Balancing Extremes – Winter Solstice, 2014
The Winter Solstice this year came amidst a deluge – days of heavy rain, bringing flooding and landslides to those who live on rivers less wide and gentle than ours. Every time it rains now, especially this heavily, I think about our friends in California and elsewhere in the Southwest whose gardens are parched, whose water supplies are dwindling. An over abundance of rain in one place, not enough in another. Sounds a little like the Solstice – not enough light in our hemisphere while it’s summer for our friends “down under.”
I’ve always thought about the solstices as extremes, the equinoxes as points of balance but this year I’ve realized that the solstices are about balance as well. When it’s the darkest time of the year in the northern hemisphere it is the brightest, most light time in the southern. Viewed on a planetary scale, that’s balance.
We are hard-wired to view cycles and seasons from our human, personal perspective, from wherever we are on the planet. After all, for our ancestors, adapting to the natural cycles of where they lived was a matter of survival; the sun and the light it brought meant life. But from a planetary perspective, the rotation of the earth in relationship to the sun is simply a distribution issue. There’s no less light falling on the planet – it’s just allocated differently. So even when we are plunged into darkness in the northern hemisphere, our friends in Sidney, Auckland, and Cape Town are enjoying the height of summer.
Focusing on the extreme point of darkness, this longest night, at this time of the year makes sense from a human perspective – after all, roughly 90% of the world’s population lives in the northern hemisphere. (That’s because most of the planet’s land mass is in the northern hemisphere.) Cultures who live close to the equator don’t have the same focus on the extremes – they have roughly the same amount of daylight and night through all seasons.
The rest of us are caught on a pendulum. Today the pendulum of light has hit the height of its arc in one direction. Tomorrow, without bonfires on the hills, the pendulum will begin its swing to the other point of the arc, the Summer Solstice. We know what our early ancestors may not have known – that the sun hasn’t gone away, it’s just shining more light on another part of the planet right now. But our ancestors knew something many of us have forgotten – that it’s a matter of survival to know and be in tune with the cycles of nature. They also knew not to disturb those cycles – especially the climate cycles – if we want them to continue in a way that supports life as we know it.
The rituals of lighting a Yule log, decorating our homes with evergreen boughs, bringing light into the darkness in whatever ways we can, are a part of acknowledging those cycles. The giving of gifts, the honoring of each other, serve to remind us that it’s only through community that we can survive the long dark. The celebration of birth, whether of “son” or “sun,” inspires hope that seeds now dormant will spring to life with the returning light.
Although we can’t affect the swing of the pendulum/planet in its journey around the sun, we can align ourselves with it. When the cycle offers us more darkness than light, it’s time to go inward and dream. Time to listen to the winds, the rain, the falling snow. Time to connect to each other and the world around us. Time to bring light into each other’s lives.
Bright Blessings to you and all those you touch this holiday season.
Meteors, Stardust, and Other Gifts That Fall From the Sky
This time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, each day seems to have more light sucked out of it by a great beast intent on devouring the sun. Living in the Pacific Northwest, where storm clouds often dampen the little daylight remaining, I have come to understand why the festivals at this time of year focus so much on light.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve always loved the Geminid meteor shower (scheduled to peak the night of Dec. 13/14). Each year around this date, tiny bits of space rocks and comet dust hurtle through our atmosphere to create blazing trails across the winter-night sky. That’s always seemed like magic to me. Star dust, falling to earth.
“All life is made of star dust” whispers a familiar wise Fairy voice in my ear.
“Wait a minute. I know you’ve told me that the original organic material that seeded life on this planet came from the stars. Bacteria, riding on an asteroid, perhaps. But you’ve also told me that you, the Fairies, are of the Earth, born from the fire of the Earth’s core. When you say that all life is made of star dust, doesn’t that include you?”
“There’s the fire without and the fire within. It all comes from the same place.”
I guess I was a little slow wrapping my mind around the last statement because, by the time I was ready to respond, there was only silence where the presence had been.
The army of storms that has rolled through in the last week has finally moved on so the sky may actually be clear Saturday night. While I watch the light show in the sky, I’ll be aware of the other fire/light deep beneath my feet. My Fairy guide is right, of course. Where else could the fire inside have come from but the stars?
When I turn on the holiday lights each evening, seeking to fend off the ever-growing darkness, I’ll remember that all I really have to do is go deep enough inside. There’s star-light there, too.
— ©Bridget Wolfe, 2014
If you have clear skies and can get away from city lights, don’t miss the show. According to EarthSky.org, best viewing should be around midnight before the moon rises.
You can always find magic at the Fairy Woodland website.
Rain And Other Gifts
This morning’s rain has left crystalline beads suspended from the bare tree branches outside my window. The meadow glows bright with new-green. Last Spring’s fawn, now looking almost grown-up in her thick chocolate coat, has been grazing in one small patch of the new growth for at least 15 minutes. Her coat keeps her immune to the rain; the rain brings her food.
I wonder if her deer-brain is conscious of the rain as a gift? Although we in the Pacific Northwest may grumble about the rain (especially towards the end of January), the lush green it brings is a gift the whole year.
The fawn wanders off to nibble a few remaining blackberry leaves and my thoughts return to the concept of gifts. ‘Tis the season, after all. I asked the Fairies about gifts and gratitude a few years ago. This is part of what they told me.:
Gifts, they said, are a form of touch. A gift can be a handshake, a loving caress of the cheek, a bear hug, or a kiss. Like a handshake, a gift can say, “I’m pleased to know you.” Like a hug, a gift can say, “I cherish having you in my life.” A gift lets someone know we value them, that we are grateful to have them as part of our lives.
Gifts can also be invitations. When The plum trees blossom in Spring, there is an invitation to bury your nose in the fragrance. When a human accepts that invitation, he or she finds a moment of pleasure in their day; when a bee is drawn to the scent, it gives a gift in return by pollinating the blossom, allowing the flower to become fruit, which then becomes another gift. An animal accepts the gift of food that is offered by the fruit, eats it, then deposits the seeds (along with the gift of natural fertilizer) somewhere else so that the seed can grow into another plant that will grow and offer gifts of flower and fruit. Giving a gift begins a cycle of gratitude.
Now that the insanity of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and similar craziness are behind us, maybe we can take a deep breath or a walk in the woods and focus on the simplicity of gifts. A friend who took part in building the Fairy Fire Village (see the post below) sent hundreds of bulbs to be planted in the Village. Yesterday, a local friend helped me plant them. Not only was her help a great gift, the sharing of the experience, she said, was a gift for her. She still owns a small patch of woods in her native Cornwall and has fond memories of planting hundreds of bulbs on that land, so having a chance to share her expertise with me was a gift for her. In the Spring, when the flowers bloom, they’ll be a gift to everyone who sees them plus a feast for bees and other pollinators.
The one gift of bulbs becomes part of a cycle of gifts that nourish many others. As you choose your gifts in this season of gift-giving, let the deer and the rain be your guides. Hug someone.
Smile at them, even if they seem a little strange. Put a feeder out for over-wintering songbirds. Choose gifts that nourish the heart, invite others to play, and engage the mythic imagination.
(Hint: There are lots of gifts that fit this description on the Fairy Woodland website.)
© Bridget Wolfe, 2014
Halloween, Samhain, Day of the Dead: Transition and Transformation
The shortening days, the turning leaves, the parade of storms marching across my landscape the last two weeks, all tell me it’s time again for the fires of the New Year and the Three Nights of Summer’s End. Our modern Halloween stems from the Celtic Samhain [pronounced SOW-in (Ireland), SOW-een (Wales) or SAV-en (Scotland)]. In the Northern Hemisphere, it marks the end of the harvest, the end of the external part of the year. After this celebration it will be time to begin the journey inward, time to gathering by the fire to tell stories through the dark and cold ahead.
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much relationship between our current way of celebrating Halloween and the ancient roots of Samhain and other fire/end of harvest festivals celebrated around the world. After all, what do bare branches of trees, dried out cornstalks, bonfires burning on the hills have to do with cobwebs, ghosts, skeletons, and witches on broomsticks? The traditional symbols associated with this holiday all have to do with a transition from life to death. The three days from Oct. 31 – Nov. 2 mark a time that we humans have chosen to celebrate our beliefs in the continuation of spirit after it disconnects from physical form.
Many of our ancestors marked this time as the end of the old year, the beginning of the new. It is a sacred time, when the veil between this world and the Otherworld is thin as a breath, permeable as a wisp of fog. It is a time that the dead can walk with us and warm themselves at our hearths. It is also the time when some mortals, especially shamans and poets, are able to find entrance to the Otherworld through special doorways that open only at Samhain.
The holiday has new meaning for me this year. When I set a plate for my ancestors at the table, there will be a special one for my mother who, after an arduous journey, found the door to the Otherworld a few weeks ago. She was the last of her generation in my family, so I am Elder now. A sobering thought.
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The rain soaked meadow squeals with new-green as I cross to the forest path, thoughts of ancestors and elders sitting on my shoulders like a chain mail cloak. I have a Samhain question for the Fairy elders who guide me: Why does this year’s road to Hallowe’en feel like uncharted territory?
The Fairies are kind – they hide their snickers in dripping moss. “Of course it feels different,” whispers the wind, breathing on fir fronds above me. The voice settles closer to my ear, a subtle thrumming through the tree bark. “There is no embodied spirit of your blood line buffering the space between you and the veil; there are no footsteps for you to follow. That may seem frightening to your body-mind but your spirit now has no barrier to crossing the veil when it’s thin enough to penetrate.”
“So my mother’s spirit, while still in her body, was keeping me from communicating as fully as I wanted with you? With anyone on the other side? Why?”
“We think it’s an instinctual impulse. The spirit/mind of any living adult in the generation before you will seek to protect you from straying too close to the veil. That’s especially true in your culture where there is such misinformation – and, therefore, fear – about the crossing to the other side. It’s a little like making sure a child doesn’t get too close to the river – especially if the adult doesn’t know how to swim.”
The words are simple but they trigger an opening in me I wasn’t expecting. I stare at the moss my body sits on, letting the meaning sift down through layers of understanding like the rain settling down through the soil. Just as I wonder how deep this information will penetrate, a salamander walks into my field of vision and holds my gaze. “That’s enough now,” it seems to say. “Let it soak in slowly.”
“What should I do differently this Samhain?” I ask the wind, the tree, the salamander.
“Nothing,” comes the response. “Do the rituals as you’ve always done them but pay attention – you may experience them anew. And if you decide to dress as a Wise Woman, an Elder, it won’t be a costume.“ A blue jay squawks overhead and they are gone.
So I will light the fire, feed it dried corn stocks and other debris from this year of my life. I will set a feast for the ancestors, with a special plate for my mother, and welcome them all to my table. Then I will listen for their messages, celebrate their lives, and ask them to continue to celebrate mine. Perhaps I will ask them about what it means for a spirit to embody form – or how I embody my dreams, my fears, my love, my joy.
When the feast is over and the fire has gone out, I will clean the hearth and light a new fire, beginning the new year, stepping into the cycle again. The end is in the beginning, my Fairy guides remind me; the beginning, in the end.
— © Bridget Wolfe, 2014
For eons, we have whispered tales to each other of secret entrances to hidden, magical places, where only a password gained through a dangerous quest will allow you to walk past the guardian and enter. We’ve told stories of cloaked travelers on horseback riding into a box canyon and disappearing, of the sacred crystal cavern behind a waterfall, of the doorway into the mound that opens on the first full moon of summer.
No mystical tale is complete without a doorway through which a seeker must pass; no quest is successful without that terrifying (and exciting) moment of standing with hand on doorknob, with no idea of what’s on the other side.
Besides being actual passageways from one place to another, doors are also metaphors for transition, for change, for stepping into new pathways in life. Phrases like “open the door” and “cross the threshold” have become synonymous with major life changes and new beginnings.
We all know the butterflies of excitement and trepidation that flutter around in our stomachs when we stand before a door, physical or metaphorical, and don’t know what awaits us on the other side. Still, we search for doors that will transport us to another place in our lives. For those who yearn for greater connection to the Otherworld, finding a Fairy Door is a sacred quest.
Are you seeking an entrance into Faerie? What would it look like? Is there a door to knock on? A bell to ring? You can, of course, leave a gift at the door of your Fairy House on each full moon until the Fairies invite you in, but openings into the Otherworld are also everywhere you turn, in every wood and grove, in each Earth place that remembers the wild. If you are searching, here are a few ideas to help you on your quest:
–Walk through shimmering air between two Hazel trees.
–Dive into the full moon’s reflection in a pool.
–Stop at the spider web across your path and ask permission to continue before you carefully duck under the web.
–Trace the outline of the hollow in the ancient tree, lay your hands above the opening, then crawl inside.
–Settle in to dream in the space between boulders
–Sit on the riverbank and allow yourself to be mesmerized by flowing water framed between overhanging willows.
–Make or buy a Fairy Door and install it in a special place and ask the Fairies to help you dream your way through the door.

Will this pathway lead to a Gateway to Faerie?
Once you’ve spent some time adjusting your consciousness to the idea that there might really be doors that allow you to enter the Faerie Realm, wander into any wood, any slightly wild place, down any trail. Follow your intuition, barely heard music, a butterfly, bird, or furry creature. Notice when the smell and temperature of the air change. A shimmer appears very faintly between two trees that stand in perfect symmetry, one either side of the path, their branches intertwining overhead, as though Mother Nature herself had built the arbor. If you walk on between the trees, noting only the lovely symmetry, you’ll have an uneventful stroll in the woods.
But if you recognize that this is a Faerie Door, you’ll stop. Sit in the middle of the track. Lie with your belly on the earth. Come back at dusk, at dawn, tomorrow, next month, on the full moon, on the solstice, the equinox, the cross quarter days. Bring offerings of food, wine, water from a sacred well, jewels. Bring a book of Faerie stories and read them aloud. Bring a child to read the stories to. You may grow old, waiting to be called. You may find the doorway opening immediately. But once you’ve recognized the door, sooner or later you will be invited to step across the threshold, through the doorway, and come home.
There is always a Guardian who keeps the doorway open and listens for the footsteps of those who seek the way. Allow the Guardian to take you by the hand and lead you to the threshold. You won’t know what’s on the other side but, whatever it is, it will be an adventure.
–@Bridget Wolfe, 2014
If you want to begin your quest by installing a Fairy Door close to you to dream with each day, please visit the Fairy Woodland website for an enchanting selection.
You can also find Fairy Doorways in John Crawford’s mystical prints. Meditate with these doorways so that, when the time comes for you to go questing in the wild, your heart will recognize the gateway when you find it.
For more about “Gateways to Faerie,” watch the movie. It’s available online through iTunes, or Hulu and as a 2 DVD set on the Fairy Woodland Website.
Winter Sky, the Pleiades and the Faerie Star
The sky has been clear the last few nights, an unusual happening on the Oregon Coast in winter so I’ve been able to indulge my favorite sky-watching activity next to meteor showers – gazing with awe at the nightly march of the Pleiades, Orion, and Sirius across the dome of night.
For those of you who are not ardent star-gazers, let me explain the fascination. The dominant feature in the Northern Hemisphere’s winter night sky is the constellation Orion, the hunter – the one constellation that almost anyone can find. If you follow the stars of Orion’s belt upwards, you find the Pleiades; if you follow them down, you’ll get to Sirius. These three features of the night sky account for a lot of astronomical lore related to ancient human structures, from the Pyramids of Egypt to the ones in the Yucatan. They’re also so easy to recognize it feels like I’m finding old friends in a crowd.
My favorite of these is the Pleiades, perhaps because of the mythology around them. The Pleiades are also known as “the seven sisters;” actually a cluster of hundreds of stars, there are seven generally visible to the naked eye. According to Greek myths, the titan Atlas and the sea-nymph Pleione had seven daughters who were nymphs, serving Artemis. “After Atlas was forced to carry the heavens on his shoulders, Orion began to pursue all of the Pleiades, and Zeus transformed them first into doves, and then into stars to comfort their father. The constellation of Orion is said to still pursue them across the night sky.” (from Wikipedia)

Photo by Jason Ware
This star cluster has captivated humans for millennia. A little internet research will turn up myths from every continent, each of them having some group of seven humans who for various reasons are transformed into stars.
In the Faerie Realm, the Pleiades are associated with the seven pointed Faerie Star (or Elven Star). According to Faerie lore, the seven pointed star is a gateway symbol, signifying the intersection between the human and Faerie realms. Three points on each side, perfectly matched, and a seventh point where the two worlds meet. This is the energetic structure that allows us to move between the worlds.
Knowing that nothing in the Faerie Realm is merely symbolic, I called on my favorite wisdom teachers from the Otherworld to help me understand the connection between the Faerie Star and the Pleiades. “I understand that the energy movement within a seven pointed star is the key for opening Faerie gateways but how do the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades, fit into this?”
“Meet me at the Fairy Circle tonight, before the moon rises,” I was told. “Wear your parka and bring a blanket. And bring chocolate.”
Fortunately, the weather report calls for clear skies tonight and I have a stash of chocolate. If I get any answers, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, do you have any thoughts about the relationship between the Pleiades and the Faerie Star? If you do, please share in “comments” below.
© Bridget Wolfe, 2013
For ideas for creating a Fairy-friendly environment in your life, please visit
http://www.fairywoodland.com/
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