How about something to really think about?

I do believe there is,
what is called,"an astral realm",
or if you prefer,
"Faeryland",

which co-exist with our own world.
A world into which we only get occasional glimpses,
a world which is seperate from our own
by only a thin veil of consciousness.

Faeries have been believed in and
existed in some form
for as long as humans have been here.
Seen usually as elemental energies,
seasonal helpers to dieties,
nature spirits,
or as demigods,
they have been the subject of much human speculation,
fear, and folklore.

No anthropololist,
ethnologist,
or student of comparative religion
has been able to find any culture which does not believe
in the existence of a race of beings
who live in a parallel world
somewhere between the realm of deities
and that of humankind,
a realm which is often referred to as Faeryland.

While Faeries are in many ways,
elemental beings,
they are much more than "just" that!
Faeries have personality and individuality.
And though they inhabit a different plane of existence than we do,
they do live.
They are fully sentient beings
with feelings and rights much like our own.

Each family or type of Faery is unique,
and each individual faery has a personality unto itself.
Some faeries are mischievous or even dangerous,
some are anxious to be helpful,
while others may be only thought form projections
of primal human fears created from long ago dangers
of the mountians or the sea.

Faeries are almost,
but not quite,
as individual as humans,
and they have their own solidity, talents,
mannerisms, personalities, likes and dislikes.
They can be solid,
appearing almost human
they can be ephemeral whisps of smoky light;
they can be simply outwardly projected forms
of wish-craft inhabiting the astral plane,
or they can be seen openly during meditation
or for the short times they manifest on the physical plane.
They can be mean or kind,
courtly or coarse,
and they can fully feel their own pain and anger,
and joy and happiness.
They can and do function as nature elements,
but they are not merely unthinking representations of those elements,
though they can and do
live in nature and act upon it in many ways.

Many faeries can and often will,
aid human work,
rituals,
and magick if approached properly.

How to approach them
depends entirely on the individual faery
and what we ask of it.
We can also learn to use magick,
meditation, astral-travel,
wish-craft, and ritual
to both meet exising faeries and
to create new, fully functioning faery beings to aid us.

Does it sound *complicated*?
It is not.
Faeries are all these things
and they function in all these ways.
It is we humans
who have failed to take avantage of the possibilities
inherent in faery-human relationships,
just as we have so often failed to see and accept
what the animal world has had to share with us.
In the past century
humans have expected less and less from faeries,
even to the point of disbelieving in their existence.
And in all but a few magick circles
they have been sadly demoted to meaningless roles.
It is little wonder
that faeries are now rarely seen
in a world which treats them so off-handedly.
To see a faery one must learn
to "see" with the heart and mind
as well as with the eyes.

Faery encounters have been well documented,
especially beginning in the late nineteenth century
when the sciences of the mind began to take their place
beside those of the body.
From the time humans could write
until this very century,
many meetings and confrontations,
both the beautiful and the profane,
have been recorded.
These meetings have taken place both on the astral plane
and in the physical world
suggesting that faeries,
like humans,
have the mental capacity to project themselves
briefly into other realms of existence.
Even many modern people who think themselves
quite educated and rational see faeries,
though they are liable to assume
they have merely seen an illusion,
a trick of the eyes,
or have even dreamed up their encounters with the Wee Folks.

Yes, faeries do still appear to humans....often,
in fact,
especially if one learns the best way to seek them out.
And no matter how you view faeries...
even if you are a skeptic
and wish to remain so,
they are a part of our pagan heritage and,
therefore,
a part of us all.

*This is an excert from the Introduction of
"A Witch's Guide to Faery Folk",
written by; Edain McCoy.

I do highly recommend this book
to all those that are interested
in learning about our Wee Folk.
This book will open many doors that have been closed by time,
religions,
man,
education,
and our lack of true love for all of nature.