Come fairies! take me out of this dull world,

For I would ride with you

Upon the wind and dance

Upon the mountains like a flame.

W.B. Yeats.

 

 

Time is speeding up, the sand in the hourglass of our lives is flowing, and our everyday existence is a challenge, a battle against time and the constant battle of ‘us versus them’. In our reckless and relentless pursuit of materialism, the relentless tide of desire for a new house, car…whatever our sense-bound thinking tells us that we need, we have forgotten who we are. We have become divorcees, estranged from the magical, wondrous realms we experienced as children.

As we grow into adult hood and take on the conformity and allure of modern life, we tend to believe that the enchanted meetings and marvellous moments of our childhood were just an illusion–the creation of an infantile state of mind. For many, the magic dies and life becomes a drab routine.

The poet Wordsworth reflects this longing of the soul for the paradise we lost in the following words:

‘The world is too much with us; late and soon. Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in nature that is our. We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

The sea that bares its bosom to the moon; the winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; for this, for everything we are out of tune,

It moves us not.–Great God I’d rather be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn,

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea. Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Multiple realities

‘Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.’ -Jonathan Swift

No matter where we are: at home, the pub, the office, the chair I am sitting in typing these words, a walk with our loved ones in the woods…we are never alone.  We share our space with other dimensions, other states of being and awareness that vibrate outside of our capability to decode. The inhabitants of these hidden realms are aware of us, even though we are unable to decode them.

Most of us don’t have a clue that anything is there in ’empty space’ that is, until we are alerted by a presence; a fleeting glimpse of movement on the periphery of our vision, or the feeling that ‘something’ is with us in the room…watching us. A creeping chill at the back of our neck, or the sudden disappearance of an item that we’re using, only to have it reappear in a place that we know we didn’t put it.

Elementals

All tribal cultures have stories of ‘little people’, and other beings that live in the air, water, rocks and trees. These ‘other world entities’ have many names and are usually feared by indigenous, earth based cultures. Sage, sweet grass, cedar and other high frequency plants are burnt in an effort to dispel negative ‘spirits and thought forms’ from ceremonies, homes and other dwellings.

There have been hundreds of thousands of pages written about the faeries of our folklore and traditions. We know their form, characteristics, caprices, tribes and lineage, but they are still as elusive as the breeze. In my experience, elementals have no material bodies; they are electro-magnetic wave patterns, and can appear to human perception in any form they like, but normally one that is immediately recognisable to the viewer.

If an earth spirit wishes to capture our attention, it will appear as a dwarf with his axe, or a gnome sporting a red cap, or as in Lakota country, a little man with braids, wearing red paint and dressed in buckskin.

Each of the elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space have their own elementals attached to their frequency. These formless beings can be benign or malevolent depending on our personal resonance and our agenda for approaching them.

All elemental and faerie beings are creatures of vibration and when our thoughts and feelings harmonise with their resonation, they are attracted to our energy fields. We can entertain angels, demons and everything in between the two polarities. The choice is ours.

 

“The angels keep their ancient places; turn but a stone and start a wing!  ‘Tis ye, ’tis your             estranged faces, that miss the many-splendoured thing.” Francis Thompson.

The etheric, elemental realm vitalises all of nature, and for those of us who seek a living wholeness in our lives, can achieve it with the help of the elemental kingdoms. No longer will we be divorced from the mystical realm we knew as children, and by the ‘vision splendid’ we will be led from the loneliness of spirit into the greater whole.

But we have to make an effort and seek them out.

Without the living forces of nature no plants would grow, and Earth would be an empty plane….devoid of life. Only the stone nation would endure.

Lakota people show appreciation and gratitude for the elemental realms by the offering of food and drink, just as we Celts have our ring and cup marks carved in stone as vehicles to feed the faeries.

So, if you have the inclination to thank the elementals for their service,  make a food offering once a day. At breakfast, put a little bit of tea or coffee, whatever you are drinking and a little bit of food outside. You can use a dish, which will become ‘your spirit dish’ or just leave the offering on the ground with a prayer of thanks.

Gratitude is the first step to contact.