kitchen, to fill the freezer, the pantry, and the root cellar with foods that have absorbed the sun, so we can feast on golden light during the coming dark months.

Cultures around the world have honored the harvest season since always, with most traditions focused around the Autumnal Equinox (Sept. 23, this year). Whatever the culture or chosen date, the core of the observance is always giving thanks. 

Autumn Fairy Activity

The Fairies here at Fairy Woodland are busy with all the tasks of Autumn as well. We’ve seen large balls of spider thread hooked on holly leaves and mounds of grass seed tucked in tree hollows with dried blackberries, huckleberries, and even a few cherry tomatoes.

 

The dandelion fluff in the meadow all seems to be drifting to one mossy spot under the low hanging, sheltering boughs of the old plum tree and magically snuggling up in a fern protected nook. Between the moss and the dandelion fluff, some Fairy clan should be very comfortable this winter.

All of which has caused us to wonder anew about the relationship of Faerie to our world. It’s a much debated mystery, the key buried somewhere deep in the mists into which Faerie retreated long ago.  We’ve always assumed that the Otherworld, including Faerie, exists on a more or less parallel reality, with doorways (usually hidden) between the realms. If that’s true, are the seasons the same on the other side of the gateway? And, if they are, why are the Fairies gathering stores for the winter on this side? Won’t they need those items in their home?
 

Although we have no ready answers to those questions, we do have some suspicions after many years of exploring the territory. What’s really needed is more research, which requires ways to travel between the realms. Just by chance,

Are you seeking an entrance into Faerie? What would it look like? Is there a door to knock on? A bell to ring? You can, of course, leave a gift at the door of your Fairy House on each full moon until the Fairies invite you in, but openings into the Otherworld are also everywhere you turn, in every wood and grove, in each Earth place that remembers the wild.


To help you imagine what the doorways might look like, we offer you the images in this calendar, each of which have at least one opening to the Otherworld. Every gateway is paired with a Fairy House for the guardian who keeps the doorway open and listens for the footsteps of those who seek the way. If you look very closely, you’ll find the faces of many denizens of Faerie looking back at you. Read the tale each guardian has to tell, then allow your imagination to be taken by the hand and shown the pathway.

Besides the cover, there are twelve exquisite mythic art images by John Curtis Crawford, each with a Doorway to Faerie. Our hope is that, as you spend 30 days looking at each month’s image, that your inner sight will be tuned more clearly to the subtle vibrations of Faerie Doors and that you will begin to find them more easily in the physical world around you. Whether you’ll be able to enter is another question but the calendar has some suggestions about that as well.

That seems like a milestone and worth celebrating to us but the Fairies just look at us, roll their eyes and shrug their shoulders. “What’s this thing you have about numbers?” they want to know. The Fairies may not see this as an occasion but the studio helper elves thought it was worth a dance around the meadow.

Speaking of whom, we’d like to introduce you to the wonderful artists we call the Studio Elves who help us create the Fairy Woodland magic but that will have to wait until the next newsletter.