Speaking Stars

Northern lights over Eyafjordur, Iceland 2018

I named this blog speaking stars because the stars and stellar centred practice has become a huge thing for me since 2018 directly because of my interactions and experiences with the Otherworld. I've written at length about how that all came about here and here so I don't want to plunge back into it now. The important part here is that my spirituality and ritual changed dramatically and came to focus on the Pleaides specifically and the stars more generally. 

I don't think that this approach is universal among the Other, and I am actually pretty confident that which constellation or star is focused on depends on exactly which group of Other beings one is connected to. My lot, and the ones I encountered in Iceland, look to the Pleiades. Others in other places may look to Orion or Sirius or Polaris, or any other. 

My initial introduction to this concept came in Iceland via a group of the Huldufólk, but after returning from Iceland I plunged into researching the topic at length. And beyond the human world research I did go to my own connections among the Other to see what they had to say. they had already emphasized the importance of the dark moon to me, but it never occured to me that the dark moon is when neither sun nor moon are in the sky and only the stars are visible. At least, I didn't realize that until I went to my main guide among my own Other people and she started talking about the significance of the stars to them.
She said, "The sun and moon circle in an endless round but the stars dance as we below them dance. Our steps mirror theirs, and their joy reflects ours. We follow with them, dance with them, and in doing so we are part of something eternal and grand. The song the universe sings, that the Nameless One, began and continues, we are all part of it, both the chorus and the dance. The stars that guide us go by many names: the Flock, the Sisters, the Queens, the 7 Stars. We measure our steps by theirs, and we celebrate at the times they mark, when their blue fire burns horizon to horizon, overhead, and when it is absent from the sky."

The cycle of holy days, following the stars, is compared to a dance then and is connected to physical movement and actual dancing.
I'm starting to think their analogies and metaphors aren't those things as we understand them but are literally layered meanings for any immutable concept.
The holy days are fixed steps in a wider celestial dance, and a dance themselves, and being one with the song and movement in that single point. It's that feeling when you are dancing and everything else falls away and you are keenly aware of each moment as you are flowing from one step to another, but it is a dance, a movement, aligned to a deep song. It's the stars dancing, and us dancing, as we have forever. Not metaphor. Not analogy. All of that true at once of the same single concept resonating back on itself.
I don't know if I'm explaining this well, it feels too big for words.

All things shift and all things change

Though yet the inner truth remains

The seven queens dance with the moon

Across the sky to an ancient tune

Their light aligns, blue and palest white

Guiding fire shining in our deepest night

We dance behind, step for step

Bow for bow and leap for leap

In this way the track of season's mark

The way is open, a path trod in the dark

Seven guiding stars, eldritch queens

Ancient powers whose wisdom frees

We dance through time, we dance through space

We bring the draoicht sí to this place

Breath

 Starting early this year (2020) my Otherworldly people began to emphasize the importance of breath to me. They began by talking about the powerful symbolism of breathing and what it represented on a deeper cosmological level and then segued into the importance of conscious breathing practices and the spiritual benefits. This occured over several different experiences but I will include here a conversation I had with a fairy woman who often helps me.

Cairn S Sliabh na Caillí, 2016

The Conversation

My friend: "The most powerful act of any living being is breath. It is a cycle that represents life, death, and the Between. It contains within itself the greatest mystery."
Me: "The pattern of inhaling and exhaling is the mystery?"
Her, after making a thoughtful noise: "It is a cycle: breathing in, holding the breath within, breathing out, resting. Out is death. Resting is Between. In is life. Holding is the Between, neither life nor death. This is the cycle that every living thing trods - life, death, Between -  we die, we are Between, we live, we are Between, over and over and in the same way we breath out, we breath in, we hold the breath in a cycle that exists as long we we exist in life. It is the macrocosm hidden within the microcosm."
Me: "So when we breath we are connecting to this cycle."
Her: "Yes. And when we consciously engage with this we connect more fully to it. Everything that lives breathes but most do not ever spare a thought for the process they are participating in."
Me: "Okay. So then it would be good to consciously connect to this cycle, yes?"
Her, nodding emphatically: "Yes! Exactly. Take time every day to connect to this cycle. Breath in slowly, feeling the power of life. Hold it and feel the Between. Breath out slowly, feeling the power of death. Rest and feel the Between. In, hold, out, hold, feeling your connection to the great cycle, the mystery that is the three*"

~ I will note here that she did not place between as the Between of living and before death but the other way around, seeming to imply Between is the state after death before living again which occurs twice - when we first die before we are separated from our bodies and after death before birth. It seems like it would then be a four part cycle but she saw it as a three part cycle, with the Between occurring twice but only counting as one state of being ~

My Takeaway

Of course the idea of conscious breathing isn't novel. I share this for two reasons: because the way it was explained to me was nothing I'd heard before (and ties into some wider cosmology that was related to me) and because the underlying concept is very important. Having gotten the push from my friend I dug into the deeper ideas around intentional breathing and the benefits of the practice and found that the more I researched the more everything resonated with what I'd been told. This NPR interview is a good start if you are interested: "How the Lost Art of Breathing Can Impact Sleep and Resilience". Breathing is a foundational practice that when done consciously can have health benefits and spiritual benefits, and at least my particular Othercrowd seem to find it essentially important to engage in conscious breathing every day. 

The Method

The exact method I was taught is simple but effective: Breath in slowly to a count of five. Hold for five. Breath out for a count of five. Hold for five. Repeat. 
During the breathing let yourself relax and focus first on the physical action and then when that is flowing smoothly contemplate the deeper symbolism in anyway that seem appropriate, or other spiritual matters. 

*I'll expand on the three in another post

Sex and Love in the Otherworld

CW: discussion of sex. Like the title says. 

Sex, Love, and Fairy

This may seem like an odd topic to be discussing, or to have come up in a discussion, but it was one that in context was important. I later shared it with a friend who had gotten something very similar around the same time. The more I've thought about it since and the more I see the wider subject showing up on social media the more I've started to think that it may be important to share; it must however be kept in the context of personal gnosis coming from one particular group or type of the Othercrowd. In no way do I mean to imply this is universal to all of the Good Folk, but I do believe it is true for some, and may have some value to those seeking to engage with them.

Folklore does give us some information in this area but unsurprisingly usually from the human perspective and with an emphasis on situations that have ended badly. Humans who had fairy lovers who broke an oath and lost that lover forever, going mad at the loss. Humans who had a kelpie lover and either found a way to make him human or discovered his true nature and fled, abandoning their child. Humans who forced a selkie into marriage and lost her as soon as she could recover her seal skin. It's a noticeable pattern. There are also accounts of witches who had fairy lovers that didn't necessarily end badly, such as Andro Man who said that he had a long term relationship with a fairy queen or an English cunningman who had a fairy lover that would come to him, sometimes exhausting him; similarly we have accounts of female witches with fairy lovers over a period of years as well. But folklore and older anecdotes don't provide many details or an indepth understanding of the other side of the equation.  

The Conversation

I had noticed - as had my friend separately - that in discussions with those among the Other they never used words like sex or crude terms for sexual intercourse, but rather tended to use idioms that emphasized joining or unions. There was a wider sense of the sacredness of the act, even among those who are predatory towards humans, and a feeling of reverence around the concept. The way that they approached both sex and love seemed to be very different from the way that humans did so and, quite frankly, the way that fiction often portrayed fairies in relation to both. I am going to share part of a conversation I had on the topic:

I was talking with someone among the Other that I would consider a guide and teacher. 
Me, overtired and stressed uses the term f**king in reference to sex.
My guide, clearly annoyed: "Animals fuck. Livestock fucks. People do not." 
Me: "What should I say then? Make love?" 
Her: "You don't make love, you either have love or you don't. Physical union doesn't create love." 
Me: "What should I say then?" 
Her:... 
Me:... 
Her:... 
Me: "You've already told me the answer and you won't repeat yourself." 
Her, shrugging: "You already have the answer, yes. Union. Joining. Comaentu. To make two into one."

The Lesson

What this conversation and related ones have taught me personally, and what I have therefore incorporated into my spirituality, is the idea that the particular Otherworldly beings I am connected to have a very different approach to sex than most humans. It is seen as a deeply sacred act that represents union between two** beings on a level deeper than the purely physical, but which incorporates by nature the spirit. This is reflected in the emphasis on rejecting terms and phrases that reduce the act to something clinical or crude and instead using terms that emphasize the nature of the act as one of uniting and harmonizing. There are layers to this that are very difficult to convey here, including an implicit consent to the act and also a way of approaching all encounters of this nature with the reverence due something sacred. Sex then truly becomes a kind of prayer or worship, something that is true even when the end result is death for the human and something that is especially true for those who are long term lovers.

They also, in my experience, differentiate between love and physical union but not in a way that allows for the latter to be lessened or trivialized. Love to a near immortal being is something that I am still not sure humans can fully grasp and I don't know how to convey my understanding of it here. What I can say is that my gnosis around fairies and sex without love is that it is still something full of passion and reverence; sex with love is a genuine union of two spirits into a single whole. As with humans it's important not to confuse physical union with love, although I suspect this may be more difficult with the Othercrowd because of how they approach sex - the genuineness, passion, and sacredness may, I think, be misunderstood as love where none actually exists. 

*gnosis - in this use means knowledge gained from non-ordinary means such as direct communication with spirits
**two or possibly more, but my own personal discussions around this so far have focused on pairs. I don't discount the possibility of the concept including a wider diversity however. I will also emphasize this has no specific gender focus.

Pure Gnosis, No Chaser

 Welcome to my new blog. In contrast to my other work this site is intended to relay my personal gnosis and some stories, which are born out of that gnosis and reflect what I have found there. Being me I may still include citations and sources sometimes but a lot of what you will find here is going to be dreams, visions, and waking communications with something Other. This is the truth as I have found it through my own spiritual explorations with the Good Folk.

Caveat Lector.