Fairies and Earth Changes

Spring’s here – where are the Fairies?

The Fairies are confused. (Some people who hang out with these ephemeral creatures on a regular basis might comment that this is not unusual but those of us who don’t want keys to disappear or milk to go sour would never dare voice such an opinion.)

Blossom in Snow

We first noticed the chaotic energy after the record snowfall the night of March 12.  We occasionally get a light dusting on the Oregon Central Coast in Winter – maybe even enough to cover the emerald grass. Six inches in March?! Unheard of. And it was wet snow – so heavy that the night rang with branches virtually exploding off the trees with the weight of the snow.  These same trees regularly waltz with 80 mph Winter winds but, confronted with alien circumstances, they were unable to cope. Power was out for two days, phones (even cell) and internet, longer. Oh, and the cats were really annoyed.

We did our best to rescue forsythia, honeysuckle, and other bushes from the frozen white blanket that had pinned them to the ground, dragged fir branches out of the driveway, brought in fire wood, hauled camping gear up from the studio, and drove into town where friends had power and internet. It felt like we were driving through a disaster zone – power lines lying everywhere, the downed trees that had snapped them littering the side of the road.

In the next days, after the rains returned and melted the snow, we ventured out on our land to assess damage and see how the Faerie Realm had fared. We found broken tree limbs, flattened blackberry thickets, and jumbles of Elderberry and huckleberry leaning into each other but most of our green-world friends in the forest seemed OK. Through the muttered confusion of bushes and branches trying to right themselves, we sought the steady voices of trees and found only eerie silence. Usually the trees talk to us; fir branches whisper, alders chatter, and spruce hums through the earth. “Time to talk to the Fairies,” we thought but each gateway we approached was blocked or closed. Have you ever come home, expecting to find your family, and discovered your voice echoing through empty rooms? It felt a little like that.

The next few days were dismal. No Fairies appeared when we dug in the garden between rain showers, no voices whispered inspiration to my fingers on the keyboard and, worst of all, no bell-like songs graced our Spring Equinox rituals. The chocolate we left for them went untouched. What is usually a celebration of  balance between light and dark, revelry with the spirits of nature to honor the wondrous explosion of new life, was instead a time of disconnection and confusion. We felt distant whispers of Faerie lingering deep in the trees but direct communication channels were firmly closed.

The mystery consumed me. After two more days of approaching locked gateways, I parked myself at the Fairy Circle, druid bell in hand, and waited. I coaxed Fairy sounds from the bell, sang songs I knew they liked and listened. And waited. And waited some more. Soft and fragrant as a rose petal, something brushed my cheek and I opened my inner ear as wide as I could. “Meet us at the inner gateway tomorrow” a tiny voice sighed.

“Tomorrow” was, of course, a rain day. I slogged to the appointed place in rubber boots and slicker to find the path miraculously cleared. I performed the short ritual, spoke the secret words and stepped through the gateway. It was like walking into a beehive; Fairy voices hummed all around me, settled in my hair, on my shoulders. “I missed you on the Equinox, my friends,” I ventured cautiously, hoping the casual statement would begin the discussion. (Asking direct questions like “Where the hell have you been?!” is about as effective as trying to pull a blackberry vine out with your bare hands.)

It worked. “We went away!” “Visited Summer!” “Helped others!” sang small voices, tumbling over each other like stones in a spring flowing stream. Through the bedlam, I managed to piece together the story. I knew that, after our inundation from snow, much of the rest of the US had been caught in days of record-setting heat but I hadn’t been mindful of what that meant for the Fairies. It seems that trees and other plants in the unusually hot areas had begun budding and blooming before their time and the local Nature Spirits were unable to cope. Like our power company had done to help fix all the downed wires, the Fairies called for additional crews and our clan responded.

Fairy Elder Light That Listens

Once the stories of the buzzing young ones subsided, Light That Listens, an Elder of our Fairy clan, honored me with her presence. “We need to talk,” she said. Images of broken trees on our land flashed like a slide show in my mind with pictures of flooded towns, houses ripped apart by tornadoes, shriveled crops baking in fields. She pointed just above my head where leaves tiny as mouse ears burst from an Alder branch. “Not all of the Earth Mother’s children will survive in the changes ahead,” she said sadly. “We will do what we can to help. What we don’t know is whether your species will find a way to endure. We worry.” Her image faded into the mist of the rain, her voice into the wind.

Water dripped from the hood of my jacket, off the tip of my nose, and from the mouse-ear leaves above me. The Fairies were gone, the space around me filled with normal forest-in-the-rain sounds.  I stepped back through the gateway, closed it behind me, and pointed my soggy self towards the warmth of home, pausing every few steps to marvel at new growth and opening buds.

I know Light That Listens will call me again, that the talks will continue, but the lesson from this meeting has been planted. It’s not the Fairies who were confused – it’s all of Nature. The changes in climate that were predicted are no longer in the future – they’re here. Those of us who have tried to live in harmony with the Earth will now have to learn to live in harmony with the changes as well, even as we continue the struggle to stop the cause. The Fairies have always been our allies – can we finally become theirs? The Earth Mother needs us all to weather the coming storms.

–Bridget Wolfe
Text and images © Fairy Woodland 2012

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