The Alfar

 

Responding to this question from Mia:

“I know you deal specifically with the Irish fae but do you ever have dealings with the Alfar? Is there a connection between them? What observations do you have concerning the Alfar?”

 

So, I’m going to break this down one question at a time, which I think will be easier.

Firstly, do I have dealings with the álfar? Yes, I do and have since the mid-2000s. When I first started exploring heathenry I was quickly drawn to the Norse álfar, or elves, who reminded me strongly of the Irish sidhe, although they aren’t identical. In some folklore its believed that there are three distinct groups of álfar: the Dökkálfar, the Ljósálfar, and the Svartálfar. The Dökkálfar or ‘dusky elves’ are associated with the mound-dead and mountains, while the Ljósálfar or ‘light elves’ are associated with the Vanic god Freyr and the realm of Ljósálfheim, and the Svartalfar, or ‘dark elves’ [sometimes conflated with dwarves], are renowned craftsmen.    

I initially aimed to connect to the Ljósálfar but have found that instead my main association is with the Dökkálfar. I found this out in the usual way of these things, by asking of I should honour Freyr out of respect to them and having them laugh and correct me, by explaining that “The álfar in their high halls may honour Freyr as lord but here we look to Hulda.”. This would make them, technically, Huldufólk a term which was used synonymously with álfar in Iceland or perhaps used as a euphemism. These would be considered Dökkálfar, I think, or something closer to the mound elves than anything else.

Secondly, is there a connection between them? Honestly if you want to deep dive on this I suggest the book ‘Elves, Wights, and Trolls’ by Kveldulf Gundarsson which gets into the minutia of the differences and similarities between the Irish sidhe and Norse álfar. For myself I find them to be similar but not exactly the same, with the Irish aos sidhe being more strict and less forgiving than their Nordic counterparts. There has been some efforts to trace the direct connections between the folklore of Ireland and Iceland, carried by the Irish women who were forced to help settle Iceland (after being kidnapped in raids and brought there) and I think that there are some clear connections there. It may seem strange to suggest that there was Irish influence, either via belief or actual spirit beings, in Iceland but people tend to forget – or ignore – that the Norse weren’t indigenous to Iceland but rather colonized it, bringing their beliefs and spirits with them. In that context it’s not so strange to think that the Irish brought there did the same thing, creating a blending of the cultures and their spirits.

Finally, what are my observations concerning the álfar? I can of course only relay my own personal experiences here and I make no claim they are universal or shared with anyone. I would also emphasize that my opinions and perceptions of these beings are inevitably influenced by my own connection or lack thereof to them, just as they would be to various groups of humans I might write about. In other words this is how I understand them based on my interactions with them and how they are or aren’t connected to me and the aos sidhe I belong to. While I know there are others who describe different things here, I have found that Otherworldly beings have their own politics, alliances, and enmities between each other which can and do effect how a person might engage with them. For example when I was in Iceland at one place and stumbled across a group of álfar celebrating I was welcomed to join and found several of my Irish sidhe there as well, but later when I was at the renowned home of Grýla and her sons, I had such an intense feeling of being unwelcome I didn’t dare enter the area, although the people I was with had no issues doing so. Part of why I discourage people from committing deeply to any particular Other beings is that you take on their alliances and their enemies when you do so.

I find the álfar – the Ljósálfar and Dökkálfar at least – to be generally cheerful and pleasant, although no less dangerous when motivated to it than any other spirit being. The Ljósálfar are proud and seem to particularly like beautiful things, while the Dökkálfar are more rugged and pragmatic. The Light Elves lived in a place that was very bright, almost overwhelmingly so, and light in an airy, ephemeral way; the people there were friendly enough but also cutting, as if verbal sparring were a sport. The Mound Folk’s place felt like a medieval feasting hall, welcoming and warm, and the beings there (mostly men) were friendly in a ‘might challenge you to a good natured contest’ kind of way. Both test outsiders before accepting them, and both repay gifts for gifts and curses for curses.

 

I have in the past joked that rather than Asatru [faith in the Aesir] I would more aptly label myself Alfatru [faith in the elves] and I think that still holds true. I conduct an álfablót, or offering ritual to the elves, twice a year and consider at least one group my allies. My experiences with these beings in Iceland was a mixed bag, as I would expect, with some openly welcoming and others standoffish.

When the Otherworld is too Present

 Responding to this social media question:

"What would you consider your most surprising moment or have you ever had a random experience of spontaneous gnosis? Like ever just doing an everyday mundane task that just put you in the mindset to download" - JP

So, this seems like a simple question but for me its pretty complicated, not because I have trouble thinking of examples but because there are too many. I have always been someone who trances very, very easily. Too easily. Where a lot of people I talk to mention needing to learn effective ways to trance I had the opposite problem - I needed to learn how NOT to trance, especially when doing repetitive or routine activities, which can be very trance inducing (not just for me). In fact many people wanting to learn to do trance work are encouraged to pick up hobbies that involve repetitive action, like spinning wool, because it can help induce an altered state. I exist in a perpetual partial altered state, basically, and had to learn how to ground out of it to function. 

A lot of what I repeat here in this blog comes from what JP refers to as 'downloads' in his question and most of that comes from spontaneous trancework. I might be walking around my neighbourhood, or driving*, something like that where my mind is wandering and its like things suddenly take a step sideways and just like that I'll be tapped into something Other. I have even had this happen in mid conversation, in person or online, when I'm open enough, which I try not to do. 

Because of this most of my trancework is actually more properly anti-trancework, focused on staying present and not wandering off in spirit. I wish I could say after all this time I have better control of it but its still a work in progress. I have developed a method of 'grounding' using starlight that works better for me than the traditional into the earth approaches and I've learned that things which engage the physical sense fully can also help if I make sure I'm paying attention to those senses. But I'm almost always partially There even with those things. Its not a state of being that I recommend. 

The plus side is that I am very good at oracle work, channeling, and as I share in this blog connecting to and relaying things from the Other. One foot here one foot There, all the time, makes me a very good conduit. 

As to the other part of the question, what was my most surprising moment, I'm not entirely sure. Possibly the time in September of 2019 then again in November of 2019 while I was driving I was suddenly shown the area around me completely devoid of humans, and warned about death coming**. At the time I didn't really understand what was being said and didn't worry too much about it as my Folk can sometimes talk of possibilities and distant futures. In January of 2020 again while driving the message was repeated and I was told that 'illness will take many'; at that point the news was just starting to talk about covid in China and it made me more concerned than it had 4 or 2 months prior, but still seemed like something I wouldn't directly need to worry about. Obviously I was wrong about that. When they were insistent on showing this to me in January I finally responded with "if a huge plague wipes out the humans here this person (me) is basically screwed" and they stopped talking about it.

meme by me, art by Arthur Rackham (public domain); to be fair though I wasn't ever 'normal'

*please do not try to trance while driving or doing anything else where an altered state can be dangerous. 

**I am aware that this claim now will sound manufactured, but I discussed it with a friend when these messages happened in 2019 and 2020 so can verify I'm not making this up after the fact

Modern Myths - Why the Good Folk Retreated from Mortal Earth

 Part 3 in my series on modern myths is looking at how the Other came to be in our reality, as it has been relayed to me. 

Let me emphasize that this is MY OWN gnosis, and should be taken as such. It is repeated in a story format as that is generally how I receive it. 

"Long ago there was much crossover from the Otherworld to the human world, and some had such interest in the earthly realm that they chose to make permanent homes there, creating settlements and establishing communities. The Other, children of the Queen of Apples, flourished within both worlds, using their skills and knowledge and magic to shape the reality around them. 
   When the humans of earth encountered the Other initially they lived in harmony, each wary of the other but respectful. The Other had magic and Power that humans lacked but humans had boundless creativity and an ability to innovate; each harnessed their own gifts to their advantage and each learned from the Other. 
   But this harmony was not to last. Just as the Other had found a place in the earthly realm so to had the basdán, the Children of the Transfixed One, beings of decay and unmaking. And while the Other were willing to live with humanity and even exchange with them the basdán understood only death and destruction. And humans rarely differentiated between the two types of being, seeing only that which was foreign to their reality and that which had Power. The basdán spread suffering where they went and stirred up turmoil, sowing misery like wheat into fresh turned soil. 
   This led to humans seeing all that was Other as dangerous and deadly to them, and they fought back in their own defence, attacking the Other and the basdán equally. The harmony between the groups was unwoven and replaced with enmity.
   The Other had magic and Power but humans had creativity and innovation and more than that, they had far superior numbers. The Other reproduced rarely and with difficulty, but human populations quickly grew; population to population it was over before it began, and the Other knew that it was futile to try to fight. Earth was not their world, no matter how much some had grown to love it, and every one of Them killed was a deep loss for their entire community, a voice in the eternal song that was taken forever, because while they were immortal in the Otherworld, a spirit that could shed its shape and regain it, this was not so in the earthly realm, which is why they called it the mortal world - mortality stole away all who died there, unmaking them and absorbing their spirit.
   To avoid these conflicts and risks the Other withdrew their communities back to their own world, leaving bridges and gateways through which they could travel back and forth. Earth became not a home but a foreign land that could be travelled and explored and interacted with with less risk to the most vulnerable among them. when they were in the mortal world they wove spells around themselves to hide from human eyes and they wove glamours around themselves to pass as human when the need arose. And so a new balance was found, for a time. A balance born of subterfuge rather than cooperation. 
    This new uneasy peace lasted for a time, with the Other still interacting with humans, but in a way that they controlled. Sometimes they were helpful sometimes dangerous and stories of Them became legends and folktales among humans. Still alliances were forged and relationships and even deeper bonds; sometimes a human would be brought into the Otherworld to find a new home and sometimes - less often - one of the Other would choose to live a mortal life. Children were born who belonged to both worlds, and while conflicts did occur, there was a balance.
   Then things changed again, as humans harnessed the power of the basdán, just as they had learned to use a small bit of the Power of the Other, and began a focused effort to drive them all out, to cut them off from the mortal world. They had called the Other Gods once and spirits and fairies but now they called them demons, and fear replaced respect."

 

The Nature of Gnosis & the Mothers

Sorry for the lack of posts in a while its been quite busy.

Today I wanted to talk about something that maybe we don't talk about as much, and a lot of material put out into the world doesn't discuss - what happens when we get spiritual messages or insights we don't understand. I'll be lumping those concepts under the term gnosis for this discussion. 

This may just be me, but when I read other people's gnosis material it always seems to be presented as an amazing thing that the person immediately grasped. World changing information or poignant insight or deep cosmology, laid out for the person in ways that make the meaning self evident, or carefully explained. 
  Maybe the Othercrowd I deal with just don't work that way? In which case I could almost envy those who have everything presented in such clear ways. But I think that I can't be the only one who sometimes - or often - is dealing with obscurity and opaqueness. I feel that I am given puzzles to solve as often as I'm given clear answers, and usually the clear answers only come when I have repeatedly failed to get the idea otherwise*. There's a degree of impatience on Their part as I slog my way through metaphysical concepts that quite frankly break my brain. 
  I have several times been given things in Irish, which I am not fluent in, and had to struggle to translate. This is particularly difficult when its longer messages or in one case a song that I have to remember then try to write down afterwards. I've also been given messages - like being warned about the pandemic - that only made sense in hindsight in part because my own perspective was so limited and my assumptions about the concept limited me further. 

  I find that gnosis is very difficult. Its a constant process of taking what's given and then working - hard - to understand it. Very rarely do I get things that are clear and straightforward and easy. But on the other side of that coin it is worth the effort to suss things out. Every time I fit a new piece to that puzzle the picture it makes becomes clearer and I get a bit closer to feeling like I actually understand, in some small way, things that are otherwise beyond my comprehension. It can be enormously frustrating to always struggle to get each little bit, but things do come clear in the end (usually). 
   If you feel that way too then my advice is don't give up. Other people may make it seem easy and fluid but it isn't for everyone. It isn't for me. Its difficult, but its worth it. 

So in the spirit of the above I want to share a message from a recent meditation (note the colors are literal, not allusions to human skin colors):
"The Red Mother is the blood of life
The pulse and struggle and joy
The Black Mother is the fertile earth
The source of birth and rebirth
The White Mother is bone & death
The one who takes and returns
The Green Mother weaves all together
Into a single inseparable wholeness
Presence & possibility & impermanence"

No I don't entirely understand what it means.
No it isn't allusions to named goddesses.
No it's not about archetypes.
I was meditating on who the Other might or would worship and got that.
I asked in a bold follow up question if the Red Mother was the Queen of Apples, or another name for Her, and was very bluntly told I don't understand anything.
So that's fun.

I know that this information is important, but I don't yet know exactly how or why. I'll keep puzzling it out until I eventually get it, but there is a level of frustration. I want to understand it, it pulls at me, but I just don't yet. In a way its like looking at a beautiful work of art that makes you cry and not understanding why it evokes that emotion. 

No matter how easy some carefully curated and presented gnosis might seem to be, the truth in my opinion is that gnosis is messy. Its complicated and convoluted and hard to understand sometimes and that's alright. Spiritual insights and messages are personal and they speak in a language of symbols and metaphor and layers.

*I only found out the name of my fairy Queen because I pieced together context clues, arrived at a very wrong conclusion, boldly suggested it, and she was so annoyed at how wrong I was that she told me the correct answer. 

Wherein the Danger Lies

Modern fairies (by any names) are viewed in vastly different ways by different people and groups of people. To some, fairies are intrinsically dangerous and must always be avoided. To others, fairies are intrinsically good and only ever do helpful things. My own approach is very much a middle road - I don't believe that fairies are entirely any one thing or that their motives can easily be understood in most situations. They are, in short, their own people with culture and etiquette and agency and agendas. They may help or they may harm based on their own reasoning in a situation and that rarely lines up with human concepts.

I am a person who is rather deeply involved with the Shining Ones and yet I'm also someone who regularly warns other people not to jump in to interacting with these beings. Why? Because in my own experience too many people love the idea of fairies without grasping the reality of fairies. They see the beauty and the magic -the enchantment - of these beings but don't see them as actual independent life forms. And in many cases they envision themselves like the main character of a novel, clearly playing a central and vital role that insulates them from harm or even real consequences.
And none of that is good.
We can't, as people who claim to believe in these beings and seek to connect to them, treat them this way. You either believe they are real or you don't. And if you do believe they are real then you need to accept that they exist outside humanity, however overlapping they may be at times, and that they deserve to be respected as much as any living thing does. You also have to accept that they aren't just another version of humans, but a distinct thing of their own (yes even the ones who were human once).

Certainly there are a wide range of types of beings that fall under the general label of 'fairy' in English and certainly some of those beings are friendlier and more forgiving than others, some are even along the lines of the post-Victorian ideas of fairies as tiny, helpful, disembodied, et cetera. But that's only some. And while I do know people who only interact with those safer beings and have only had positive experiences I also know others who have expected the tiny helpful fairies and gotten bitten instead (in some cases literally).

They exist outside of humanity and follow different rules and we need to acknowledge that in seeking to understand them.

I have experienced enormous blessings from the Good Folk and have also been harmed by them. The first is usually coming from a specific group I'm aligned with and owe fealty to, while the second is usually (not always) coming from outside that group. Because even though I have a close connection to one group of the Gentry it doesn't mean I have carte blanche with every Otherworldly being. In fact my allegiance to one group puts me at odds with others who are against that group, because just like humans the Good Folk have their own friends and rivals, allies and enemies - and as a human when you step into that you bear the consequences of involvement and you are, always, inherently, the weakest link for them and the most expendable.
For one fairly tame example, when I was in Iceland I generally had good experiences and interactions with the local spirit beings. But when we went to Dimmuborgir, the home of Grýla and the Yule Lads, it was quickly made clear that I was not welcome there. I respected that and didn't push, because I understood that it was an issue of wider connections and animosity between the Other. Things like that happen sometimes and this is when we most need to remember that we aren't the main character in a novel, because consequences of offending some beings are very, very tangible. 

This is a story I heard once.
A man in Ireland, about 100 years ago, was walking home when he met with a group of the Daoine Maithe. They told him they were going to play a game against a rival group of Gentry and needed a referee. The game could only be played with a human present and with a human as the impartial arbiter of the rules. He agreed and went along with them to the field the game was to be played at.
The group he'd met first won, fairly, but the rival group swore they'd have their revenge on the human man for his part in their loss. Meanwhile the first group promised him luck and fortune, and took him back home celebrating.
Three years went by with the man living a good life.
And then one night when the fairies' hurling match was far from the man's mind and he was travelling the road a fairy man of the rival group passed him and gave him the fairy stroke. He fell in the road and never rose in his right mind again.
Humans forget. The Othercrowd do not. And being involved with them is both a blessing and a target on your back in these situations. 

And since the theme of this blog tends to be me sharing messages from my Other People, I suppose I 'll wrap up with this* from my main guide/cara sí: "Are we dangerous? Of course we are. Anything is if provoked to it; even mice will bite to defend themselves, thorns will draw blood, and bees will sting. Are they dangerous? Do you fear them, or do you understand that it is your action which earns the bite or prick or sting? Actions earn responses and it is the action that begins it that should be examined.
Asking if we are dangerous is the wrong question. What should be asked is why would we be dangerous? Because the real answer lies there."




*it is a fairly brief response because she seemed to find the question ridiculous, or perhaps just really obvious.

Modern Myth - How the Otherworld Came To Be

 Part 2 in my series on modern myths is looking at how the Other came to be in our reality, as it has been relayed to me. 

Let me emphasize that this is MY OWN gnosis, and should be taken as such

View from Bri Leith in Ardagh, 2018, pic by me

"After reality was made, and the song and dance of the stars was in motion, and after That Which Is All birthed Life and Decay, the sacred and the básdan, many other forms of life came to be, both grand and subtle. Worlds were born, and with them various layers were added to reality, so that the human world came to be and adjacent to it the Otherworld - or perhaps that was the other way around. Each anchored the other, and each resonated with the other, so that they were separate but joined, like the moon circling the earth.

Life flourished in the various worlds and realities and dimensions and this life was diverse and wide-ranging. But each world was divided form the other, separated by space or perception or energy or reality. Some beings which existed in more fluid realms could move between these worlds like a bird that could walk or fly or swim at its own will, but most beings were bound to the world or reality they existed within, particularly if they had a physical, tangible form. The worlds existed and the life within them flourished and grew.

In the Otherworld those beings who had been Second in creation spun tales and molded their world and created new beings who were fashioned from primal reality and starlight and song, guided by Life without Decay's hand. They were immortal and if a physical form was lost it could be recreated or the consciousness could return unchanged in a new form. They in turn created other new beings and discovered the joys of physical bodies and birthed new generations, living in the Otherworld and learning how to read the flows of energy and life, how to shape those flows, how to make their own will manifest. But eventually they grew bored and restless.

The básdan, those created by the power of Decay also had a realm, a place that was inverse to Life, wherein all was perpetually unmade. An Unworld. Their magics were also subtle and overt, unweaving the strands of fate and time, pulling apart that which was so that they could push the fractured pieces into new forms that suited them. 

The earthly world existed between these two and included both Life and Decay, both birth of the physical and true death, wherein a consciousness that lost physical form lost cohesion. Some in the Otherworld who were bored and restless found ways to make bridges between the two worlds, as some of those who were in the Unworld found ways to pull apart the energy which separated the worlds to travel to the earthly world. Each began influencing and shaping the earthly world, and each in turn was influenced and shaped by it, all different voices in the universal chorus. 

Bridges once built can be travelled by those coming or going, and pathways between worlds ran in both directions."

Time

It is fairly well known that time moves differently between the human world and the Otherworld, although its less clear how exactly that works. Katherine Briggs suggest that the fire festivals act as a kind of anchor between the worlds, and also suggests that while humans cannot navigate the flowing tides of time the Good Folk can and regularly do. I've seen a lot of talk across the years by humans trying to sort out how this might work and trying to understand the concepts. I thought here I'd write a bit about what my Other friends have told me on the subject.
I admit its a lot to wrap your head around, and in some ways is contrary to how humans perceive things, anchored as we are in our perspectives.

I also want to add quickly that I have been previously told that while humans think in two dimensions - either/or, but/and, now/then - the Good Folk think in 5 dimensions which can roughly be described as three physical dimensions, existence, and time. Thinking in time isn't, as I understand it, as simple as thinking about the past or future but is more like constantly perceiving past/present/future and one's place within the flow. Its more encompassing than the human understanding of the concept. I'll be totally honest when this was told to me I didn't fully understand it and I still don't, but its probably worth sharing before we go further.

Hawthorn in fall, pic by author

So, having discussed a bit about the way time works differently for the Good Folk and also about how they may perceive it, and reality, I wanted to share something that was told to me in a dream several years ago. This relates to the idea of time but also to the way that the Good Folk themselves (or Themselves) view humans based on this, and the way that effects relationships they might have, of any sort, with a human. 

I was talking to my Other friend and it got into discussing them relating to humans and time and perspective. And she put it this way:
 "Imagine that for humans a year passes in an hour, while for us it is merely an hour. You may accomplish a lot in an hour if you focus on it but an hour can also slip by virtually unnoticed if your attention is elsewhere. Now imagine that you tell someone you will do a thing for them and perhaps you do right away but perhaps you dally and when you realize *hours* have passed its actually been years for them in the mortal world.
Imagine that you grow exceptionally fond of someone only to watch their life pass in what, to you, feels like 3 or 4 days. No matter how you may try to cherish each hour, still they pass quickly. Of course time flows as it does but for us a year truly does seem to pass so quickly, no matter how anchored we may seek to be in the human world. You can choose to connect to someone who only lives 3 days, or 3 months, or 3 years, but it does not change how fleetingly they pass."

So, basically, what she was saying is that humans might perceive the Other as mercurial or inconsistent when in fact they are simply operating on a different time scale and may or may not act in what humans consider a timely manner (pun intended). And that this different time scale also effects how they may or may not connect to individual humans, because generally to them humans are as fleeting as spring flowers are to us.

This isn't to say they don't follow certain tides of the human year, which they do, but the impression I got is that to them these are more like a daily routine than the yearly cycle we perceive. Its a very different perspective. And of course these are all just loose analogies to convey the wider point, not literal comparisons.