The Faeries

(a found poem from “Faery Tale: One Woman’s Search for Enchantment,” by Signe Pike) 

I really don’t believe in faeries;

because we are battered by adulthood

            taxes – loss -laundry –

            nine to five – deceit and distrust –

            by the crushing desire to be

                        thin – wealthy – successful –

                        popular – happy – in love

walking on a planet disintegrating around us,

the world is falling apart, and outside

            the playground is splintered and dark.

Where can we go to feel the things we need to feel,

            the soothing balm of faith, loved, safe,

            happy? What about hopeful?

What has happened to the magic we were surrounded by

as children, a little boy or girl, inside every man or woman,

who still loves popcorn, still afraid of monsters under the bed,

still believes that fairy tales really do come true? The loss

of our magic, a worst sort of emotional deforestation,

forgetting, perhaps, what our forest ever looked like.

What are we here for,

            If not to live our own fairy tales?

 

We seem to have abandoned the faeries, relegated them

to the nursery, science turning an ancient belief

into a superstition; they are spiritual beings, faeries,

in a spiritual realm, standing and waiting in a reflective vigil,

have waited so long, trying to reestablish contact. Together,

we can heal the planet, sick now and in need of lots

of healing – the faeries can help us to do that: step, now,

into the faery realm, reclaim a small piece of yourself,

see a faery with your heart and mind as well as your eyes.

That’s where the real magic lies, learning to trust. In Scotland,

people remember where they came from – we do not –

from the earth, composed from its elements; something

about Scotland, a faery realm, that allows us to truly feel

the land, and the force of it all can bring tears to our eyes

            - everything speaks, if we can only learn how to listen;

            - if only we can make the faeries believe in us once more.

The faeries sweep into our lives if we only invite them,

to show us how

            to live better, love better, treat our planet better.

            teach us natural ways to heal, and maybe,

                        help us come to a better understanding

                        of what our bodies truly need.

They are the Necromancers of the spirit world, to show us

            how to honor our magic, our myths, our legends.

In keeping all these things alive, we are all a part of the faery faith.

 

But how, how can we expect to see and experience a faery kingdom

            until we have come alive enough to notice

            and be grateful for the beauty of our own?

Everything has life and soul – have a relationship with everything,

now, in a precise, individual way, reengagement with the world,

reengagement with the minutia of the world – and you do, and you will,

genuinely touch faery land. Make a figure, draw, paint, fashion it,

imbued by its own personality, for it has helped you to make it;

it wants to be brought into our very human world, some interaction

or relationship that needs to take place between you and the being

that wants to inhabit it, humans a conduit to create something.

Stare into its eyes, eyes so incredibly individual, so incredibly real,

Something long forgotten gazing into the eyes of a real, live faery,

a reality reengaging you on a deep level to what that world, that Faery

Place, is really like; when you come back, you’ll experience your own

world in a much more open and connective way.

 

Within our imagination lies the key to accessing even the most

distant of worlds, the faery realm, the good people, a middle nature

betwixt man and angel, intelligent, studious spirits and light,

changeable bodies trying to reestablish contact, to heal the land,

to help us remember where we came from, from Earth, composed

from its elements, the only thing that can truly sustain us:

            to heal us once again, restore our magic,

                        feeling the things we need to feel,

                                    free to live our own fairy tales.