Tuesday, February 12, 2013

I come (to faerie) because

Like most of you, I stumbled into faerie, following some half-heard pipe over a half-seen hill.

Through the wood-shade, across the voices of a stream. Lay back on grass there, with tall blooming lace and the green perfume of a thousand stems. Dangled my fingers in the water there, among the pebbles and the flitting guppies. Made a house for a grasshopper in my hands, felt the scratch of his feet on my palm. Raced through its pasture. Swung from the branches of a tree.

I come back because the world of the city of men is more blurry. It's more blurry here, the beauty harder to find, winking out between eyelashes. And I need the keen edge of faerie to find it. Or the city-world becomes, for me, too dull for words. Too void of sensation, that layer of feeling, like a cocoon of forgetting.

That's why.


Postscript. This in reply to a question by Terri Windling: "What brought us here to the numinous landscape of Faerie, and why do we stay?" See the conversation at Myth & Moor: The Desire for Dragons

16 comments:

  1. Lovely, John. I think many can relate to this sentiment, nature leading into Faerie and vice versa,fantasy leading us back into nature.

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  2. John, I ADORE this.

    This is so rich, so full of wonderful phrases and imagery and meaning, I can't tell you how much I love it - and it perfectly, perfectly expresses my own thoughts and sentiment.

    It's beautiful. Thank you so much. A fantastic piece of writing.

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    1. Austin, I'm humbled! Thanks. So good to know I struck a chord here.

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  3. "Or the city-world becomes, for me, too dull for words. Too void of sensation, that layer of feeling, like a cocoon of forgetting."

    This explains perfectly why I felt like I was losing my mind and soul when I lived in the middle of downtown LA for nearly two years. The city-world was dull at first... and then it became something treacherous and severe. Every cell of my body cried out for trees, for green, for that "keen edge". I grew to hate the city, and it wasn't the city's fault-- I'd just been away from my homeland for too long.

    Thank you for your "sauce".

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    1. I felt the same way in Boston. Lovely town, so much to do ... why am I not happier here? Missed the stars, I guess.

      Thanks for sharing that.

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  4. Your final sentence: exactly, I think perhaps we have to switch off to a certain extent in an urban environment in order to cope, well I do anyway. You say so much with so few words, thank you!

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    1. "Switching off" is a good way to put that - and a bit sad, even if it is necessary.
      I'm fortunate that I live in an almost rural small town, with hiking and woods only a short distance away.

      Thanks for stopping in.

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  5. i agree with Austin....absolutely gorgeous imagery, i was instantly transported. i could hear the stream and feel the warm sun on my face...

    *sigh*

    yes...the dull outlines of the busy-world are nothing to the high-definition clarity of the wild places....

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    1. Very kind of you to say, mel. "high-definition clarity of the wild places ..." Well said!

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  6. Food for the soul, John. Though the wild underlies everything, even the most concreted behemoths of human creation, its voice is harder to hear through the roar. Whereas a the small green life of a grasshopper in your hand zips you there instantaneously!

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    1. Thanks very much, Carmine. I hadn't noticed that side of it - the "small green life" indeed!

      Like faerie, too, I remember I was a little unsure of that green hopper too. Touching the unknown.

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  7. Beautiful answer, thank you for sharing.

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  8. I like how tactile your description is here. I can feel that grasshopper and imagine those guppies darting away. And always it is so important to emphasize the 'half-heard-ness' of that pipe - that summons flitting in and out of audible perception. Odd how just reading about it I can almost hear it again...

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    1. Thank you, Edward! I'm an intensely intuitive person, but nature (thanks to playing outdoors so much as a child) touches me vividly.

      So nice to know I'm not the only one who's half-heard that pipe.

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