Words and Deeds

 This is yet another case of my saying something offhanded in a visionary experience and getting a lecture for it. Which is always fun. So I thought I'd pass along the lecture, pretty much as I got it. 
Enjoy.

In the course of a conversation I happened to say, "People's words and deeds don't always match up. That's why I trust actions more than words."

 My friend stopped, her expression growing stern, and said, "That is so for humans because human words have no weight to them, no strength. Humans speak stories that are whimsy and folly as much as Truth. But it is not so for us. Our words are stories as well, as all words are, but they are stories that are True. We know that what is spoken has power, has force to shape reality, and so we are careful to speak that which we want to form. We aren't careless with our words and never so with our promises. 

Some humans call us deceptive and we are, because we know how to shape words that suit us and mean what we choose, but we never outright lie no matter how we might twist our words. A human can always trust what we say to be true, the challenge for them is to find the meaning that we intend with the words. Do we give a name that is false? No for names are like clothing, taken on and off as need dictates, and chosen to suit occasions.  Do we mislead with our words? Certainly but only because the person hearing them sees what they want to see in what is said, rather than its true intent. It is not, in truth, actually we who mislead but people who mislead themselves by allowing their desire to cloud their reason. 

We always keep our actions aligned with our words and our words aligned with our intentions and Truth. To act against one's word or to speak against one's truth is a grave matter and something that must be immediately dealt with if the person's honor is to be maintained."

She stopped for a moment, still frowning, obviously thinking about how to phrase what she wanted to say. 

"Truth and its expressions - order*, harmony, action**, speech - are essential to maintaining sacredness and remaining in alignment with Life."

*I believe the intent here was something more like orderliness
** right action, action in line with intention

"We Will Re-Make You"

 8 years ago this month I had a visionary experience wherein I heard the voice of the main person I'm connected to among the Other chanting. The gist of the chant had to do with the idea of me being  re-made, re-shaped and at the time I didn't understood what it meant or why it was being done. This was about three years after I had made a major commitment to my Othercrowd and two years before my initiatory experience with them in Ireland.

Hindsight being what it is, some things have become more clear since then and I wanted to write this today to share with readers here some of the ways that my life and my physical self have changed. I am not suggesting anyone else do this or follow this, but want to show that this work is powerful stuff and really does impact a person. You can take it as a bit of a warning of you want about how deeply the deep work with the Good Folk can really get. 

So, I've written before about some of the dietary stuff that's come up (you can read the long version here Reshaped Living) but the short version is that I've been guided (read: corralled) into a diet that focuses on fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy, nuts & seeds, and water. It was made clear to me that they consider refined sugar to be poison* and prefer any and all foods that are fresh and still full of life energy. The fresher the better. 
I was also required to stop consuming caffeine. The coffee was a real struggle. The chocolate was worse. Those are probably my two main vices in life and I admit that they are not easy things for me to give up, even with a forceful Otherworldly assist. The explanation here, as I understand it, is that caffeine interferes with my ability to fully connect to them or otherwise blocks them in some way. 

On a similar note it was made clear that I could not smoke. Not that I ever smoked a lot but I did enjoy clove cigarettes on occasion, more so when I was stressed, and after marijuana was legalized in my state it had been suggested that I should smoke some for help with migraines. However Themselves don't allow it, again because its too grounding and blocks them out to some degree. 

(I should note that I have never been one to drink alcohol so that hasn't been an issue but I don't know where they'd stand on it) 

I have always had a sensitivity to iron but it has become a much more significant issue and moved into what I would classify as an allergy. And yes that is a real thing - you can read about it here - and its something that's noted in my medical chart and which I've dealt with since I was in my teens. It is possible that this is simply the result of my own immune system changing and becoming less tolerant of iron but it feels connected to the wider work I do. (I know, I know, correlation isn't causation). Its a huge pain in the butt, to be honest. 

I have a few personal prohibitions which were acquired after my initiation. Two of them I don't think apply here but the third does so I'll mention it: I can't cut my hair. Within a year of being told this my formerly straight hair began curling so that now, more than four years on, my hair is in loose spiral curls. That has been quite an adjustment as I really had no idea how to handle curly hair.

Some of these may seem incidental and some may seem extreme but I think its important to be clear that all of these things were instigated, I believe, by them and pivotally were enforced by them. If and when I try to deviate - and I do - it always ends badly for me one way or another. Chocolate turns to the taste and texture of chalk in my mouth. Cream curdles repeatedly in my coffee. Migraines become a blunt force weapon against my bad behaviour. 

And I must note that my consent was not needed at each step of this but only once at the very beginning. When I agreed to commit myself to them in 2011 everything that subsequently happened was because of that and my further consent for any of it wasn't required. And that is something that people very much need to be aware of.

This isn't an easy path. It has its blessings of course and its reasons to be done, but it isn't a thing that leaves a person unmarked or unchanged. The Good Folk have a heavy hand when it rests on us and a willingness to use it. 

*just a funny side note to this, I recently had run across something sugary in a cabinet and was debating eating it rather than wasting it by throwing it away and my Other people were not pleased. My main female guide asked me if I found rat poison would I eat that rather than waste it. Suffice to say it was thrown away. 

A Modern Myth - Creation

 This is going to be part of a new series I'll be working on featuring my own take on sacred stories. I'm starting, appropriately enough, with the idea of creation.

full moon on the autumn equinox over Eyjafjörður, Iceland, 2018

"No one who speaks knows how reality came to exist. Some say that it always was, is, and will be; a constant presence in which all other things find a place. But it is said among the oldest and wisest that That-Which-Was-And-Is birthed the stars, and the stars birthed the planets and all other cosmic beings. The stars also sang the First Song, the primal song, and danced the First Dance which set the pattern of all things. We understand that all things come from the stars and that they empower and fuel the cycles existence relies on to continue. 

From the First Song and First Dance came the greatest power, That Which Is All, the sentient spirit of existence, who is the song, and the dance, and all of manifest reality and the power that moves behind it. And from Her* came the two sides of all things, growth and decay, her children. They added their voices to the First Song so that a harmony and melody was achieved in the chorus and through this new song all sentient beings were created, filling the nascent worlds with depth and contrast. Each layer of new beings created and destroyed and shaped the reality around them, adding to the song with their own unique music. 

And so it has continued since, voices rising and falling as they weave into the song across time. And we in our small ways follow the guidance of the stars and sing and dance the great pattern to strengthen our connection to them and their power within us."

*I'm choosing to use she/her pronouns here because that's how the story came to me but I believe this Power is truly beyond the concept of gender.

 

Religion

 I'm asked sometimes about what religion, if any, the Good Folk have. From a folklore and historic perspective we don't really know although we have hints. Small references to fairies coming from or worshipping stars. Oblique references to fairy rituals around birth, marriage, and death. Hints of the wider system of Power to which they belong. But there's no easy public answer I can give, with citations, that answers that question. 
What I want to do here is offer my own personal understanding of the subject, with the clear caveat that this is my understanding of it. 

So, what religion do the Good Folk follow? 
I suspect that as with any other beings there is variety and ultimately no one simple answer. That said, my own experience has been that They celebrate a cycle of holy days based on stars; my own specific group time these holy days by the Pleiades, although I'm aware of other groups who use different stars. I won't get too much into that here because I've written about it extensively elsewhere, but as I understand it the idea is that the stars are seen as especially holy and important, keepers of time and of order, which reflect the vital dance of the universe itself.  There is no name for this religion it simply is the way of living in right order, of deep connection with reality manifest through this world. 

That should, I hope, lead to the question: what about in their world? In an Saol Eile? I do not think the stars are the same there, or even that there are stars or a sun and moon as we have here. There is a sense of cycles and of holiness in acknowledging certain times - but these times aren't as rigidly fixed as we have here. They ebb and flow around a fixed point like the tide but like the tide the timing isn't a perfect clock but an organic process. It is Samhain when it feels like Samhain, when the energy is right for it. Sometimes that lines up with the celebrations in our world more precisely and other times less so. 

Beyond seasonal celebrations there are of course other kinds. Again what follows is my own observations so please take this as such. Pregnancy is treated almost reverently but also surrounded by prohibitions meant to protect the mother, including not speaking overly much of the situation. Birth itself is treated as a kind of trial or test, again wreathed in prohibitions to protect mother and child. When the child reaches three months old there is a ceremony to present it to the community, and the first birthday is treated with great joy and a large party. These two events - three months and one year - seem to act as times to present and incorporate the baby into the existing community. Marriage is a more solemn affair, not without its celebration, but treated as a serious, permanent union between souls. It is a vow making ceremony without the drama or romance of the human ceremony but with a more profound and intense feeling to it. Death is solemnized with a ritual remembrance of the person and their return and renewal into the Source. 

Which perhaps naturally leads into the final subject I will touch on here - who do They worship? (We are deep diving into gnosis here, so buckle up).
Many humans see the Good Folk, especially the monarchy, as Gods and treat them as such and that's not exactly misplaced, but I have found that they also have higher Powers they acknowledge. Specifically a group of three, although not co-equal three. Rather there is one who is That Which Is All and there are two who are her children and her two sides, the Lady of Apples* who is Life and the Lord of Arrows who is Death. This is a vast oversimplification of course but the simplest way to explain them. The Lady of Apples is the active life force, the power that creates and grows and inspires. The Lord of Arrows is her opposite, the force of death and decay which balances and keeps life in check. That Which Is All is, literally, All, the sum total of both her children as well as the balance between them. If they are two forces that co-exist eternally on a field then she is the field. Or, put another way, the tree is the source of all things, the apple is the fruit of life and the arrow the product of death, both of which are sourced from the tree. 
All of the Otherfolk as far as I am aware, even the ones we'd label as 'unseelie' worship the Lady of Apples. The Lord of Arrows is antithetical to living things, and those that worship or connect to him are as well. although what they consider worship may not align with the human concept, its more a deep reverence and connection, as well as acknowledgement. 
If we imagine existence as layered then these three exist beyond the Otherworld and beyond the beings within it, and a further step from humanity than what we call Gods. 

altar to the Lady of Apples

*the Queen of Apples acknowledged in Fairy Witchcraft may be understood as a connection to or vessel of this higher Power. A filter if you will or what we might label a priestess within that context in the same way a human can be a priestess to a goddess, although she is acknowledged in Fairy Witchcraft as a goddess herself. 

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.