Gifts and Balance

 The topic of fairy gifts - both those we give to them and the ones they give to us is something that is often talked about but usually either in abstract terms (what to do) or interpretive terms (what does this mean). Here I'd like to talk a bit about my impression of the importance and seriousness of gifts among the Other that I deal with. 

white snail shell, found at Clara House, 2019

That the Good Folk give gifts is certain and something we find mentioned across folklore and anecdotal accounts. In older accounts these are always things that have a practical value and can include tangible objects like money or herbs and intangible things like knowledge and skill. These gifts are not what we in modern Western culture tend to think of as a 'gift' because we come from a perspective that a gift is or should be freely given and have no 'strings attached' as it were. What we find in the examples we have however is that the strings are a part and parcel of the gift. Thomas of Erceldoune is given clothing and the gift of true-speaking but it is a payment for services rendered, and arguably to bind him to return to Elfland. Betsy Dunlop is given knowledge and skill to become a cunningwoman but is bound to serve the Fairy Queen. And some say that musicians who are given skill by the Good People lose their physical sight for it. Even fairy lovers follow this pattern, giving the gift of themselves in exchange for the human partner taking on geasa, or prohibitions.

Gifts are a serious business and how serious is directly in proportion to the importance of the gift. Little things like finding items as a sign or answer to a question have a small strings and may be in return for things already given by the human. Bigger things like healing or luck have bigger strings, and by bigger I mean both potentially heftier as well as possibly more long term. 

As my friend among Themselves puts it: "All things have a cost and no gift is truly free. An exchange should be a true exchange with both parties giving something and gaining something in proportion. The physical union of two people is such an exchange, the caring between souls is such an exchange, and giving gifts is such. When a gift is given one is also received and if it is not then something must be compelled to maintain balance. Many times when humans perceive us stealing or taking from them it is not that we are doing so in truth but that we are correcting imbalance by taking what we were rightfully owed because it was not properly given. Reciprocity is a concept to humans but it is intrinsic to us, part of our nature. Of course when we engage with humans or other beings outside the structure of gift giving there are different rules, one would not be bound to reciprocity in battle or the market or with ones food as such. But to engage with another through the medium of exchange, through gifts, is a fine dance of giving and receiving. It binds spirits together in specific patterns and creates relationships and obligations. One must never take such things lightly but respect the force they carry."

I did wonder if giving a gift forced or required engagement and her response was divided based on who was giving. She seemed to feel that if a human gave an unwanted gift, then there was often a layer of rudeness involved where taking it didn't require recompense but was in itself a way to return balance by viewing the unwanted gift as an apology for the rudeness. In other words you can't compel the Good Folk to owe you something by giving them something they didn't want to begin with because even if they accept it you've already changed the parameters so that what you gave them isn't a gift but an apology. On the other hand she did imply that humans taking unasked for or unexpected gifts did indeed bind them to this exchange and that if the human didn't offer a return then the Good Folk could choose what they wanted. 

Its a complicated subject but I hope this sheds a bit of light on things, at least from one perspective. 

Fiction, Fairies, and Culture

 I've been having an ongoing conversation with my friend Seo Helrune about the interplay between fiction and the Good Folk, specifically the way that human stories seem to shape and influence Them. This is something that we can trace across history, as these beings seem to slowly adapt to human expectations and imagery - for example the way that the Good Folk have never had wings, gained them in fiction and art, and then eventually began to appear with them in anecdotal accounts. The same way that the Seelie and Unseelie court system is uniquely Scottish but has slowly been gaining popularity in fiction and now in widespread anecdotal accounts and stories. The way we see them with pointed ears now. 

What humans believe about them seems to affect them - or just as possibly they play to our expectations. Either way the way our fiction and stories describe them eventually becomes what we get from them, at least to some degree. We've seen it in the way Shakespeare became belief and we've seen it with Tinkerbell becoming the template of fairies, and we see it now in people talking about Wyld Fae and the Unseelie as good guys in upg experiences. I don't personally believe we can entirely shift their nature away from what they are, at their core, and I know there are layers of older belief and also of experiences that line up with those beliefs. But there does seem to be a distinct and traceable correlation between human fiction and anecdotal accounts a generation or two later. 

I went and asked my Folk about this, and the response I got was rather, shall we say brisk: "We are malleable as humans are malleable, shaped by the stories that influence culture."

I hadn't thought about it before but of course she was right - humans are influenced by stories and human culture is shaped by it, although perhaps more subtly than what we may be seeing with the Good Folk. Perhaps because they are closer to the source of what we might call imbas, or awen, or imagination. I don't know.  

And the thing is, while we don't often stop and think about it, fiction does influence humans, sometimes profoundly. This is discussed in greater depth than I could hope to do in the articles 'How Stories Have Shaped the World', 'How Fiction Impacts Fact', and 'Human Culture and Science Fiction'. It can also be seen in the ways that Westernized stories and fiction have demonstrably effected non-Western cultures. Stories are carriers of cultures and of belief; when they are creating new beliefs those beliefs can become widespread, such as we see for example with Barrie's Tinkerbell who became the template of popculture fairies. 

So then where does that leave us? I think that when it comes to stories of the Good Folk we need to remember that its never just fiction even when its supposed to be. It has power, and we need to be sure we are using that power carefully and consciously. 
I suppose we can say the same things about our own fiction though, and I think we should be just as conscious of the stories we tell about ourselves with the understanding that they shape us. 

I think we are also seeing an increased tension over the directions fiction is taking the Good Folk on different fronts as They strive to control the direction and the shaping and other forces, including humans without a vested interest in the Other, push in different directions. There is a stream of writing that is placing them back into places of power and respect, that emphasizes their Otherness - and there is another stream that is doing the opposite and shaping them further into the post-Victorian nature spirit/guide view - and yet a third stream that is shaping them into the fulfillment of a human fetish, the perfect bad fae boy (or girl) with a good heart just waiting for the right human to save them from themselves.
And we will have to wait and see where everything ends up. 

Sexuality and Gender Among the Other

 This is something of a hot topic among people interested in the Good Folk, so I thought I might as well express an opinion on it. I've already written about Sex and Love in the Otherworld, so this isn't going to be that aspect of things but the broader ideas of sexuality and gender, as I'm familiar with them in the context of the Otherworld. 

For some background, we have quite a bit of folklore about the Good Folk and both gender and sexuality - my personal experiences confirm some of that folklore in some ways and may contradict some of it in other places. For a deeper background into the more provable or documented aspects of this subject I suggest my article "Sexuality and Gender Among the Good Neighbours". What follows here is not confirmable and represents only my own experiences.

Sexuality - My own perceptions of sexuality among the Good Folk is that there is a wide range of expressions, wider perhaps than the human world usually embraces. I might loosely categorize the bulk of it as omnisexual, with the only real vital factor relating to consent and ability to consent. My personal observations have been that while the Othercrowd have a very different idea of what consent is they do require it as a prerequisite for most everything. As long as the parties involved are capable of consent and have given it then everything else is a possibility so to speak. Sex is treated as both extremely sacred and also something that should be enjoyed and celebrated frequently and enthusiastically (the enthusiasm is an important aspect) by those who wish to do so. 

Consent - speaking of consent, we may as well sidestep into that for a moment. So I say that in my experience consent with the Other is different than the human concept and that's actually a really critical thing to understand. The modern human understanding of consent is that it should be freely given and can be retracted at any time under any circumstances. The Other concept is rooted in agreeing to a thing and being held to that agreement - and if you agree under duress or perforce, through extortion or under threat, you are agreeing and its the agreement that matters. In the same way once that agreement is given it is not retractable in the same way that human consent is supposed to be. In order for consent to be withdrawn with the Other both parties must agree or must renegotiate the original agreement. If this sounds very contractual it is. Its also why I always caution people about dealing with the Good Folk. 

Gender - Gender among the Good Folk is an interesting concept in my experience. I have encountered beings that are very clearly and strongly gendered and for whom that gender seems to be an intrinsic aspect of their identity, as well as beings who are fluid in their gender and impossible to pin down or even define. I've encountered at least one being whose gender is best described as that of a plant. What makes this subject more nuanced in my opinion is that the ones that are very strongly gendered may also be the most enthusiastic at overthrowing or contradicting gender roles in the contemporary human culture around them. 

Relationships - while we are here we may as well also touch on relationship structures. I have seen some examples of what we might call polyamory, more of open relationships (two committed partners who also take other casual partners), many who simply enjoy whatever sexual experiences they can get but don't have romantic relationships, monogamy, and those who seem to have no interest in sexual or romantic relationships at all. Monogamous relationships are very strictly monogamous from what I have observed, probably because it involves oaths which the partners lose honour by violating. Friendship is of course also a common relationship. 

Ultimately its a very complex subject, with a lot of layers and nuances. I can only really touch on a small part of it here, but I hope that this helps with a wider understanding or at least a starting place. And as always other people may have different opinions or experiences with this, what I'm writing here is just my own observations. 

Point Of View

 There are a lot of different views on the subject of modern interactions with the Good Folk by various names and versions. I by no means think my experiences are the template for all others nor do I think they are unique - I feel like just with humans everyone has their own stories to tell. At least as much as I can publicly tell about these sorts of things. I do often find myself feeling out of step with others who publicly share their gnosis or experiences with these beings in part because much of the material I see is either framed as coming from beings that are entirely helpful and focused on human spiritual evolution or framed through a lens where the human is the more powerful force speaking for a group of Otherworldly beings that need protection. 
I find neither of these applies at all to my experiences or encounters.

me being goofy at the phallological museum in Iceland, 2018

The beings I am connected to are not tiny little nature spirits, not stereotypical children's' story characters, nor are they higher spiritual beings seeking to guide humanity into a more enlightened state. They are simply Other, nonhuman and in many ways inhuman. They do look fairly human in appearance, in the same way that, say, a wolf looks like a dog, but they clearly aren't and as far as I've been able to tell with the majority of the ones I deal with they never have been human at all (worth noting because some among the Good People started out human and were changed). They can interact more directly with humans and they can definitely and noticeably effect humans. I've seen and experienced amazing healing through them - literal, physical healing - but I've also seen and experienced illness and destruction. They are powerful enough that while I respect them and love them I am also wary of upsetting them. 

I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea here - as I've seen various opinion pieces floating around the internet about abusive relationships with deities and spirits - I'm not afraid of the beings I'm connected to. I belong to Them and that puts me in a very particular dynamic with Them. But while I may feel a degree of protection or safety with the ones I specifically have a connection to that doesn't change my respect for what they can and will do, or make me feel impervious with all beings of the Otherworld. I love thunderstorms but that doesn't mean I run around in metal armour swinging a golf club during one. 

My own Otherworldly people, as it were, are definitely not interested in humans becoming more spiritual or more evolved. They tend to show a marked disdain for humanity in general and disapproval of humans as a group. Individual humans are a different story, but humanity en masse they are at best indifferent about and at worst amused by wider struggles. When they give me things in dreams it is usually material relating to either serving them better or magic of a protective or cursing nature. They are fairly clear, always, that their interests are their primary concern and when they are moved to address anything else it is because, ultimately, that also serves their interests - a far cry from the seemingly selfless and altruistic beings some other people seem to be relaying messages for. I sometimes cringe to repeat things my group have told me, because I know it won't be appreciated by those around me - and yet this is an honest depictions of who they are, and perhaps a necessary counterpoint to the louder voices. 

Why am I saying all of this here? Because as I move forward with this blog I want my readers to understand the beings I am dealing with, at least to some small degree, and to understand that I am presenting one viewpoint on a much larger subject for which there are many different opinions and views. Mine is not the only correct one but it is also just as valid as everything else out there. 

Beauty and Body Image

 A message I've gotten several times relates to beauty and to body image. The first half of it is rooted in the idea that all things are beautiful within their own nature and shouldn't be judged by the standards of a different being. The second half gets into how we might judge ourselves based on failings we perceive in our own appearance. 

  Like many people I have an ingrained understanding of what beauty is that comes from modern western culture. It emphasizes among other things the importance of youth, thinness, health, able-bodiedness, and symmetrical features as well as gender specific ideas. As I began to get into deeper spiritual work with the Otherfolk I'm connected to they started trying to disabuse me of these ideas. They asked me if I would judge a cat by such standards or a horse, and if in judging them by their aesthetic appeal would disregard their more vital qualities. 
My guide: "All things are true to their own nature and are beautiful by their own measure. A selkie is not the same in appearance as one of the Gentry yet neither is more or less 'beautiful'. And in the same way what a goblin will judge as beautiful would not be the same as what a human would expect - which is as it should be. Each has their own ideas of what is pleasing to the eye or the touch or scent and so on, and none is right or wrong for it. It is what is inside any being that truly makes it fair or foul and as often as not the outside does not reflect the inside well or at all."

This was an important lesson for me and one that, at the time, was profound. I had never thought before of what the types of beings I found unpleasant to look at might consider beautiful or even for that matter that the concept of beauty wasn't in some sense universal. Much of the folklore we have emphasizes the value the Good Folk place on physical beauty but what I was being told was that external appearance was secondary to internal qualities, and that rang true. 

The second lesson on this subject was tied somewhat to the first. Like many people in my culture I struggle with my own body image and I quickly found that this was a concept that utterly baffled the Othercrowd I made aware of it. To them the physical body is transient and malleable, changing  in humans across a lifetime with a speed that seemed dizzying to Them and also, largely inconsequential. They had little care for what a mortal form might do or how it might change when what mattered to them was the spirit or soul in that form which was changeable at its own will. In other words, if I was upset at how my physical form looked I should either change it or ensure my non-physical form didn't reflect it, and there was no problem. 
This did help me to see that the truth is our physical forms are indeed transient and partially outside our control, which further helped me to let go of some of my concern in this area. Nothing I do will stop my body from aging, or from being injured, or from eventually breaking down and stopping [death]. But I can keep my spirit in good health, as it were, and do what was in my power to keep my body fit and healthy while I had it. This lesson changed my priorities from wishing I looked different to working on how I related to my body as the vehicle for my spirit. And that really was a huge difference for me. 

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