Faery Craft: Weaving Connections with the Enchanted Realm (29 page)

John and Caitlín Matthews
(photo by Mark Brome)

How important is interaction with the Faery realm within Celtic shamanism?

J: Shamanism works at the level of spirit, and spirit includes the Faery realm, so they are actually very close. I find that the Faery kind show up quite a lot in journey work, though, in a way I can’t really describe, my own encounters with them happen in a different way to normal journeying.

C: All shamanic traditions interact with different kinds of spirits, but the hidden ones are part of every tradition in every country, not just in Britain and Ireland.

Our ancestral traditions are informed by Faery lore, music, and wisdom on every level: historically, in the written record as well as in the oral tradition. But it is an ongoing, living lore, not one that has been anthropologically filed and forgotten. Those pathways have not been lost, but every time we journey or meditate or pray, we make “paths through the wheatfield.”

Whenever we come to the thresholds of place or time, we encounter the hidden ones. As the elder race to humans and our neighbours, Faeries and ourselves have encounters and relationships; sometimes these are not happy relationships—especially when we build upon land without consideration—and these upsets often need to be arbitrated shamanically, for they can have consequences upon our descendants.

How can we strengthen connection with the Faery realm?

C: To have a strong relationship with the hidden ones, we need to acknowledge our interdependence with all life forms and live accordingly: with prayer, consideration, and respect. These are the daily duties towards the Faery realms that everyone should have. For myself, the songs I receive from Faery and the offerings that I give make a pathway down which mutual understanding has grown. The Faery allies that work with me in my shamanic practice do so because we enjoy each other’s society and understand that their hearth and my hearth are those of neighbours.

J: Journey work strengthens any links with the otherworld in whatever form or of whatever type. Depending a lot on the individual, some may get Faery contacts of their own accord, others may have to work harder at it—it is those who could find shamanism a good means to opening doors to the Faery realms.

What advice would you give to people who wish to work with Faery?

J: Don’t! Half seriously, I would say if you do so, be wary of all kinds of strangeness and wonder. Your whole life can be turned upside down by these beings, who can be every bit as cruel as they are kind. Of all the inner beings I work with, the Faery folk are the most uncompromising and variable. They can really like you one day, then, apparently, dislike you the next.

C: Be aware that the hidden ones are not there to grant our wishes: any relationship that we have with them is wrought of faithfulness, honour, and respect. Like humans, faeries can be in many different conditions, so be discriminate and clear in your dealings, with exactly the same street wisdom you would use in daily life—just because I see a man on the street doesn’t mean he’s well disposed to me. It’s exactly the same if you meditate or journey and see a faerie! Beware of acting out of human acquisitiveness and, above all, keep any promises or agreements that you make with them. Don’t claim Faery powers you don’t possess—these belong to the hidden ones, not to you!

And from you specifically, John, I’d love to hear how working with the glyph has changed your perceptions of Faery.

J: The great glyph was a gift that really started me on this aspect of the work. It was the first “in” thing they showed me, and when I got to use it, it opened ways between our worlds that were more powerful and direct than any I had known before. I continue to use it, and it has become a constant part of the work I do with Faery beings. They tell me they are very happy that so many people are using it today and look forward to welcoming all who are of good intention to their world.

For more information, visit www.hallowquest.org.uk.

Faery Wicca

Faery Wicca is sometimes found referring to covens and individuals practicing a version of the Wiccan tradition, both initiatory and noninitiatory, with a strong emphasis on Faery beings and elementals and usually within a Celtic or pseudo-Celtic framework. Wicca itself is a popular magickal tradition, which, though relatively modern, has its roots in the grimoires, folk magick, and practices of ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt. There is a strong aspect of polarity and balance within this tradition, as Wiccans work with a God and a Goddess, often putting much emphasis on the Divine Feminine. Wicca involves working with the elements and their guardians, and encourages a deep respect for nature and her hidden dimensions, so to work closely with Faery within this tradition is a natural extension.

Radical Faeries

“We have been a separate people…drifting together in a parallel existence, not always conscious of each other, yet recognizing one another by eyelock when we meet here and there as outcasts…Spirit-people in the service to the Great Mother…Shamans…rhapsodes, poets and playwrights, healers and nurturers…visionaries…rebels.”

Harry Hay speaking at the Spiritual Conference
for Radical Faeries in 1979

The Radical Faeries are more of a movement than a group or tradition, based very much around gay sexuality and the freedom of expression, as well as the love of nature and the spirit of the land. Their roots may be found in their first gathering, the Spiritual Conference for Radical Faeries, which was organised by Harry Hay and John Burnside in 1979 and has since grown massively in numbers and reputation. Members of the Radical Faeries place prime importance on the celebration of individuality and “gay spirit,” defining themselves as a race and culture apart and freeing their “inner faerie.” Radical Faeries embrace the word
queer
as part of their identity, covering both gay men and women as well as transgender and bisexual, seeking to be liberated from what they see as the constrictive expectations and regulations of a heterocentric society. Fey (as some members also call themselves) celebrate the Celtic Pagan festivals in accordance with the wheel of the year as popularised by Wiccan-influenced paths. They hold events and meetings all over the world, and a number have bought land in wild places, such as Faerie Camp Destiny in Vermont, in order to provide retreat centres for members to pursue their magickal and spiritual paths away from the rest of the world.

Lisa Hunt, “Lord of the Greenwood”
(www.lisahuntart.com,
reproduced with kind permission of US Games Systems, Inc.)

Otherkin, Elven Spirituality, and the Silver Elves

One of the most recent groups to emerge within the Faery community is that of the Otherkin movement. Not a tradition as such, people who call themselves Otherkin believe that they are nonhuman souls, most commonly of the Faery races but also of magickal creatures such as dragons or animals such as wolves, born into human bodies. Whilst a number of these cases can be put down to pure fantasy or a psychological need for escapism, there is reason to give credence to the possibility that nonhuman souls could be born into a human life, particularly if your belief system includes reincarnation. Many believe that these souls have elected a human life to help bring humanity into a new age of connection and understanding.

Though the Otherkin movement arose as recently as the 1990s, its origins lie a little further back, in 1970s California, with the first group of people who dared to publicly come out as being “other,” practicing nature-based magick and embracing an elven identity as daughters (though they were both men and women) of the great Earth Goddess. I interviewed a magickal couple known as the Silver Elves, who discovered their own elven identities through contact with the Elf Queen’s Daughters in the 1970s, as I wished to learn more of their fascinating way of life.

How would you describe your path?

The Elven path is unique in many ways to each individual since it is about the discovery and development of each person’s individual nature. That is why we created the word
s’elf
to indicate the link between being an elf and one’s true self.

We believe in The Magic, which we define as the Infinite Potential that is the source of all things. And while most people look to escape the phenomenal world and return to the world of spirit, we elves see ours’elves as here to instil the phenomenal/material world with spirit, to master it and to create Elfin-Faerie Paradise on earth and among the stars.

So what is the elven way? It is the path that each elf chooses for hir (his or her) own s’elf. There are no rules, no requirements, other than be true to one’s own s’elf. If one is true to one’s s’elf, then the elf cannot go wrong. And we believe all true elves will do all in their power to help one discover that way and pursue it.

The Silver Elves, Zardoa and Silver Flame

How did you first become aware of your elven natures?

Zardoa, like many elves and faerie folk, or Otherkin, as we are often called, which we like to call the elfae, became aware that he was different from the normal folk around him at a very early age. However, it took some time for him to understand what exactly that difference meant and what/who he really was/is. He was a child, of course, and a boy, and he had gotten so far as being a “young man” when he realized that, try though he may, and he did for a while, he would/could never be, nor become, a “real man.” This posited the question in his mind: if he wasn’t a “real man,” what was he? He had to be a real
something
. Alas, it took years of searching, initiation into three different forms of meditation, and the exploration of various spiritual paths before he discovered what exactly that was.

In early 1975, he came upon two letters posted outside of an occult bookshop in Carbondale, Illinois. The letters were by the Elf Queen’s Daughters and bore an address to which he replied. They responded shortly thereafter, and after a few months of back and forth correspondence, they arranged for him to come visit with them at their home in Aurora, Illinois. Four elves lived there at the time, and in the course of the weekend he spent with them, without any urging on their part, he came to realize he was/is an elf.

This was not a simple realization, however, but a full-fledged awakening of deep psychological impact that made him realize that not only was he an elf and that he had finally found his people, but that that information had been hidden within him his whole life waiting for that moment, those events, to come and trigger this awareness. Due to this profound awakening, he has dedicated his life to awakening other elves and elfae and to the continuation and development of the elven culture.

Silver Flame’s awakening came a few years after Zardoa’s. She did not have a sense of not fitting into society as he did, however; her sense of integrity and her devotion to human beings and their welfare over the needs of institutions and their expediencies led her into conflict with the academic institutions where she was employed over and over again.

In 1978, she came to think that an academic career was not the right thing for her, and she decided to go on a vision quest, holding in her mind the vision of a Native American shaman
à
la Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan, whom she expected she would meet. Instead, she came upon an elfin shaman named Zardoa. She realized then that she was an elf, and it gave her a realization of why she and her sister had made faerie houses when they were children.