Our frontiers are made of mists and dreams and tender waters: thresholds are crossed from time to time.
I love my deck. If, Goddess forbid, there were fire or flood, landslide or hurricane, it is one of the first things I would grab to keep and to carry. It is not a personal possession to protect, but a sacred one. It is imbued with my heartfelt adoration of Faerie, and with the deep magick of Home. Whenever I think of it, whenever I touch it, I return there. Not just to my childhood, or even to Mother, but to my first Home, and my last. I am Faerie. This has been my personal Truth for all my life.
I say it, when really I should say them. For there are denizens within my deck, just as there are denizens within my soul, and they are the same People. My People. My magickal name is Faemore, because Faerie is my namesake. My magickal name is Faemore, because I am an ambassador of Faerie. However, I am not the only one. The creator of my Oracle, Brian Froud, is another, so is his wife Wendy, and so is their son Toby too. Other ambassadors of Faerie are Ted Andrews and Jessica Macbeth.
All Faeries appear at the threshold of what is and what is to be.
When I explore the worlds of their works for a deeper relationship to my own inner knowing it is an incredible experience. It strengthens my bond to Faerie manifold. It is serendipitous and synergetic and surreal, the way Brian knows the landscape of my soul. If you have ever had the tremendous honour of viewing his artwork, believe me when I say it looks exactly like that in here. His art aids in parting the veil and clarifying the vision, but above all it is a mirror reflecting the Faerie within. His creations are keys.
With a key you can open the duirwaigh. With a key you can shift consciousness. With my Faeries’ Oracle I can access my Faerie consciousness. And the more I divine with my deck, the more second nature my true nature becomes. The cards are not simply stunning symbols and exquisite imagery. They are unearthly and ethereal, eerie and eldritch. True to faerie form. They connect me to my otherworldly self, that aspect of me which is not human, but something far more feral and fierce, boundless and free.
Keep your eyes and your heart wide open. Only thus is Faerie revealed.
Through their breath-taking beauty and meaningful messages, I search and I seek and I find myself. Through their significant stories and wondrous whimsy, they guide and they teach and they reveal themselves to me. Their stretched ears reminisce of the stretching of my soul as it evolves and expands. Their tattered wings echo the experiences of my incarnations as I learn lessons and embrace existence. Their sharp claws tell me that no matter how intelligent, I am an animal, and a part of nature. Their shimmering dust shows me how the light of my own Divine spark can shine.
My Faeries’ Oracle has a spirit of their own, and they are as fond of me as I am of them. I greet them with kisses. They greet me with joy. We greet each other in ecstasy. With each shuffle they smile and wave, laugh and dance with anticipation. They get especially excited when I lay down the golden clothe upon which I spread my readings. They want to know who I will pull. The music of their sphere is very high and hard to hear, purely energetic and intuitional, and yet hear it I do. I hum along. A thrill and a charm, a delight and a song rush through them when I draw the first card. It stirs my own tenderness, for they are the darlings of my bosom, come to play with me again, at last.
The Faeries’ Oracle is dedicated to the Faeries of course! The cover of the companion book is magickal and mysterious, dreamy and enchanted. It makes me feel wistful and nostalgic, the way you feel after waking from a recurring dream that has no ending. It is the story of Gwenhwyfar from the Good Faeries/Bad Faeries book illustrated by Brian. Liberally sprinkled like faerie dust through the pages are fanciful quotes and prints of the Folk. Waifish stains on the aged leaf of the page are an illusory trick of the turning light.
Faeries cannot be pinned down to a page, a list, a single definition. To grasp their elusive nature requires direct experience, personal engagement.
There are 66 cards in the deck, divided into five groups of thirteen, with an additional card for my personal Faerie Guide – direct communication with Faerie. Her name is Faemore too, for she is my Faerie self. The numerology of the cards and the groups is uncanny. Sixty six is a master number, called the Master Regenerator. It is the number of rebirth and regeneration, the number of transcendence and rising above the mundane world to embrace a deeper state of being … Faerie. Five is the number of communication, movement and speed – A very fitting number for a Faeries’ oracle, and indeed for Faerie itself. Thirteen reduces to four, the number of practicality and stability, life lessons and working things true – it is very well suited to the nature and purpose of an Oracle.
The first group of Faerie are the Singers. They are the angelic devas of Faerie, the great ones whose wings span all eternity and existence. They are the singers of the music of the spheres. They are the Unity of all into one, the Ecstasy of the song of the soul, the Guardian at the Gate of Goddess herself. It is my belief that the singers are monads. The Divine Sparks of life who move the worlds and motivate their inhabitants, who remember the time when all was one, and the reason why we unfold and unfurl.
The second group of Faerie are the Sidhe. They are the lords and ladies of Faerie, the Ancient Ones. Where the Singers sing, the Sidhe dance to their song, and the dance carries the cosmos forward. They dance the Dance of Life. It is my belief that the Sidhe are souls, powerful and pure. Older than we are, they are an elder expression of the manifestation that we now are.
The third group of Faerie are the Guides and Guardians. They are the nature spirits, the custodians and caretakers of natural magick. They are the joy we feel when entrenched in nature, the life we live when we walk through the parted veil. They are the harmony to the melody of the Singers, the rhythm to the dance of the Sidhe. They are the consciousness of nature Herself, overflowing and intoxicating with Her bountiful, beautiful energies. It is my belief that the Guides and Guardians are Astral beings. The causal beings that myth would see as meddling in mortal affairs, but who really determine our destiny, the things we choose to experience, the lessons we need to learn. They are our Higher Selves, the ones who set the pattern of life, weave the weft of it, and create the tapestry. It is important to be in their good graces. When we move with the flow of their desires, we create our own fortune; for they are the waking dreamers, the magicians and the majesties of Faerie.
Faeries hide what you want, and reveal what you need.
The fourth group of Faerie are the Help-Line Troupe. These are the “wee folk” of Faerie, large and small, whose touch and presence we feel in our daily lives. They interact with us through our thoughts and aid us through our conscience. At times their potent energies can confuse our thinking, but more often their energies are the moments of clear insight and inspiration that is their gift to us. These faeries are associated with the five elements of earth, air, fire, water, and the fifth Faerie element of moonlight. Some of them work as solitaries, and others band together as trouping faeries. They are the fully aware Human Consciousness that stands before the unparted Veil, but not yet ready to step beyond. They are fun and full of life, impish and inquisitive. They are the ones behind the thoughts that don’t seem to come from ourselves; the irrational thoughts and the inspired ones, the poetic thoughts and the paranoid ones, the absurd thoughts and the wise.
Whereas the Help-Line Troupe are faerie creatures of feeling thoughts, and thinking hearts, intuitive and insightful, the fifth and final group of Faerie are simply feeling creatures through and through. They are the Challengers. The ones who bring us face to face with our fears and our denials, our inner traumas and our outer delusions, our confusions and our insecurities. They challenge our perceptions and test our awareness, our insights and wisdom, our devotion to our own personal growth. We learn and experience with their testing our own potential for success. The Challengers are Initiators into the Mysteries. They might want us to win, but in our moments of deepest despair and subconscious self-conflict we can never really know this for sure. It is my belief that the Challengers are creatures of emotion, inhabiting the waters of our feeling and our unconsciousness, influencing our reactions and our power to become integrated with and within our own existence.
Faeries trip you up to give you a new perspective on the world.
My favourite Singer is Ekstasis. It signifies rapture and delight, joy and ecstasy. It is the song, the power and energy that fills the Universe. It is the rhapsody, the bliss that powers the cosmos, and gives it harmony and order. It is the great joy that holds atoms together, and galaxies apart and stars in their spirals. It keeps our hearts beating, and it is the love and trust that flow them. The song flows through everything – the wind in the trees, the radiance of the distant stars, the beat of a mouse’s heart, the quiet burble of a babbling brook, the deep, unheard hum of the Earth.
Everything is connected; and everything is part of the one song, the Ekstasis. It is something we seek, something that flows through us when we open ourselves to it. It fills us with power and with the inspiration to grow, to become what we have the positive potential of being, to fulfil our purpose in being here and now on this sphere. It says great joy and great accomplishment are within your reach. All you have to do is hold out your hand, and take it. I love Ekstasis. I love its soft, dreamy greens and gentle golds and tender turquoise. I love the dazzling points of starlight scattered throughout its form and the delicate skeletal structure of its body and the fragile filament of its wings, so reminiscent of my spirit guide, Dragonfly, who signifies the harmony that Ekstasis brings.
In Faerie, secrets are whispered in the shape of a wing or a faerie's hue.
My favourite Sidhe is Himself. He signifies natural law, life force, magick and shamanic power. He is guardian of both the hunter and the hunted. The living bond between all life, he is the breath that moves, the atom that dances, the magick in pure being – in life and in love. This Sidhe has the magick of procreation, of dancing the spark of life into being. He is the Great Father. Himself is the one who dances the great dance of life and death, and who dances open the gate between the worlds so that the dead may pass beyond. He is the one who is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of those whom he protects. His family is all of us, human and animal. He is wild power held and channelled for the good of all by will, and he is the preserver of the natural world and its balances.
I love his crown of shining stars and antlers of broken bone. I love the browns of his shaggy, unshorn hair and the fallen autumnal leaves therein entwined, naturally, so much a part of him. I love his eyes, intense with erotic energy, with such penetrative magnetic allure, yet startlingly gentle. I love the planes and protrusions of his face, potent and passionate, the knowing lines etched by time, the angles of his slightly smirking lips. I love the bronze of his lean muscles, gently sloping into crevices and contours, manly and made to explore. The shimmering glow of his third eye and heart chakras show me to think with my heart and feel with my head. Ensconced in a card coloured the brown of the moist, mother Earth, He is the beauty of nature Himself; the God of the natural world.
Faeries are seen not by the eyes but through the heart.
My favourite Guardians and Guides are Losgunna, the Frog Queen, and the Faun. Losgunna signifies sunken treasure, the discovery of self and adventure. She is the Frog Queen, and her realm is immense, both above and below. Faerie waters are made up of human emotions, sometimes beautiful, clear and sparkling, sometimes repulsive, murky and dull. Losgunna knows, that there are treasures to be found in the murkiest of waters. Her explorations however, are not restricted to the realm of emotion, but also extend to include the world. Losgunna often tells me that life is always adventurous and thrilling for adventurous, thrilling people, and boring and dull for boring, dull people. She also tells me to attend to the worlds being created by the thoughts in my mind, to listen to the songs being sung silently around me, to notice the patterns within the stories being woven in the tapestry of life, to heed the cycles, cycles both distant and high, near and close, cycles of the music of the spheres, both amongst the stars and time, and across the earth and waters. I love Losgunna. I love her luminous crown of flowers and prismatic wings of light. I love her mottled flippers and speckled toadstool. I love the way she squats, ready to leap into the unknown, ensconced in frolick and fun, stillness and peace.
The Faun like Losgunna tells me to take care of myself, to explore places I’ve never been, try things I’ve never done, and above all to explore Faerie. He signifies understanding the nature of Nature, natural wisdom and natural magick. He is merry and irrepressible, dancing in the garden, frolicking in the woods, playing in the meadows. He sings “Come dance with me!” and I cannot refuse him. It is he who knows the secrets of nature. It is he who knows where the robin’s nestlings are hidden, where the mice like to play, who lives down that gnome hole in the tree, and where the faeries frolick. He teaches me to understand, appreciate and express the part of myself that dances in the moonlight with the faeries, sings to the dawn stars with the birds, and hums with the blossoming flowers. The Faun sings “Come with me! Come follow me!” He tugs my hand and gambols away. I must go. The Faun says “Dance with me! Play with me!” He frisks and romps. I must dance.
To engage with Faerie, stay open and let the faeries speak to you. Let them enfold you in faerie light.
My favourite Help-Line Troupe Faerie are The Oak Men. They signify strength, ancient wisdom and depth. The Oak Men tell me to look slowly and deeply into the heart of a matter and to see past the superficialities on the surface. They tell me to learn from the past, and to learn from the wisdom of the elders, both those available to me personally, and those whom I encounter in books and elsewhere. They tell me to take action only after thorough deliberation, and that haste may be my greatest enemy. They tell me to learn from the trees, to consider the trees and their wisdom, to connect with the wise old ones and ask for any assistance of which I might have need. I love the Oak Men. I love the brambly bark of their bodies, crooked and contorted, knobbly and gnarled. I love their small, sharp, snaggly teeth. I love their warm, brown eyes, trusting and full of kindness, naughty and full of play. Such strength and fragility, all at once.
When we dance with the faeries, we dance with the reflections of our true selves and the true inner self of the world.
Lastly my favourite Challenger is Dorcha, Epona’s Wild Daughter. She signifies inner shadows, nightmare, depression, despair and madness. In the blackest part of the night, Dorcha comes, wearing her diaphanous crown of faerie stars. She kneels on my soul totem, the ancient Owl, bearer of the wisdom of the night. Unwavering, she forces the weary back to bend. Relentless, she forces the heavy head to hang between legs, until despair recedes, until release takes place, until Will returns. She does not pity me, and therefore I cannot pity myself. In her mercilessness, there is such grace and such compassion. Facing into the past with a clear, unflinching gaze, Dorcha holds me. I am often held immobile, inwardly focussed, by her comforting yet implacable light-filled hands. She asks me riddles that often seem impossible to answer at first – and yet she will not let me go until I find the resolution within myself. Dorcha is one of the great teachers of Faerie. Her lessons are about the shadow side of the self – the things I fear, my traumas, my nightmares, my delusions. Dorcha is the Wild Daughter of Epona, Lady of the Horse and the Moon. She takes me through the dark, hidden side of myself and into healing and fulfilment, no matter how long it takes.
From the temporary madness of fury, to the deeper and longer psychoses, she drives me on the journey through my own interior hells. Dorcha wears an iridescent crown of stars - a mark of service, compassion and great wisdom. Her element is moonlight, the fifth element of Faerie, which tempers and tests the spirit. Through her teaching, my inner conflict and struggles become, as they are resolved, my greatest strengths. She is the sphinx, whose riddles are messages which must be answered lest I otherwise be destroyed by my own internal conflicts. She tells me that I cannot move soul-forward until I have faced and conquered something buried deeply within myself that is holding me back. Dorcha urges me to heal the unresolved issues about who I really am and what I truly want to be. She encourages me to transform myself. She tucks me tenderly in her gossamer wings of silver moonlight. And she wishes me well in solving her riddles with all of her heart.
Listen to the voice of the wind in the trees; it has a message for you. Remember, each journey into Faerie is complete only when we come Home again.
To establish direct contact with Faerie I must first shift consciousness and slip myself into a deep meditative state. The wondrous sounds of instrumental Faerie music by Gary Stadler, clear and chiming, whimsical and wistful, otherworldly and strange, lead me onwards and inwards to seek I know not what, and whomever else I may find. In the Otherwhere and Otherwhen of Faerie, I know no answers, because I am the answers and I do not yet know myself. But the deeper I fall, the higher I fly, I find her. I know her. I claim her. I am her. One day I will have all the answers. One day they will be here. Right now however, I seek to reach, reconnect and reunite with the Otherkin through the Faeries Oracle and faerie music, faerie books and faerie journals, faerie figurines and faerie dolls, faerie artwork and faerie adventures, faerie experiences and faerie encounters, faerie sensibilities and scents, sounds and sightings, and of course, Faeries themselves. I wouldn’t want to do without them, and I couldn’t. For they are my friends and my family … My heart and my home … My namesake and my other self ... My existence and my everything … My Faerie.
Whimsically yours,
Rev. Faemore Lorei
Altar of the Arcane Song
The Chant of Goddess Across the Worlds …
My Faeries' Oracle Reading for this week, and also for this article:
30 - The Laume - Unconditional giving. Unconditional receiving.
23 - The Green Woman - Wildness. Natural magick.
03 - The Guardian at the Gate - Passage to new life. Openings.
54 - Epona's Wild Daughter - Inner shadows. Nightmare.
51 - The Topsie Turvets - New perspective. Fresh viewpoint.
Give to others freely, generously and unconditionally and try a few random acts of kindness. You will fill up again, much faster than you might expect. Where the ground is fertile, something will grow. Nurture what you want within yourself and count your blessings. Wait patiently with expectant gratitude and keep growing. Care for your growing ground and practice your own innate magick. Enhance the growth of your talents. Trust yourself and the process of growth. A passage is being made to the beginning of something new in your life. It always leads to a adventure, and to significant, irrevocable change within your life, as well as within yourself. You are embarking on a new phase of your life, and there will be no going back once this gate has been passed. Look again and change the way you see things. See things from a different point of view. Back up, question your assumptions and try to see things from the viewpoints of others.
