Communion

She walks through the gateway into the forest.  Overhead the trees move, swaying to the caresse of the winds. She hears them whisper; talking softly to themselves of countless cycles of moon and stars.  Beneath, the ground is thick with green moss.  It spreads like a cloak, flung from the shoulders of dryads to fall in soft emeralds at her feet.  Here there is no time save that of the trees themselves, ancient and deep in their knowledge.  Each step takes her further from the hard bright human world, and into the embrace of the forest kin.  They call to her in day-dreams and sing to her at night:  

“Little sister, step lightly to us, we miss your shadow-dances. Join, once more, with us beneath the bough-halls of our realm”.

She longs to return to her kin, yet she was, this time, born in the thick human flesh of mortals, a mistake, a curse. No longer does the wave of her hand create light in the dark or the breath from her lips swell the winds among the hills.  Deeper into the hallowed halls of her kind she steps, searching, longing for a way to shed this skin of the hard, bright chrome world. 

Moonlight slants between branches, the air is sweet with the flowers scattered like blessings in the luminous pools where it falls. Placing a hand here, there, each trunk she passes holds the memories of a hundred years and more, moving with slow sap, keeping the secrets of this woodland world.  The feathered folk who dwell here call from the air, to their children who lie in their nests, lined with the hair of squirrel and soft rabbit. 

She raises her arms in the glade, eyes closing as she tilts back her head. With that smile on her face, she goes through the old steps. Slowly at first, for each time feels harder than the last as if learning the dance anew.  She plucks her long skirts where they trail the dark earth, and she dips and turns.  Here between the shade of the leaves and the moonbeams with their bright motes she dances.  Her hair streams out as she spins, laughing, whirling. Here is her communion. 

And soon between the arching giants, in glimpses of what might have been, she sees beyond the veil of human eyes, sees her kin. They are smiling shyly at her, softly, sadly, the sister they have lost. Yet wanting not to call her to them for fear of her bringing the mortal world too close they turn and slip away... sad in their ken that she is lost to them, but not for all time.

The colours and magick she weaves in her shadow-dance spin out, fine filaments, glitter and cobwebs between the trees, a weir between worlds. Her dances work a bridge between fae and mortal realms, sending love to her kin and their thoughts to her. Suddenly she stops, and falls, breathless, to the loam, she lies back and watches the branches criss-cross overhead, a frail and perfect lace against the velvet dark sky.  The smile stays on her lips, though, satisfied, replete.  She has felt her kin reach out and soothe her mind. She is not alone, never alone, and she is loved.

The Stolen Afternoon

At the beginning of the week, I had the great fortune to visit Doon Hill, with two fae-friends.  The day dawned bright and full of sunbeams and hope for a great day. The fae did not disappoint us.

Here, in my homage to W.B. Yeats' evocative poem, is what I hope, a true rendering of our experiences there - if only we could have stayed...

Where dwells the sacred pine tree

Near Aberfoyle’s auld Kirk

There rises up our Dun Sidhe,

Amid green shadows mirk

Of rowan, holly, ash.

There they walked upon the rath

Filled with hope that

They might soon behold our Seelie Court.

Come away, O mortal folk!

Here beneath the verdant oak

With your fellows, hand in hand

For we have an open portal, unto our summer land.

Where the spear-beam sunlight glistens

Along lofty wishes

We flitter as we listen

Bestowing our kisses

Upon those human brows upturn’d

In faces, smiling, glances

Here and there they seek,

To follow gauzy fleet wings

That are like to make their hearts sing

And right chirksome in its beat.

Come away, O mortal folk!

Here beneath the verdant oak

With your fellows, hand in hand

For we have an open portal, unto our summer land.

Where moss-clad stones lie gird around

By split-trunk ancient beth

With softest hushing sound

Breathe sweet nature’s breath

And with their humble offering

A commonwealth is wrought

For a span of their time

The world means nought

A balm to suffering

On Doon Hill sublime

Come away, O mortal folk!

Here beneath the verdant oak

With your fellows, hand in hand

For we have an open portal, unto our summer land.

Away with us they’re coming,

The cheerful Three

Through glades with fat bees humming

Lifted are their hearts, and free

With gladsome shout and joyous laugh

They step into our realm

Full here to dwell, their world flies past

And time does overwhelm.

And so remain these blessed folk!

Here beneath the verdant oak

With our fellows, hand in hand

For we had an open portal, into our summer land.

A Landdísir remembers...

We were not born. We were made.

Before the Age of Men and its wheels and chains and the weight of logic, we had no form.  We existed in the winds, rain and the warmth of the sun, dwelling in rock and tree and waterfall.  Present in all things, we were Landvættir.  Our light was the life of the earth and though hidden it was not unnoticed. They were thankful our lakes quenched their thirsts, our forests offered them game to hunt, that stones could shelter. Then mortals began to need us. Their petitions for aid in their fleeting lives were a plea we could not ignore – and thus we sealed our fate, changed by the needs of man. The power of thought, the magick of the mind!

We became Álfar.

Made into this word of man, this world of men, their belief shaped us anew, shifting our forms as they changed their minds as to what we were. The destruction was a creation.  Reified, the naming gave us substance.  In the minds and mouths of humans we were given flesh - clothed in their word-form. How strange they are with their need to name, but words hold power and once they spoke our new name aloud they held dominion over us.

Elf. 

Their voices called us forth from the tree in the wood, the flower on the tundra, the pool-stirring breeze. 

Fashioned from fen and forest, sedge and waterway.

Moulded from  mountain and cliff, valley and grove.

Shaped from sea and shore, fjord and pasture.

The pain this caused us was fleeting in mortal terms, though it is a wound we shall bear until the End Of All Things. 

So we stepped into the world, our immortal forms in the guise of our creators. From Álfheimr we slipped through doorways onto the mortals’ plane.  Out of the earth we came; out of darkness we brought our Light into Manheimr.   Our purpose changed too, no longer soothing the base sufferance of human existence, but a required finesse as humanity created wonders – art, music, song... our magick became theirs, born out of their connection with nature.


Humanity grew, and changed. And that which we had invested so much energy and love in could not be left to wither and fade.  Our brightness was both a gift to mortals and a curse to Elfkind and in time we became earthbound as with their craftsmanship came beautiful bonds.  The subtle chains of servitude.


Some Elves left, abandoning their kin and mankind - returning forever to Álfheimr, returning to dwell in tree and rock and pool. The rest of us stayed, hopeful we could exist in harmony, always attempting bring beauty and love, trying to share Elf-nature –bringing them out of themselves as they brought us into the world.   

No more could the brilliance of our Vril refresh and sustain the land, the water or the air.  Steel and steam, glass and greed, iron and anger - such is the stuff of human life now.  We could not inhabit these forms of matter, so our energies waned. 

And so began the debilitation of the earth and the necessity for repetition of our countless rebirths in mortal form.  Once we were nature, now we are a dying culture.  There is no longer a need for us, nor a belief in our kind.  Yet we still walk the earth clad in the thick meat of human bodies, our outer brightness burned away through the monotony of myriad mortal lives. We are still immortal though many of us have forgotten our true nature and dwell evanescent, content in their endless repetitions, caught in the same traps as the wights we first came to aid.

I hold onto the knowledge that our inner essence remains truly Light. And when I and the other Ljósálfr leave these bodies with this understanding, we shall return to Elfhome and exist once again as pure energy - sustaining, renewing, loving. Freed at last from this point in space and time, I shall be unfettered from these cycles of Doing, able to just Be... MysElf.