“One day when you wake up, you will find that you have become a forest.”
Here is my autumn vlog offering about powerful personal transformation induced through simple walks and experiences in the forest. I was inspired by the splendor of the forest colors this year and the following poem forwarded to me by several friends. It is an affirmation about how far we have come and a humble love offering.
You Have Become a Forest
“One day when you wake up, you will find that you have become a forest. You have grown roots and found strength in them that no one thought you had. You have become stronger and more beautiful, full of life giving qualities. You have learned to take all the negativity around you and turn it into oxygen for easy breathing. A host of wild creatures live inside you and you call them stories. A variety of beautiful birds rest inside your mind and you call them memories. You have become an incredible self sustaining thing of epic proportions. And you should be so proud of yourself, of how far you have come from the seeds of who you used to be.” By Nikita Gill Music: Deluge – Cellophane Sam Surreal Forest – Meydän Clouds – Alan Špiljak You have grown roots and found strength in them that no one thought you had. You have become stronger and more beautiful, full of life giving qualities. You have learned to take all the negativity around you and turn it into oxygen for easy breathing. A host of wild creatures live inside you and you call them stories. A variety of beautiful birds rest inside your mind and you call them memories. You have become an incredible self sustaining thing of epic proportions. And you should be so proud of yourself, of how far you have come from the seeds of who you used to be.”
I slip into a green gown and visit a field to honor the last green days before the Autumn Equinox and I realize I have done this before. As an ancestor? In another lifetime? And I’m doing this again in this lifetime. Or rather, I am doing it simultaneously. It is happening now.
Everything is happening all at once. Yes, let’s go with this. The reason why time appears to be passing in a linear fashion is merely our perception.
Let’s shift our perception.
I slip into a green gown and visit a field to honor the last green days before the Autumn Equinox and I realize I have done this before. As an ancestor? In another lifetime? And I’m doing this again in this lifetime, as me. Or rather, I am doing it simultaneously. It is happening now.
Later, as I am writing this, it is still happening!
I am the I that finds the goddess in the earth in the old ways of the Slavs. I dance with her in timeless connection in a sacred grove of trees. I know the goddesses and gods I honor grow with me and that we are strengthened together. So I choose whom I honor wisely, according to my heart’s desire. When I honor them, I honor my heart. Wholeheartedly.
I stand in wonder. The wondrous I that I am. I. Am.
The sacred grove stands ready. So am I.
Kind Reader – Thank you for visiting! AGAIN!
(Cause this already happened, or is still happening, or…)
So excited to share this video I collaboratively created with my dear friend Victoria Petroff of Breath and Ground!
As Vickie notes, despite the content we are consistently exposed to, it is a magical and beautiful world. Our darkest moments present the brightest opportunities for our deepest transformation.
We hope you share in our humble love of nature’s gifts.
Please like, subscribe, and share hope and beauty!
Sometimes a scent (always natural) like forest, or meadow flowers, will remind me of a time when I smelled those scents (scent memory) and dreamed a longing dream to be transported by the scent, which I know in my deepest knowing is an indication of Genius Loci, to a magickal realm. The familiarity of the scent reawakens and intensifies my longing. My heart starts beating faster. I’ve got rainbow toes dipping into that other realm. I can absolutely feel the veil thinning. I’m slipping in. Like a dream within a dream, or a scent within a scent, or a longing within a longing…
Does scent transport you?
As in… time travel… lucid dreams… astral journeys…. space travel…
The other night I thought I would lucid dream myself to Prague. (Since overseas travel is on pause.) Whilst there I’d also time travel to a long ago time in that Golden City. Let’s say Medieval period or before. And in this long ago time in the most magical of all cities I’d find a portal to an ancient Pagan Magickal Faerie Land where humans and faeries still mingle. The veil would fall away. There I’d marvel, dance, (not eat anything – NEVER eat anything in Faerieland), feel joy, sprout wings and who knows what else.
So I doused myself in my psychic travel perfume, Liminal, and gave it a go. Liminal is a Perfume in Oil I composed to wear at bedtime for dreaming, piercing the veil, or when I want to connect with Faerie. It is an ethereal yet earthy blend featuring Mugwort known for it’s link to faerie.
Photographer Unknown
For starters, I popped into the little medieval inn I visited more than a decade ago with my son and parents. It’s tucked to the right of the bridge in the picture above. You can just make out the roof tiles. Looking out the attic window we saw the statues looming on the bridge. An extraordinary and magical inn. The memory was so very bittersweet – we were all youngish and vital, my father was passionately researching our Czech heritage, my son just a playful lad, and my mom all laughter and care – that I wound up in tears (but they were sweet tears). And was back in my body lickety split with some wicked insomnia.
I’ll have to experiment with Prague again. Maybe I’ll wind up here where the breezes smell of creamy iris (orris) and pink roses.
Claude Monet
Olfaction is so often linked with memory. Scent memory can evoke recollections of a person, place, or time. Smell jasmine and think of your first lover, etc. An utterly endearing quality of our olfactory sense.
Yet, as a perfumer my inspiration for composing a fragrance is frequently a fantastical place I long to visit. Places not experienced on this side of the veil. Places of the imaginal. Some of these places are captured and now shared in a collective psyche in story form, for example, Tolkein’s Rivendell, and from Neil Gaiman’s, Stardust and the Faerie market outside the Village of Wall. What would these places smell like? Can we go there and experience, please? It’s as though if the scent exists, the place exists, and we can indeed visit.
The Faerie Market from Stardust, by Charles Vess
Rivendell from The Lord Of The Rings, By J. R. R. Tolkein
In The Brimstone Deceit, author Joshua Cutchin, explores the many accounts of supernatural scents and otherworldly odors. Stories of scents lingering in the air after Faerie or Sasquatch encounters, Blessed Virgin Mary and saint visions, and alien abductions. So, scent and “creatures.”
Then how about scent and Genius Loci? Genius Loci, is a deity or spirit of a place. It makes perfect scents (sorry, couldn’t resist) that the spirit of a place would have their “signature scent” just like Sasquatch (surfer, urine, skunk) or the Blessed Virgin Mary (roses, violets), right?
Daybreak by Maxfield Parish
(How would THIS ethereal place smell???)
And here’s where it gets complex and super fascinating for a scent geek and psychic travel enthusiast like me.
Sometimes a scent (always natural) like forest, or meadow flowers, will remind me of a time when I smelled those scents (scent memory) and dreamed a longing dream to be transported by the scent, which I know in my deepest knowing is an indication of Genius Loci, to a magickal realm. The familiarity of the scent reawakens and intensifies my longing. My heart starts beating faster. I’ve got rainbow toes dipping into that other realm. I can absolutely feel the veil thinning. I’m slipping in. Like a dream within a dream, or a scent within a scent, or a longing within a longing…
That’s when I hit the Imaginarium, sit down at the perfumer’s bench, and start blending.
Stay tuned for the ‘any second now’ launch of my Perfume in Oil line with transportive perfume compositions – Stardust, Sweet Rivendell, Liminal, and more. Some of the fragrances are from my shop with fresh new labels and bottles. Others have appeared only at live events in the past. And a few new ones are debuting! The fragrances are all natural and created with love and harbor the mysterious ability to evoke positive feelings and journeys into harmonic states of being.
Sweetie The Unicorn With The Yellow Faerie from The Maryland Faerie Festival, Photo by David Fimbres
From the Performance Piece, Slavas Snow ShowDaughters of the Night, by Lajos GulacsyFrom Le Moulin Jaune in France, Unknown Photographer
(in defense of faeries)
In the crisp, quiet snow, through the sleeping woods we quest. The forest, at once muted and subtle, is laid bare with winter. The naked skeletons of trees impose themselves through the softness of white drifts. The trees relieved of their autumnal frippery are akin to deep soul-urges exposed.
(in defense of faeries)
Queen Mab
In the crisp, quiet snow, through the sleeping woods we quest. The forest, at once muted and subtle, is laid bare with winter. The naked skeletons of trees impose themselves through the softness of white drifts. The trees relieved of their autumnal frippery are akin to deep soul-urges exposed.
We seek the Winter Faerie Queene, Queen Mab, my Fae companion and I.
For the Winter Queen is queen of sleep and deep dreaming. She delivers us to new imaginings. Daring us to dream our dreams and intoxicate ourselves in crystalline brilliance no matter the chill on our fingers and nose.
So we hasten on. After all, is this not what forest snow is for? To lull and snap us to the feet of the magnificent Queen of the Winter Court. To imagine and create.
Is it not the river of life?
What?
What of her, this Queen Mab?
Shakespeare provides us this, “she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman.”
But is she really so petite? I’ll wager it’s an expression of endearment, like “Little John,” the ironic name given Robin Hood’s 7-foot tall warrior. Because Queen Mab, Queen of Winter, and of sleep and dreams, is massively powerful.
She is our SUPERPOWER. She is yourimagination.
Imagination
How often have we heard the following?
“It’s just your imagination.”
“That’s just fantasy.”
“You’re just daydreaming again!”
“Just.” A single, insidious word making fantasy and imagination diminutive, rendering it powerless. Thus (and here is the true belittling of Queen Mab) we set aside living creatively. We set aside our power to create.
“Step in line! Beware the siren’s voice inside of you! Shove away those dreams you hold dear.”
But the seeds sleeping in the depths of winter, preparing to bust out a move in the spring, are like your dreams and imaginings. And the Imaginal Realm is where you nurture those seed dreams.
And EVERYTHING comes from a dream, a feeling, a thought, and then an action.
Why do you think “they” try to steer us from it? (Yes, I’m a rebel.)
So as the light returns with the winter solstice and your dreams start to stir and bud, get yourself over to the Imaginal Realm and curtsy long and deep to the Queen. The intoxicating Queen Mab, your superpower – imagination. For she is in YOU. She is a part of YOU. SHE IS YOU.
Deep Knowledge
But why am I telling you this? You know it all already. Enjoy!
Please let me explain. In my world under the waves, it is no ones place to forgive or judge. Merfolk simply feel and be. But now there is a bit of the human in me, through my lover, and from this human place inside of me, I offer this confession.
So, you see, under the waves there is always music. A continuous, wordless, soundpoem – not merely heard, no. The song of the seas resonates in your body. You feel the song reverberate ceaselessly in the halls and chambers of our iridescent palaces. It is a world of feeling, of emotion, and sensation. And there, in this song, you ‘know’ all manner of beings. Yes, there are fishes, octopi, and other water creatures. But also befriended are pearlescent orbs floating gently amongst quick whipping goldersnaps. We are all part of this song.
As a young undine I first visited the world of sun and air, and there, above the waves, for the first time, I smelled. Rank and fetid with salty seaweed and fresh breeze mingled with the subtle, sweet, aroma of blossoms. Momentarily, my throat choked and body racked in spasms for the intensity. In less than a moment I was seduced and overcome with its inherent pleasure. I wanted to devour the smells. Ever after, under the waves, I knew lust.
Forgive me for I did not mean to lure my human lover under the waves with me. It was this song emanating from my beingness, this ever-present melody of the depths. My lips, so, you see, they sing mellifluent without my knowledge or intention. I only wanted to visit the world of sun and air for the briefest of time. For a sniff. Or two. And so it was that he heard my song and could not resist. He became mine to know.
Forgive me for I also did not mean to love him so. It was the scent of the sea in his curly locks and his skin smelling sweetly of Jasmine and mint that drew me. The faint earthy, musky aromas lingering in places on his body (I blush to mention) from his time on solid land, when not a sailor, that bound me to him. I became insatiable.
Now as one, under the waves he basks in my song and I in his scent. For when I wrap him in my tail and pull at his hair, and we undulate in the waves, I can once again devour his scent and he my song.
I know, so many questions! How does he breathe down there? How long have we been under the waves in our union? And just how do undines make love, hmmmm?
Ah, but I have made my confessions and thus feel absolved. These are revelations for another time.
Dear Reader, can you imagine smelling for the very first time? Wouldn’t you fall in love too?
When you look into the woods at night or dusk. And you can feel the mystery. The wonder of it. Alchemistic renderings of earth and spirit, your transcendence is a gossamer thread away…
From the edge of the dance floor at the Masquerade Ball, Missy’s ears prick up, “It’s Missy! I know that dog! She’s a dog worth petting again!” Missy’s first visit to the New York Faerie Festival, or any festival, and she’s made friends with faeries, trolls, goblins & wizards within the realm of the fae.
Missy strikes a pose in the Walk of Frame
And what a festival! Abundant enchantment; music & dancing all day…
Downloading faerie tunes through his antlers
Dancing to the beat of the troll drum jam
Don’t you love a faerie queen who dances with her subjects?
Troll limbo
Steampunk hippie faerie jig
Magical creatures of all varieties… (Missy’s new friends)
We love everything about her
The Faerie Court
Glitterati Faeries
Rainbow Gladheart
Mother Crane the poetry giving faerie. My poem? Tree House by Shel Silverstein
Tree House
A tree house, a free house.
A secret you and me house,
A high up in the leafy branches
Cozy as can be house.
A street house, a neat house
Be sure and wipe your feet house
Is not my kind of house at all-
Let's go live in a tree house.
~Shel Silverstein
This little woodsprite moments before lavishing Missy with the pets.
Faerie of the Never Ending Smile.
Grandmother Tree graces the Queene’s throne in The Faerie’s Garden in the Queene’s absence and lends an ear to wonderments.
Sacred Drum Master of Events, Ken from Eyeclopedes (for all your drumming needs) with a Powerful Elven Enchantress
Perchance of the Goblin persuasion?
An odd creature who trades and sells an even odder assortment of thing-a-ma-bobs. I ask him, can I take his picture? His curt reply “Can I take the color of your eyes?” Considering my answer carefully (faeries can be dangerous) I notice we have the same eye color. I tell him so and we look into each others eyes for an unusually odd and long moment.
Gregarious juggler Trinket (Lisa) of Tinket’s Costume and Sundry. Lisa can help you create a costume out of recycles, vintage, and whatnots! Really helpful, especially if you are just starting out.
Lisa’s Fae Finery Detail
Oz-like…
Missy is particularly enchanted with the joust and horses, ‘scuse me, unicorns.
When not getting petted, Missy let me visit some of the many lovely vendors. Just a sampling…
Do you know this feeling?
When you look into the woods at night or dusk. And you can feel the mystery. The wonder of it.
What. Is. Going. On. In. There?
Magnetized towards the pulsation of the ancient virtues. Heart quickening. You know something is going on in there! Alchemistic renderings of earth and spirit, your transcendence is a gossamer thread away…
It’s on the other side of the Troll’s Bridge (no duh), the Faerie Habitat. An enchanted sphere of the Festival grounds. Dryads, Mermaids, Faeries… Charm spinning and spirit gifting…
Linger in the Habitat to connect and transcend.
But first you must get past the trolls. And, be warned. There is a troll toll. They demand, in the friendliest of ways, “shinys” (really anything that is shiny), or a joke, or you may choose to get mud tattooed.
“Turkey in a tree”
Missy is not so sure of the trolls. Mayhap because they refer to her as a goat.
“Can we eat the goat?”
“grrrh”
But the charm of the Trolls wins Missy over.
Four Tusk
One Tusk
In the end Missy passes in to the Faerie Habitat. Her mysterious encounters there will remain mysteriously hers.
But wait, Goblins!
Goblin Mistress
Gandersnitch the Goblin is a revelation. Despite the assurance that he is a reformed Goblin, poetic and wise, I’m wary. But he turns out to be a kindly inspiration.
Gandersnitch is indeed poetic and wise. I’m reading and loving his perfectly inappropriately refreshing and highly entertaining book now.
Inscribed “Be quick, be clever, be wild.” It’s on Amazon, who knew? To get it, click here.
He also has a lovely card game and takes confessions.
Gandersnitch hypnotizing Missy.
As for me, the festival was my sublime medicine. I am sincerely grateful. Thank you.
Surrounded by the singing of the spirit of the wild self, I am mended. Thank you. I soak up kindness, wildness, and joy from the festival creatures. Thank you. The dear souls near my tent who chat with me and help me set up and dance with me at the ball. Thank you. The sparkling eyes and filthy-glittered dancing bodies. Prose and laughter spilling from mouths like honeyed nectar. And the collective feeling that life is indeed something to be lived and played with. The outward reflection that we are all of us beautiful and magical. Thank you.
It brings me back to myself. Ah yes, hello to my beautiful, magical me. So nice to glow you again.
The New York Faerie Festival is a three-day affair just completing it’s 7th year. It is out in the boonies of New York, tucked in a valley near a river. Parts of the Festival grounds are in shady woods, and parts bright sun.
Primitive (Port-O-Let) but happy camping is available on the premises. Two yummy dinners are included, with options for meat eaters and vegetarians. There is a simple breakfast hosted at the local firehouse for a small fee/donation. There are some other campgrounds and motels nearby.
There is so much going on at this festival! I barely touched on it here. Fantastic music and performances on multiple stages, outstanding vendors, jousting, tons of street characters who interact with the festival goers, some food trucks, and little spaces throughout the grounds to hang out and play or dream. The Masquerade Ball on Saturday night is not to be missed!
Wear a costume.
Bring cash, always appreciated and it was hard to get a signal to use the Square reader.
Also, read the email communications you receive from the Festival carefully, for if you camp there are specific arrival times.
Hope to see you there in 2017!
Missy and me
View from our tent
View from our car
If you want more festival blogs, I have several. Here they be:
Can you feel it? The pulsation of energy and expansion. Summer is a time of unfurling and ripening, an outward – yang season. A genial time for delighting in the company of others and for self-expression.
Lime Blossom
victorian ladies gone fae! This reminds me of a circus contortion blog – click here to read it!
unicorn mug!
To connect with this genial and expansive energy, find some time to honor your connection with the sun and the start of summer. Be quietly with yourself and wildly with others. Or wildly with yourself and quietly with others!
Summer Solstice has become quite the holiday, as in days of yore, so most of us are aware it is the official kick-off of summer. It’s also a day when the veil between the faerie and mortal world is thin and contact can be made. Hence for me, reading the faerie cards is a must…
I also like to leave gifts for the fae; nuts, cheese, honey, whiskey… They flutter about and absorb the essences.
Meditation and Faerie journeys are wonderful to get into the faerie summer spirit.
Here’s a faerie journey/meditation…
To start, you may like to use scent and aromas. Jasmine is a beautiful transportive scent. I’ll be using my DuskBlossom Perfume.
And I’ve been playing with essential oil of Mugwort lately. Honestly, it does not smell so yummy, but is reportedly great for accessing the faerie and astral worlds. You may use these by applying to wrists and hands or temples. If you are pregnant you should avoid Mugwort.
(MUGWORT SHOULD NOT BE USED BY PREGNANT WOMEN!)
Next, take a moment to center yourself and breathe deeply. Close your eyes. Feel yourself connected to the earth and simply feel your body from within. Try not to judge, just let yourself be and observe.
In your mind’s eye, picture yourself in a sunny meadow filled with flowers. The sun is high in the sky. As you are enjoying the warmth of the sun you see at the edge of the meadow a white deer, stag, or unicorn.
Slowly approach it and see if it is friendly towards you. Perhaps it will let you gently stroke it’s neck. Perhaps it will let you climb up on it’s back.
If it does not seem like a good choice to climb up. Just enjoy your visit, thank the creature, and go back to your meadow and sit and feel the effects of the visit.
If you are able to do be on the back of the creature. Let it take you for a ride. Observe what you see and feel.
When the ride is complete, go back to your flowery meadow.
Contemplate what was revealed to you.
Here’s where we use the sun. Allow the bright brilliant light of the sun to illuminate anything you felt, saw, or thought. You do not even need to understand intellectually. Just let it be filled with sunlight.
Enjoy this sensation.
When you feel complete, stretch and yawn, allow yourself to awaken,refreshed and energized by the sun.
Finally, pet your dog, even though she has barked throughout your meditation and stepped all over your faerie card spread.
The wee faerie houses themselves seemed to whisper, “open the door, open your heart, open to mystery, magic, the fae arts.”
Sprawled under the hydrangea bushes. Late spring only, but the heat says otherwise, sayin’ summer already. There is Lulu, reflecting momentarily on the turn of event. The event? Gettin’ with your gnomies… At the Maryland Faerie Festival.
Thoughts and images flood… Remembrances… Treasures…
First, to commune with the faeries tenting is key… For in the tent you hear the faerie wild rites surging and glittery faerie glam seeps through the zippy fabric into dreams.
New Gnome
But who could sleep with all this ruckus? And the music, sometimes eerie sometimes tribal, always magic.
Delicate Gnome Village of Seaglass
It was at the drum circle that the Faerie Festival Queen announced that a gnome was missing.
Let The Wild Rumpus Start!
Despite the late night, at dawn Lulu is up and Unicorn-led. Onwards through a sparkle chandelier lit crystal curtain to a village of wee fae homes inhabited by kindly faeries. Going where??? In search of what??? The stolen Gnome???
Sweet Stardust the Unicorn and his yellow fae, Rawbin.
Pixie the Faerie Goat
Chandelier of the Seelie Court
Enter the Faire
The wee faerie houses themselves seemed to whisper, “open the door, open your heart, open to mystery, magic, the fae arts.”
Eyes closed, ya’ know, Lulu wears her hat and plays the flute. Magical notes play. The melody like rivulets streaming sing. Stardust the Unicorn hears and heeds the calling thus whisks her to a flowery meadow. Sliding off his back she encounters the tree. Now so small she opens the wee tree door and slips in and down the very roots of the tree where her special gnomies wait for her in a crystal hall. Vessels of sweet ambrosia and faerie cakes await (but she knows better than to eat any faerie food, ya’ know). The fireplace crackles with delight. The gnomes whisper strange words that both sooth and astound. And Lulu just knows, ya’ know, just knows to sit and soak it all in…
The Maryland Faerie Festival is an annual weekend long event. I highly recommend this Festival! Here is a blog I wrote about the Festival last year when I was quite new to blogging – Maryland Faerie Festival 2015
Thank you so much, dear reader, for experiencing this blog. Will you attend any festivals this year?
Today, on Beltane, I send you wishes for virility, fertility, and joy in the pulse of spring and life. May all your seeds blossom and find glorious expression on this verdant earth!
Happy May Day!
Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair :
Fear not ; the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you
~Robert Herrick, “Corinna’s Going A-Maying”
Today, on Beltane, I send you wishes for virility, fertility, and joy in the pulse of spring and life. May all your seeds blossom and find glorious expression on this verdant earth!
Beltane or Celtic May Day begins at moonrise on May eve. Bonfires were lit, and hand-fastings (pagan marriages) were traditionally made. Fertility was celebrated by dancing round the Maypole, a phallus symbol representing the male God. The colorful ribbons and flowers on the Maypole symbolize the Goddess. Hence the Maypole dance is a sensual celebration of the union of Goddess and God. Parties could get pretty wild.
By Pieter the Elder Brueghel, the Elder, 1590
It is also a time when Fae presence is near to mortals. Falling asleep under a Hawthorn on May eve will result in the faeries whisking you away. I should like to try this! Robin Goodfellow is often associated with May Day. Half man and half goat he was noted for his mischievous pranks AND the seduction of mortal maidens.
Would you party with this man?
He looks pretty safe…
Green is the color of spring, fertility, and healing. Here is a little magic, earth-centered meditation you can do:
If you have an inspiring natural scent, put some on! I like the verdant faerie perfume DuskBlossom for this meditation.
Sit or lie quietly. Take some deep breaths and check in with your physical body and note how it feels. Just observe. Then take a few more deep breaths and allow any tension to dissolve.
If you are not out in nature imagine in your mind’s eye, that you are in a beautiful meadow. Feel the pulse of the earth, hear the birds singing, note lovely, earthy smells.
Then let your breathing slow. As you inhale imagine/feel the verdant energy of the earth and breath in its green energy and color. As you exhale, breathe out gold. You are an alchemist! Take several more breaths like this. Then move on and imagine green energy absorbing into every cell in your body and the bubble of space around you, your aura. Again, as you exhale, gold emits from every cell and your aura.
Linger like this as long as you please. When you are finished, thank the earth and open yours eyes. Stretch.
Tonight I’ll wear some DuskBlossom and do a Beltane card reading…
