fae

2018

The fae do not conform to the stereotypes humanity has given them.

Those who say “The fae are all beautiful and cute”, are wrong. Just as the ones who say “we are all hideous and malevolent creatures”. Those who say “The fae cannot lie,” are wrong, just as the ones who say “The fae always lie”. Those who say “The fae want to kill you” are wrong, just as the ones who say “The fae want to keep you safe” are. There is no “One fae way”, and looking for it is folly.

The fae are even more varied than humanity in how we interact, what feelings we have towards humanity and nature. For we are the spirits of nature. We can sense who are our allies and who are our destroyers. It is hard for humans to understand us, and sometimes they feel there is deceit involved in our ways, but there isn’t. However if you want to know if there is a secret to understanding our ways, know that the closer you are to nature, the easier it will be.

There are fae that are cute and tiny and live in your flowers. Just as there are fae that will tower over your castles. A “cute” and stereotypical fae may be more malevolent than you can imagine, and the old hags may save your life. Judging us on appearance will work against you always.

There are some blogs that ignore my asks and stopped posting in the fae tags because they know I am here. Because they want fae their way and don’t care about what is real. They want their take on fae to be real. But I suppose if you just want a space where things conform to your reality, go off I guess.

But for everyone else, know that we do not conform to your reality. The moment you think you know us is the moment you find out you don’t, that there is so much more to know, and the fae will never fit into one of your boxes.

Jun

2018

Let’s Talk About Spirit Anchors

will-o-the-witch:

What’s an Anchor?

An anchor is a physical object that a spirit uses to connect more easily to our plane. It’s their loading point, or a way to find a place/person more easily, or just something to help them get a better hold. They are connected to the anchor, but can move/travel freely from it if they wish. They’re bound to it in the more metaphorical sense, not literally.

Some people also use the word vessels, which seems to be the more common use on this site. I personally prefer the word anchor, because to me the word vessel connotates the spirit being held inside it, which often isn’t the case. I’ve also seen many people assume that spirits are trapped by vessels, which I don’t want my speech to imply. More often than not, in my experience, spirits choose their own anchor(s).

Common Anchors and Why They’re Chosen

Jewelry, bones, photographs, figurines, crystals, stuffed animals, and knick knacks are all common anchors! Jewelry seems to be the most popular amongst spirit workers because of its innate subtlety, but spirits can choose anything to latch onto. Often, it’s an object that they just really enjoy. They may like the feeling of a certain crystal, the cuteness of that plushy, or the elegance of that necklace. It may resemble something they used to own or resemble what they look like (or used to.)

For bones and photographs specifically, you’re more likely to find the spirits of animals and humans that have passed on from this plane. It could be their photo, or their bones! Or, it could be a photo of someone who resembles them/ an animal of the same species.

How to Use Anchors in Your Craft

Often, a spirit worker will help a spirit they trust find a suitable anchor, so that they can work more regularly with that spirit or ease their transition to working with someone else. This is a pretty common practice that you can see demonstrated with any spirit companion matchmaking service! But there are other ways to use them too.

You can often find spirits in your daily life, just by trying to sense the objects around you when you’re out and about. A spirit may have already found an object and decided “Yup, this is mine” and set up shop. (Antique stores are great for this.) Once I saw a woman at a festival selling ethically-sourced bones, and ended up taking home a skull because I picked it up and my gut said, “there’s something inside this still.” I’ve found at least two spirits while shopping at Goodwill before, just hanging out with the beanie babies.

You can also reverse-engineer meeting a spirit by starting with the vessel. Find a vessel that is both suitable for your craft-style and the type of spirit you’re looking for, then go out to a place where you can expect that type of spirit. Do your usual spirit working stuff, and see if anybody is interested in companionship in exchange for the anchor you’re offering them.

Bonus points, you can also give yourself anchors on the astral plane for all the same reasons a spirit may get one here! I tend to call them waypoints when I’m using them personally, but that’s just me.

I hope you find this info useful! As always, use protection and practice responsibly~

This is one of the first posts on tumblr to describe how to properly create a spirit anchor.

Spirits hate bound to an item, much like people hate being locked in a cage. But they like having anchors, much like people like having a house or a car.

+1 to this post

May

2018

marzipanandminutiae:

marzipanandminutiae:

HAPPY BELTAINE

SET SHIT ON FIRE AND SMASH THE PATRIARCHY BECAUSE IT’S SPRING MOTHERFUCKERS

DANCE WITH THE FEY

(dancing with the fey is discouraged by 9/10 doctors. the 10th may have goat feet; we can’t quite tell)

bringing this back because IT’S BELTAINE AGAIN YA GOOBERS

Dance with the fae! What could go wrong? *wingflutters*

May

2018

Recently my faekin discord removed a user. I am not going to link to their callout post, nor reveal their name or contact details because I do not want to escalate the situation even further, nor do I want to boost the signal of their own post. Ultimately the booting was not because of the views they had, but of the demands they made of the person that eventually booted them, and if that person wants to comment I will allow them to reblog/respond to this post about it. Debate about these matters is definitely permitted on the server.

I will instead talk about the crux of the argument that took place, which is going to be mostly about Celtic cultural erasure, about spirit animal bonds, and in general about the ethics of a culture claiming a spiritual concept as exclusively their own. I will also disclose immediately that I am of over 80% celtic blood and very involved with my culture as well.

The subject of spirit animals and spirit animal bonds is a touchy subject for me because the Celtic practice and relationship with animal spirits has been practically erased from history to the point where we are not even allowed to talk about it for fear of backlash. I usually just let this go on Tumblr because I know I can’t fight the tide, but the fact is, brace your triggers please, Celtic Animism was and is a real thing.

The Celtic people recognized the spiritual nature, of nature and revered it. The druids represent the pinnacle of this practice and belief system, the study and practice of natural magic and communion with the spirits. Whether or not they could actually transform into their spirit animals is left up to the readers’ opinion, but the Druids were effectively the spiritual leaders of our overall belief system common to the Celtic people.

We worshipped the Old Gods. Not Zeus and the Greek/Roman gods, those were the gods of our oppressors. Not YHVH and the Elohimic, those were the divinities of those who came to erase our culture. To us, their gods were newbs. I speak of ones like Cernunnos, Annwn, Phliedas (I hope I spelt your name right), ones that were around before anyone put a pen down to write the book of Genesis. And our ways were a walk with nature, and with the Fae, the fae were as real to the Celts as the Sun and stars and elements, as nature itself, as any living thing or being around us.

I still walk with those gods. And I walk with them knowing who and what I am and who and what is around me and who and what is part of me.

And we had spirit animals, and we still do. This might be hard to hear in the world of Tumblr and the politics of appropriation and what is considered the acceptable narrative here, but every time I hear that narrative that spirit animals belong exclusively to another culture, it makes me want to claw my own eyes out.

When someone asserts that things that are part of my culture can no longer be accessed by me because it is theirs now, I feel that this is wrong. It is specifically offensive to Celts who have been working with and having bonds with animal spirits since before Christ was squeezed out.

Neither I, or any other Celtic person, nor anyone else that I can think of, is denying anyone of any other culture, their relationship with nature and with its spirits. But when the inverse becomes true ad I am told that I have “guides” and not “animal spirits” even though my experiences are directly contrary to this (I will only get specific if asked), then I feel that my own culture is being disrespected, and being erased due to another culture denying part of my own to claim it as their own.

Telling us Celts that we do not have spirit animals pisses on the graves and funeral pyres of every single one of us that did, it attempts to invalidate the practice of Druidry and Celtic Animism in its entirety, it pisses all over the beliefs of the Celtic people tracing back, not just past the time of Christ but before the time of the Elohimic era, and reaching towards the beginning of the Holocene era itself.

I did not do that to this person that is “calling me out”. They did this to me. I let it go unanswered on Tumblr because I cannot fight the tide of the acceptable narrative about it, but in my own space, I cannot let it stand. And every one of you who allow this narrative to continue have contributed your parts in erasing Druidry and Celtic culture. We have never asked anyone else to give up this part of their culture for our sake, but we should not be asked to either.

The person calling me out tried to start a conversation about who’s culture was more abused and violated, who’s culture was violated for longer, and other such arguments, and then complained about feeling triggered and unsafe when the debate was not going their way. But me, I didn’t WANT this. I didn’t want to have a culture war take place on my server. I merely wanted him to meet my culture half way on a cultural aspect we shared. We could have shared our experiences about it, and discovered what was different and the same between our experiences, and understood our cultures better. This is what I wanted.

I believe that this is all I can say about the matter, and I have wrote this mostly so that the accusations made will not stand alone and people can understand why I have been hurt by the things that were said to me and the total disregard for my own Celtic culture or the things we suffered through over the last 2000 years. I want to use this in conclusion to invite other faekin to my server and the link will follow, but I would indeed suggest that if you are one of those who believe that some cultures have the right to claim exclusive right to spiritual and magickal ideas to the exclusion of other cultures that share those ideas, that this server may not be right for you.

http://discord.gg/3DmDBzh

Mar

2018

I’ve walked into fairy circles but nothing ever happened… Is America just not magical enough?

wolvesdreamofnewdays:

jimintomystery:

thebibliosphere:

frei-rancken:

thebibliosphere:

Y’all got different things that go bump in the night over here. Like bears and moose and shit. If I was a fairy that got immigrated over here in mass flittings I’d stay in the other realm too. Fucking moose. Jesus Christ, have you seen those things up close? Fuck that.

Y’all have terrifying endless corn plane there too… So… I think you are even.

I’ve never experienced claustrophobia and agoraphobia simultaneously until we had to drive through 400 miles of endless corn occasionally interjected by great swaths of nothingness.

The fae realm might be the believable terror of things back home with our forests and iron age burial mounds jutting above ground but the US has it’s own eldritch terrifying charms.

Usually Tumblr has this aesthetic going where they act all terrified of fairies, so this post has me like yeeeahh

Come get us, you little bastards

What’s the matter? I’m right here

Meet me at this totally legit barn if you want to steal some babies or smth

@seananmcguire

Fae, at least when manifesting in the mortal realm, usually adapt to the environs of that realm, much like any living creature. Take for example, the barn above. There are faeries. Same for the corn fields. You will get lost in a corn field no matter how you orient yourself against the sun.

I was raised around barns and cornfields like those for the better part of my young mortal life, and can assure you that we are in all of the places above. The fae of America are not fundamentally different from those in other parts, but they do adapt to the environment and culture in which they reside.

Also, there are functional and legit faerie rings in America and other places in the world, but not all rings of mushrooms/rocks/flowers are faerie rings. In some places there are many fae but none use faerie rings as a gate. Also faerie rings are not the exclusive way to pass into the other realm (the fae around the Shasta Cascades in California FAR prefer cave systems for example). Faerie rings are actually mostly a forest fae thing. The greatest concentration of forest fae I know of in America is in Tall Timbers in Central Pennsylvania, but I also have not been everywhere. Keep your ears and eyes open. I will give you some hints.

Abandoned barns. If its just filled with hay and old lofts and rafters, enter freely without fear. Whatever fae are there will be ok, if not welcome to your presence.
If it is filled with old butchering tools or lots of chains, sharp items or implements, close the door and go away.
If you open the door and more than 50 mice or rats scurry away as you open the door, conduct your business and leave.
Corn fields, or any fields where the plants are taller than you: Expect to get lost. If you want to get lost, enter it. You may not return from the corn field but you won’t necessarily die in there either.
If you want to explore and not get lost, bring a phone with a GPS. Bring extra batteries. Your phone will discharge faster in there. Just warning you.
Native American sacred sites: I am not going to engage the argument of whether or not their spirits are a type of fae or not, I have my own opinions and others have others. All I will say is the first time you disrespect them or their lands, they warn you. The second time, they kill you.
Deep forests: For the most part, follow European protocols.
The coastlines: You’ve probably heard about lamia and merfolk off the coasts of Cape Cod, the Hamonesset and off the coasts of California, but they also hang around other places not commonly mentioned, such as off the coast of Brunswick, GA, Virginia, and any place with a good concentration of sea-caves and coves. Not so much for the coast of New Jersey, or any other coasts where the mortal populations are too high or mortals have just trashed the place with garbage.
Florida: The greatest concentration of Unseelie I know of in the US is in the Everglades. If you want to meet fae and don’t mind dying to do so, try the Everglades. The rest of the state is mostly seafaring fae.
Mountains: They’re relatively safe, pixies and sprites, and phouka, especially if the area is both high up in altitude and also wooded or forested.
California. While you can find fae anywhere, the more north you go, the more fae you see. San Francisco has more fae than Los Angeles. The highest concentrations of fae in California are in the Shasta Cascades, you will find as many there as most places in Europe excluding Ireland.
Wildlife preserves: Unicorns love these places, in fact in some cases, places are wildlife preserves BECAUSE of unicorn influence.
Colorado: It would be biased of me to speak too much about Colorado because I live here, I will just leave it at, yeah we’re present, and types of fae are pretty evenly distributed, tho more mountain preferring ones than others.

This got longer than I intended it to be, but there, feel free to use it as a guide.

Mar

2018

redroadtoadventure:

bigredcyclops:

probablymetarpgideas:

officialpajamaelf:

officialpajamaelf:

i am very adamant that elves are far less restrictive about gender and relationships than humans

this post cost me a follower. good. reblog for non-binary polyamorous elves. ignore for cisheteronormativity.

did someone say polyamorous?

Elves live far too long to give a shit about anything other than having a good time.

Yes, that is more than implied in a few of Ed Greenwood’s early Forgotten Realms novels, back in the AD&D 2e days when the setting was first introduced.

And WoTC agrees on the gender according to Mordenkain.

Most fae are poly, actually, and particularly the ones that can shapeshift, have very loose ideas about gender in general. In fact we don’t really have a specific word of polyamory, we kind of just borrow the mortal word, since we don’t normally need such a word. Also the word for monogamy translates to “one-loving” in mortal speak.

Mar

2018

Deer area. Been allowing myself to shapeshift a little more lately, and play in different forms.

Mar

2018

Itsa me, a BBV <3

Mar

2018

Could you tell us about the court you were in?

Ok the court I was in, and still are in, is the Nature court. It’s also been called the Beast court, but that usage is anthrocentric and somewhat inaccurate as we include plant fae, among other types.

Most of the fae that are part of the nature court are ‘nature’ types such as phouka, lamia, sylphs and dryads, satyrs, pixies, and the like. Some kinds of merfolk especially the very fae oriented Selkies are often part. A general rule of thumb would be that the less humanoid a faerie is, the more likely they are to be of the nature court. But please do not do what human mythos has done and presume that ‘rules of thumb’ equal ‘ironclad rules that will apply everywhere’. These stereotypes have tried to define us in a way that is now misapplied widespread on Earth. Fact is that there have been elves in the nature court, phouka in other courts, and so on.

The fae that are part of the nature court are usually tied to nature in some way, athough, whether by choice, nature or instinct. When there is court, it usually occurs in a forest, near high natural energies. There is no requirement for it to be held in a castle, though it is an option to set up some kind of permanent settlement. Most of the time i’ve participated in Court its been just a bunch of rocks set up in a circle marking ‘where it was happening’. Usually we don’t do castles, if theres a permanent settlement it will be part of the natural setting. My preference has always been for canopies of trees that obscured the sky.. for others it could be quite different.

Usually nature courts handle affairs of nature amongst fae. Back before the holocene era, it used to be mostly about territory disputes and natural balance issues, but things changed alot when humans came out of the trees. I’ll wait for a specific ask about that before getting into that or else this post might get too long. But just for a little bit of an explanation, it is true that fae are sill all around us, but for reasons having to do with the energy of many places becoming corrupted, they are less in some places than others.

As for relationships with other courts, one should first point out that the terms ‘seelie’ and ‘unseelie’ are umbrellas mortals tend to put us under, but amongst fae the distinctions are not so hard cut. There are countless courts these days, some as small as the fae in your backyard and some so large they span galaxies. Still the base concepts have some validity, in that fae who are “Seelie” tend to be associated with light and summer. They also derive the ‘right to rule’ from the birthlines of those who have always ruled, and are the most hardcore about court loyalty. The “Unseelie” associate with dark and winter, derive the right to rule from the one strongest enough to take it, but are actually less hardcore about court loyalty.

These are given just to contrast with Nature court. Nature court tends to associate with spring or autumn, depending on the particular court, most nature courts are active mostly during those seasons. We generally like twilight, because that’s when the hunting is best. Also full moons. Bright nights, for the same reasons really. We believe the right to rule should be given to the ones who can do it the best. And as for court loyalty, we are pretty loose about it and its somewhat common for nature fae to be part of another court as well.

In general, we kind of lean more towards the Unseelie side than Seelie. Why? Because you can’t trust Seelie. With the Unseelie, if one wants to kill you, you’ll see their weapons or fangs out, their intent is clear, and that is kind of how Nature rolls too. If a Seelie wants you dead, you will die never knowing how or why. The last thoughts in your head will probably be “Wonder who I pissed off..”

I guess to conclude, i’ll just say that while the Seelie and Unseelie oriented fae do not have a direct aversion to having us ‘animals’ in their courts, there’s certainly reasons that you don’t often see us there, often time Nature’s issues just aren’t covered in their list of concerns, so thats the main reasons we are our own Court.

Feb

2018

otherlycreatures:

unseelie-sorceress:

You think human politics are complicated? Try Fae politics.

The Fae Speak:

Politics in the way spoken of here are through the lens of a humanized perception. These types of politics you are thinking of are structures that bind and control beings into a certain way of societal behavior. Binds like that diminish the true nature of one’s being, and are binding. Binds kill Fae.

Atri leaves it at that.

I’m going to tl;dr fae politics down to the brass tacks here, and even then its not going to be short.

Once long ago there no court at all and the Fae considered no division amongst them. Through the natural course of finding not differences, but preferences for certain seasons, appearances and ideals, did the fae even learn about the idea of ‘differences’. Eventually that lead to the two courts, but these courts did not oppose eachother, but instead complemented eachother, each lending their hands to the aspects of nature they were most adept to handle.

Through later events that I feel not at liberty to get in depth with, conflicts arose, and other courts began to split from the main two (Seelie and Unseelie). Upon seeing this happen, the fae realized that there was no particular sacredness of either court. New courts began to form at a rapid pace, because all fae felt the freedom to form one if they desired. These days there are.. many courts. I can’t give an accurate count, i won’t even try.

Some courts try to exert more authority than others, but for the most part the various courts ‘accept and tolerate’ the other courts and do not try to make war between them, because they have some level of awareness that the relevance of ones own court is only measurable by the existence and standing of other court around them. Fae courts interact with eachother through diplomacy in general and subterfuge if necessary. I’ve heard stories of wars, but if any of them are true, they occur so infrequently as to be effectively legend. They would be more likely to have war with mortals, because mortals have this weird thing about taking a stand and digging their feet into that ground even against contrary evidence, but that’s a subject for another time.

This being said, the whole idea of ‘government’ came to humanity through watching Fae courts, it could be said it was given to humanity, or taken from us, but either way, what you see today of human courts does not represent in any way what Fae courts are like. Fae tend to see the longer picture and therefore, even if any particular ruler had a lust for power (somewhat rare among us), they would still take the longer road to it, whereas human courts sway wildly in what they do and what their goals are depending on how the current leadership wants to see the world around them be like. This is more of a side effect of mortality than anything, since they feel they have such a small slice of time to affect change.

I should also note that some fae recognize courts, some do not, some have not even heard of them. The idea of courts is not a universal idea amongst fae. Fae are not exclusive to this planet and some of the things that have happened here are not relevant to all of them. The above only relates to the ones who were part of it, and it its more of an event that formed them then a place where they formed, but it does manifest in Europe more so than other places. This is partially because Ireland holds a special place amongst some Fae as a bridge between worlds.

@otherlycreatures @unseelie-sorceress