Letters to you

Definitely worth a listen:

Sorrow's Song (Child of Dying Stars) by s00j.

Based on "Cities of Coin and Spice" by Catherynne Valiente

"...Tell me a tale so beautiful that the stars will strain to hear
The song you fear to end is just beginning
so sing me a city of wishes and fire
sing me a traveling song
I will give you worlds of wonder
and a feather cloak to keep you warm!

(sorrow is a child of dying stars
with no one to tell her her name
red in her cloak as a winter sun
she wanders)..."

In a conversation today, the topic of explaining the concept of "Insurance" to the faeries came up. (it's a long story as to *why* this came up - so I'll just post the result...):

"They're pretty oblivious of concepts such as insurance'... But we can't blame them for that. It's a difficult concept to explain!

Me: "Let's see. I have this stuff, see?"

Faeries: "Yes"

Me: "And I don't want anything to happen to it."

Faeries: "Ok".

Me: "So I give these people money"

Faeries: "Muh - knee? You give people your knee?"

Me: "No. I give them trinkets"

Faeries: "Oh."

Me: "They will give the trinkets back if there is Big Water, Wind, Fire, or Earth."

Faeries: "You gave them trinkets. They should do their job and give them back. We can help..."

Me: "No, NO. I don't WANT them to do their job. Just help the ground cover grow and guard the gate."

Me: Now I will try to explain "liability for injuries or damage while on insured grounds".

Me: "You musn't make that bad person fall into the creek."

Faeries: "Why? You don't like them. I don't like them. The House doesn't like them. The Yard doesn't like them. The hellgrammites and fish might like them."

Me: "Because, if you make them fall into the creek, and they get hurt, then I will have to give them trinkets. The people I give Trinkets to every month won't give me any trinkets back, ever. They will give all my trinkets to the person who got hurt. The people will make me give them Big Trinkets forever and never give me any trinkets back"

Faeries: "We can make sure they won't hurt at all, and they won't need trinkets anymore."

Me: "No, NO. How many times do I have to tell you, NO BODIES in the creek. Now please help the ground cover grow and guard the gate."

And thus did I explain "Insurance" to the faeries.

Yesterday, we took a trip to Behnke's super duper tree nursery and every-plant-there-is extravaganza -- The place is huge, spanning several acres and two large buildings. They have every imaginable gardening thingy plus all the scientific information required to assemble and operate the thingies. They also have many kinds of plants from everywhere, even Venus' Flytraps, and more kinds of trees than I know about.

One of the trees we saw was a Curly Willow - it was the coolest thing! It grows about 10' tall, and the branches grow in irregular corkscrew-like patterns - very pretty. We also saw some lovely Scotch Broom - I actually made a broom with that once for a pagan circle - I think making my own props for a ritual is the most fun part.

Strictly by coincidence of course, Orion, an old friend and local magical teacher in the area, just happened to be there, and I just happened to find him wandering in the vast array of florage. As a point of reference, he's the one who built the Faerie Cairn at Four Quarters Farm. He is one of those magnetic people who is usually completely surrounded by students, groupies, hangers on, and others demanding attention whenever we see him, so we never have a chance to talk to him. After a minute, someone always barges in and demands his attention - never mind that he was in the middle of a sentence talking with us. His ears looked exceptionally pointed when I found him (they seem to point more each time I see him)...

This time, there was nobody around but us, so we were treated to a mini-workshop, until, that is, he got a call on his cell phone (damn those things). It was a call from home -- his main water pump had died and he had to leave immediately. But before that happened, we got him to ourselves for about 20 minutes (truly a once in a lifetime event).

The topic of conversation was Awakening ... the possibility that in the distant past, those from the realm of faerie, (a.k.a., perhaps, the annunaki), at one time interbred with humans, and if so, how does that heritage awaken, and what would be the result of awakening that heritage.

He said he believes that there was such an intermarriage, and there certainly is such a heritage, that it is more prevalent in certain bloodlines, and that the more one focuses on refining the trait, the more pronounced it becomes. But he also said that those who say they want to have the trait, probably do not have it, because the ones who do have it never wanted it in the first place, and usually find it to be horribly disturbing for a long time until they come to grips with it...

He's of the strong opinion that people of this heritage must open to it and embrace it, but also embrace and not reject a human aspect. If they don't do this, he said, they cannot be anchor points who allow the interaction between human and faerie and somehow restore the balance of nature (I'm paraphrasing, so I hope I didn't mess this up). Personally, I don't think restoring the balance is possible given the current population, but anyway that's what he said.

He made the distinction between fae (the Forever Young, the Good Folk, the Ancient Ones) and fey (those Impressed with the Trait). One interesting thing he said was that if some people were Impressed with the Trait, this is most probably a 2-way event - some of the Forever Young are Impressed with human traits.

I'm not sure I liked that too much. What would the effect be? (hopefully not political institutions and secret police in faerie, as some I met long ago indicated). Hopefully not pettiness and freeways and McDonalds. Hopefully more like a kind of bridge between realms, focusing on greater understandings. He had to leave before we got any further with it.

I'm not sure how I feel about all of that. I saw a picture of someone who said he was an elf, and he had mighty pointed ears (most pointed I've ever seen). They weren't photoshopped or pasted on. Sorting through it. Maybe it's a matter of semantics. There are discarnate Forever Young, and there are incarnate elves. I think he doesn't like the use of the term 'elf' to describe something physical. Of course, rialian is working on him concerning the semantics thing.

The reason we went to Behnke's in the first place was to look for Hawthorn trees - I wanted to plant one in the yard (yes, another tree). We found some, but they were a lot bigger than I wanted - I wanted a baby and these were teenagers. So we decided to wait on that - Instead we bought a little stone basin about 20 or so inches across, and a little mushroom shaped birdbath, and three packages of mycorizal fungi. We put the basin in the back yard and filled it with water, and brought some big stones from the creek. The beginnings of a faerie cairn. This should be very interesting... I love working with stones, so building this should be a joy. Taking off now to find some rocks in captivity that I can rescue...