Suggested Activities
Practice
Dress with intent and awareness—it doesn’t need to be conspicuous. Make notes of how the different colours and styles affect your energy and what kind of attention or events you attract throughout the day.
Celebrate
Why not throw a fancy dress party for your friends with the four elements as a theme? You could also try preparing food and snacks with the elements and colours in mind!
Research
Find out if there are any Faery events or festivals within travelling distance, and make plans to attend. If not, do you feel ready to organise one yourself? Everyone starts somewhere, and you could bring great joy to others as well as yourself by spreading the awareness of Faery.
Create
Using a blank template (available from craft stores or online retailers), create a mask for the element that you feel the least connection with, putting thought into materials, colours, and techniques used. When it is finished, spend some time in contemplation of this element whilst wearing the mask, and see how your understanding expands. This should also help to bring valuable balance to your energies.
[contents]
chapter seven
Inspiration
“O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep…”
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Faeries have long been associated with inspiration, though whether they climb into our noses as we sleep (as the great bard describes in the quote above) is debatable! Inspiration is the quality we gain from the south and the element of fire, but it may be found all around us, from the most epic landscape to the tiniest blade of grass. We should also never underestimate the power that we all have to inspire each other, and for this reason we should never be shy of creative undertakings, for though there will always be those whose will is to detract from our achievements, there will equally be those who are inspired by our own will to act on creative impulse.
This chapter is intended to help you find the sustenance of inspiration upon your path. There are many inspirational voices within the Faery community, and all offer their own perspectives, some of which will no doubt resonate on a personal level more than others, but all of which have something to offer. Walking a spiritual or magickal path can seem isolating at times, especially when those around us do not share our views, experiences, and beliefs. This is why in Faery Craft it is so valuable to know that there is a rich and varied community out there, full of creative, intelligent, and open people who share their gifts and teachings of inspiration with the world. You are not alone.
Faery Paths, Traditions, and Groups
Faery Craft does not require traditional initiation or membership in any group or religion, nor does it preclude such membership, as it can become part of any path that is wide enough to allow our Faery allies to walk by our side. Naturally, a number of groups and traditions have formed over the years that have particular connection to Faery, so we shall look some of the more prominent and intriguing ones here.
The Faery Tradition and R. J. Stewart
There is strong vein of Faery lore and practices that until modern times was passed down orally through tales and folklore. Although the oral tradition has all but faded into the mists, there are resources and teachers who can point the way to not only reclaiming the hidden wisdom inherent in the lore but finding the living and evolving tradition within it that is just as relevant now, if not more so, than it was to our ancestors. One of the most respected teachers of this tradition is the Scottish author, esotericist, and musician R. J. Stewart. He currently has forty books in publication and dedicates a great deal of time and energy to teaching magickal arts and Faery tradition to groups both in the United States and Europe. I was lucky enough to be able to visit him in his home in Glastonbury, England, and gain insight into his perspective and experience of the Faery realm.
Was there an experience that stands out in your mind as being your first truly otherworldly experience with the Faery realm or like an initiatory experience that came from them as opposed to from other people?
Well, there’s several. I had lots of experiences on sacred sites in Britain, really from the early 1970s onwards, and then around 1980 I visited Robert Kirk’s Faery hill in Scotland, and as a result of my experiences there I produced a new edition of his famous book The Secret Commonwealth, which is about Scottish Faery tradition, and I wrote a commentary on it. You know, I had a lot of spiritual experiences when I was at Kirk’s Faery hill, as have many other people. It is a powerful place.
Are there any that you can talk about, or is it all very secret?
Well, that’s more difficult. What happens with the Faery traditions is the more willing people are to talk about it, the less they’ve experienced, and the less willing they are to talk about it, the more they’ve experienced, which makes it very difficult. You find the same thing hidden within the interviews noted by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, the famous scholar who wrote The Faery-Faith in Celtic Countries. He didn’t speak Irish and he went round interviewing the Irish grandmothers and grandfathers and country people generally, and often he had to go with the local Catholic priest, so he’s not going to get proper answers to his questions. He’d ask them, “Did you ever see fairies?” and they’d say, “No, never
