Touch is Sacred

 I was asked by a friend of mine who is a massage therapist what the Good Folk's opinion was on massage and whether or not they had such a thing. It was a great question so I decided to ask my friend among the Other and to write down the answer here. As you might expect the reply gets...interesting.

The initial response was: "Touch is sacred"
Because to me this immediately makes me think of all the examples when touch is painful or negative I looked for clarification which was of course met with annoyance. 
Her reply: "Violence isn't touch, violence is violence and it takes many forms. Yes violence can warp touch, can warp any sacred thing, into a tool for violence. But that is not what you are asking about. Touch is sacred. Touch is deliberate connection and interaction, it is choosing to engage physically with that which is around us and with other beings. Just as love is union between separate beings, touch is the bridge of that union."
Me: We touch a lot of things in our daily life though and a lot of things touch us. Is that all sacred?
Her: Living is a sacred act, most humans simply choose not to acknowledge that. Walking is sacred. Preparing and eating food is sacred. Sleeping is sacred. In all of this we choose to touch and in touching we choose to connect to that which is around us. Our feet touch the ground, our hands touch the food we prepare and eat, our body touches the place we sleep. We touch each other. All of these are sacred acts and all involve creating connections with our reality and with the world around us. 
Me: What is sacred then? What does it mean?
Her, sighing: "It means to be in harmony with existence, to understand and embrace our place within the greater weaving of life. Every breath is a prayer to the Power that is life. To create that is holy, to perpetuate it is holy, and to end it - in harmony with the weaving - is holy. Pleasure is sacred because it celebrates that harmony. Touch is sacred because it acknowledges the holiness in all things and honours it. All things exist in this balance, either working with the weaving or unweaving it, either existing in harmony or disrupting it, either sacred or basdan*. A thing can not be sacred or be made sacred it simply is or is not. That which is in harmony and filled with the weaving is sacred. It is a sate of being. This is what sacred is, to us at least. As I understand it humans have strange views of things."
Me: "Touch is sacred then, so do [the Good Folk] have a concept of things like massage and body work?"
Her, now humming thoughtfully. "Yes, but I suspect not as humans do. I'm unsure about these concepts in the human world. But massage for health, for mental well being, for pleasure**, these are all things we do. Such focused touching is good for the physical body and for the mental body, and we do this of course among ourselves and sometimes for others outside ourselves - the same way humans do [meaning animals, I assume] because of the many benefits of it. And lovers, well I would think that would be obvious. Touch is sacred and massage, focused medicinal touch, is not only physical but energetic. It needs extra care both by the one receiving it and the one giving it."
Me: "Because of the energy involved?"
Her: "Yes, because it creates deeper connection than casual touch. It is a form of union in its own way that needs to be respected and understood as sacred. But we enjoy it very much and see it as important."
Me: "Are there specific people who do this? As a career?"
Her: "As a life's purpose you mean? There are some healers who focus on this path yes. Many who are more casual in it. I would guess all have some experience or knowledge in one form or another."

*so she used an older Irish word for this or at least a combination of older Irish (the actual word doesn't exist as far as I know). I'm not sure the English translation carries the full meaning so I kept the original word she used here. It basically bas - death, deadly and dán - fate or skill. The meaning I gathered was something like deadened or 'empty of fate' or 'fate-death' as in death of fate. Its kind of hard to convey to be honest but I think its Their idea of the opposite of what is sacred. 

** so I gathered here that what she was referring to was what we might call therapeutic massage, massage for mental health purposes, and obviously massage between sexual partners. 

An Other Approach to Holy Days

I've spoken before about the way that my connection to the Good Folk has influenced my approach to holy days, specifically by changing my focus from solar/lunar scheduling to a calendar based on the yearly cycle of the Pleiades. This in itself was a seismic change and has altered my entire view of what holy days are. Coming from a more generally neopagan viewpoint of 'its all about the cycle of the natural world/agrarian life' to one that sees holidays a dance of co-celebration with the Holy Powers on a cyclic journey through time and reality which waxes and wanes in connection to alignment with the stars. 

That all said however there are other ways that my understanding has changed when it comes to every holiday and celebrating them, particularly how the Othercrowd approach this topic. While there is a cycle of different reasons to celebrate, and ergo foci, for each individual celebration there is also a fairly similar format and approach to every holy day that is far more constant than the human neopagan view. I am not advocating that humans adopt this approach necessarily but I wanted to share what I've learned in case it resonates with anyone else. So, things I've learned about how the Other approach holy days:

• 'Day' is a loose term by which they generally seem to mean something closer to 'period of time'. This may be several days or several weeks. This is not however a predictable fixed period of time and it tends to wax and wane based on many variables.
• A holy day must have a feast. That feast must be shared. Food and sharing of food is a pivotal aspect of any holiday and one of the crucial things that marks the celebration. This doesn't mean breaking your budget to have excessive extravagance but it means doing the best you can to make the meal special. I'd compare it to the US ideas around food on Thanksgiving for example.
• Holy days mean celebration, celebration means joy, and joy means sex (for the adults). Not necessarily or even primarily procreative sex, and not sex as duty or sex as symbolic act/sympathetic magic but sex for pleasure. They don't seem at all interested in this the way that some neopagans have equated certain spring holidays to 'celebrating fertility in spring in union with the earth planting cycle' and it isn't the base fetishization of it that we see in some places, its sex as a way to celebrate the happiness of the holy day (let me however mention here that the entire concept of sex is different to them, as I've previously discussed here)
• Their push to re-enchant the human world, or to place themselves more strongly into it, means a re-wilding of the energy which in turns means a very particular intensity around these times. The more you connect to this the more I believe you will feel that energy. 
• Many of the general rules and expectations of behaviour are softened or ignored at these times, both in good ways that allow more leniency and in bad ways that open more avenues up for things to go sideways. 
• These times are seen as truly sacred in a way that I'm not sure humans can fully comprehend. They are points when energy is harnessed by joint effort to strengthen community bonds and achieve group goals. They are essential. They create a transcendence of spirit that binds the Other together. 
• Celebrations are full of food, music, dance, sex, wild magic, and ecstatic experience

Or, basically, no one parties like the Other Folk.

This isn't universal to all the Other of course, just like focusing on the Pleiades isn't, and I'm sure that different groups and communities have their own ways and ideas here. But this is what I've learned from mine

On Wholeness

 Something that I hadn't even really given much thought to was the way that the human habit of categorizing everything often leads to us being very rigid about whether a thing is or is not something.  We just don't allow for much flexibility or blending of concepts or of identities. Maybe its a western culture thing, maybe its a US thing, I'm not sure but once it was brought to my attention it seemed so obvious. Even things that by their nature can't be neatly divided into distinct categories, like ancestry or religion or feelings, we nonetheless try to shoehorn into distinct boxes. Maybe there's some kind of comfort in it, as if we can understand a thing better of we can clearly define and delineate it. 
But things just don't work that way.

inside Loughcrew

What got me thinking about this was a dream.
I was talking to my friend among the Daoine Maithe and she was...let's just say annoyed. Annoyed at the way I was trying to understand something as either one thing or another. 
"Why not both?" she said, frowning, "Why can't you see that a person's nature isn't a serving of food to be divided up and portioned out? You can look at this apple and see that it is an apple, and red, and ripe, and hard, and know that it is a plant and you understand it can be all of those things at the same time, that they are all aspects of its  nature, but you look at other things, at people, and want them to be a single thing, to be this or that. But nothing is only a single thing. We are all a dizzying combination of things and those things change, expand and contract and reshape. You want a person to be human or of the sidhe, to be alive or dead, to be entirely one thing that you consider its nature but that is not Truth. A person cannot be divided into portions, measured as this much one thing and that much another; all things are whole within themselves. All things are True to themselves."

She was talking, in part, about the idea of belonging which is what had started that lecture. The idea that I had which was undeniably influenced by fiction and by cultural narratives, that someone can be partially part of something, like a culture. She rejected that entirely (pun intended) and tried to explain that people are always wholly whatever they are - wholly belonging or wholly not. Part of a community or outside it. To use an example Lugh wasn't half-Fomorian and half Tuatha De by her reckoning but wholly Fomorian and wholly Tuatha De; excepting he chose the Tuatha De and so aligned himself with that. Bres was his mirror, wholly Fomorian and wholly Tuatha De but ultimately choosing the Fomorians. In the same way she scoffed at the idea from modern fiction of half elves - you cannot be half an elf she said, nor half a human, because how could any living thing function that way? You can only and always be whole in yourself, the completion of all that you are. And sometimes that means being two things simultaneously, being an elf and a human, and finding a balance within yourself with those two things, to continue the metaphor. 

The wilderness doesn't just stop where civilization begins. The forest doesn't end where the meadow starts. The offspring of a horse and a donkey isn't half of each parent - it is the combination of them, the blending of them into a new whole which is both. In the same way we each as individuals are a combination of many things, of all of the things that have made us and are making us. And we are whole.
 Life is a messy, overlapping, shifting experience and so is who and what we are. 

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.