When the concept of Elven Gates came to me, I was soaring. Dare I allow myself to consider creating portals to another realm? There’s another 1 to 99 ratio. One percent reality and ninety-nine percent fantasy. That’s the realm my ideas inhabited in those days. Admitting this private reverie publicly is a bit embarrassing. Nonetheless I was captivated by the idea of creating portals or gateways to a deeper inner connection with the subtle realms and manifesting them physically.

…This first portal initiated my understanding that the energetic pathway through a form has more importance than its visual design. I could have could have cut the arches and affixed them to the inside and outside of the posts and visually the arch would look the same. But the energy would not flow through it. It was important first lesson for me and very much in line with what I’ve come to understand of how the Sidhe shape substance in their realm.

First ContactRon HaysNovember 9, 2019Elven GatesElven Gates, Portals, Outdoor sculpture, Sidhe, Sidhe portal, Sidhe GlyphComment

First Contact

It was a nudge of my shoulder. Or rather more like a scarf flying out as someone rushed past me. Barely perceptible but it got my attention. I was quietly on the dunes of Cape Kiwanda, Oregon, listening as the distant surf heaved onto the shores before me. There was no one near me but I still had the sense that someone brushed by me.

It was the summer of 2010. My teenage son and his step brother were romping across the Cape. Neither my wife nor I felt the same urge to charge about and sat relaxed on the warm sands. In a natural setting like the Cape, I often sit and connect with the landscape, as I did then - sensing the earth and sand, the wind sculpted trees, the rolling ocean before me. I’m not a hardy outdoors person trekking through the wilderness or scaling mountain peaks. But I’ve felt at home on sandy shores and forest trails since I was a kid.

First ContactRon HaysMarch 8, 2019John Matthews, SidheComment

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.

First ContactRon HaysMarch 8, 2019David Spangler, Faerie, Orion Foxwood

Inspiring Encounters

Inspiration comes at the next bend in the road. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In the fall of 2010 I, along with a number of colleagues and friends, participated in a Lorian Association intensive program that led to our ordination in October of the following year. During that time, we met on several occasions. At those gatherings my friend, Jeremy Berg, displayed the watercolors he was painting to form the images for a card deck related to the Sidhe. The images radiated light and intensity. Each time we met he had new images to display. Though he had never painted before, his images were vivid and skillfully composed.

First ContactRon HaysFebruary 8, 2019Elvengates Comments

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