Further Encounters
There’s a way that a first time sticks in one’s memory: like my first date or my first visit to an old growth forest. They find a nice warm place in that tangled growth I call my memory. It is a familiar place to revisit. But the second, third, … or umpteenth time I experience something - those memories start blending together. The sharp outlines wear off.
After my first contact with the Sidhe, my piqued curiosity waned, receding to the unkempt parts of my brain. Occasionally this quiescent memory stirred. Perhaps, stimulated by a vague sensation now and again that someone was looking over my shoulder. Whatever was tickling my mind finally stirred me enough that in the fall, I wrote a friend wondering if he had any connections with these Sidhe. Answering no, he referred me to works by R.J. Steward and Orion Foxwood. Though I sampled a couple of R. J.’s books, I wasn’t inspired to pursue them and I put my interest aside for a time.
Looking back I realize that I had distanced myself from the realm of the Faerie and Sidhe for some time. Several of my good shamanic friends studied the Faerie realms. I never felt an attraction. The form of their work took seemed too rule bound and unnecessarily complex to me. At that time I lumped together all faerie beings and the Sidhe since I had no meaningful contact with either. Since those early encounters, I’ve learned there are significant differences between them.
Perhaps I should explain. Our human notions of realms that exist outside the boundaries of our usual sensory experience are riddled with misunderstandings, superstitions, fear, and a lot of confusion. And it’s no wonder in part because they are so vast and complex. David Spangler has written an excellent book on this topic: Subtle Worlds: An Explorer’s Field Notes. He describes this subtle ''environment and “ecology” as diverse as the ecology of our planet, Gaia.
Physical life ranges from single-celled microbes ... to the great whales, from tiny fungi to towering redwoods. If anything, life seems to me even more varied and wondrous on the inner worlds.” —David Spangler
Who would confuse a whale with a mushroom? But our senses - sight, hearing, smell - are not attuned to the subtle worlds. We are capable of subtle perception but it takes practice and discernment to recognize the difference between nature spirits like the fairies and those who are kin with us, the Sidhe.
The Sidhe were trying to get my attention and my closed minded self was shifting. There were little twinges in my consciousness saying: “Hey you take a look. We’re over here.” And as I was soon to discover friends of mine were making their own connections with the Sidhe.