Meeting Your

Guide to Faery

Jessica Macbeth

To help you to meet your personal faery guide and the other fae of the cards, I suggest using an imagery journey as the easiest path. An imagery journey is a guided inner visualization in which you become very quiet and allow yourself to explore the inner realms common to all of us and, at the same time, unique to each of us. It is also one of the easiest ways to converse with the fae. The following inner journey is the one I wrote to go into the Faeries' Oracle book, but it got edited out by the publisher for lack of space.

Your guide to Faery will probably be one of the fae - an elf, gnome, fairy, sylph, or sidhe. This is most likely not your guide to our everyday earth, but only your guide to the Otherworld of the fae. He, she or it can introduce you to other fae and help you to understand their world better. This guide may very well also ask you questions about your world to help the other fae to understand more about our earth and your life here.

You will need your personal oracle journal (the notebook you started in Chapter 1 to record your experiences with the faeries and the Oracle) when you finish this imagery journey, so make sure it is close by and that you have something to write with. Next, please take the blank card (Card 0) from the deck and hold it between your hands.

The Journey

Close your eyes and pay attention to your breathing while you count three breaths, letting each breath help you relax a little more. Next, be aware of the beating of your heart. Hold the card against your heart for another three breaths. Let your hands go back to your lap, still gently and loosely holding the blank card, and allow them to relax there.

Are you sitting comfortably? Give yourself time for your shoulders to move into relaxation and your breathing to become peaceful.

When you are ready, with your eyes still closed, please imagine that someone is gently stroking your eyelids with a soft feather—too firmly to tickle but lightly enough to soothe and relax you.

Count the strokes—first the right eyelid, stroke one. Then the left, stroke two. On the right lid, three, and on the left lid, four. Right, five... left, six... and then right across both eyelids, seven.

And now they are stroking your right cheek with the same soft feather—one... two... three strokes... And now your left cheek--four... five... six...

Then one long, slow stroke the whole width of your forehead—slowly, slowly, slowly moving across with a feather-light touch, the seventh touch.

Imagine that someone is blowing a soft, warm breath on the back of your neck and that this delicate breath is gently blowing away any tension there may have been in your neck so that it is just comfortably relaxed.

Be aware of your own breath and let it be as light or as deep and as relaxed as it wants to be at this moment. Just count your natural breaths up to seven, allowing each breath to be just as you want it to be—going at your own pace up to the magical seven. As you count your breaths, I shall describe where they are taking you. Begin counting now.

When you reach the seventh breath, you will find yourself standing at the edge of a circular meadow surrounded by trees. The trees are an open woodland—beech and silver birch and oak and ash. Right around the edge of the meadow you may notice that several trees are blooming and that some have fruit. Notice the colors and aromas. The grass of the meadow is about ankle deep and there are many small wildflowers blooming in the grass. Imagine stepping into the meadow and notice how the grass feels under your feet.

I'd like you to begin walking into the meadow toward the center of it, noticing the scents of the flowers on the still air as you walk through the grass. Just before you reach the center, please stop. Here you are at the boundary to Faery, and in a little bit someone will come to meet you.

While you are waiting for the faery, I'd like you to look at the flowers around your feet. What colors do you see? And what do you smell? If you look carefully, you will find some tiny blue-violet flowers with dark green leaves, hugging themselves close to Earthmother. These are the wild mothan, the flower that is a charm for a safe journey. Carefully and gently, so as not to disturb the leaves, pick one of these tiny flowers and thread the stem through a buttonhole or somewhere in your clothing or hair so that you can wear it on this journey.

Now, as you look across the meadow, you will see someone waiting for you by the far side. This is the being who will be your guide just for today in Faery. How big is this person? What colors or sounds or scents do you notice around this person?. What else do you notice about your temporary guide? What color are its eyes? Its hair?

Ask your guide what name you should call it by. Names have power in Faery, so it may choose to give you a temporary name or a nickname.

Please tell your guide the name that you yourself would like to be called in Faery.

The guide will hold out its hand to you. Take the hand in yours and notice how you feel as you hold your guide's hand. What one word best describes the way you feel?

When you are both ready, the guide leads you into the faery forest. Walking into the dappled shade of the tall, stately trees is like entering a sacred space, a holy place. You may be able to sense the life and the power of these ancient trees in some way—perhaps simply as a presence. Notice the way the air feels on your skin. Notice the feel of the surface you are walking on—is it mossy, soft, leafy, firm or something else? Are you following a clear path or just walking between the trees and undergrowth?

As you walk among the trees, notice the things around you—what colors do you see? What scents do you smell? What other impressions do you get of the forest—is it warm or cool? Bright or shadowy? Can you hear birds or other sounds?

Soon you find that you are at the edge of another meadow. Your guide leads you out onto the grass and when you reach the exact center, the guide plays a fragment of a wild melody on a set of Pan pipes. These few notes are like a call, a yearning request. The one who comes to that call will be your permanent guide, your true guide to Faery, the one who probably will be with you for many years to come.

As your true guide approaches you, I'd like you to notice some things about it: What does this being look like? How tall is it? Is it clothed? If so, what colors are its clothes? What color is its skin? Its hair? Its eyes? What expression do you see in those eyes? What three words do you think best describe the character of the faery being you see before you?

Ask your true guide for a name that you can use for it.

Now hold out your hand to it.

When it takes your hand, notice how it feels to be holding this being's hand. Is the hand large or small or in between? What one or two words best describe the way you feel as you hold hands with each other?

Now I'd like you to ask your true guide, what does it want you to do or to practice in your daily life so that you can better contact the faeries? You need a practical answer here, not something vague, so keep asking until you have something definite to do and understand it thoroughly.

Is this something you are willing to do? If you aren't certain about it or if you don't quite understand the request, discuss it with both of your guides. As you discuss it, your true guide may modify the request to better suit your circumstances. It is very important to keep any promises you make to the faeries, so as you make this agreement be certain that it is one you intend to and can keep.

When you have worked out your agreement, please state it clearly to both of your guides, starting with "I agree to..."

Now your true guide wants to give you a symbolic gift. Hold out your hands to receive it. As your guide places the gift in your hands, notice how heavy or light it is. What does the texture of it feel like against your fingers? What colors or sounds or scents are a part of this gift?

Ask your true guide what this gift symbolizes—what will it mean to you in your life in both worlds? If you don't understand the answer right away, ask both of your guides to clarify it for you.

Is this gift something you are willing to accept? If you don't want it, just say, "No, thank you" and put it gently down on the ground. If you do want to accept the gift, give it back to your true guide and ask the guide to put the gift in you or on you or around you, wherever it belongs. What does your guide do with the gift?

How does it feel to receive it?

Do you feel any different now than you did before you received the gift?

Thank your true guide for the gift.

Now it is time to leave the Otherworld for a while. Both of your guides will lead you back to the gate which you entered. Follow them, again noticing the things that you pass, the forest around you, especially the feeling of it, the way it makes you feel inside yourself to be there.

Has it changed any since you passed that way earlier?

When you return to the first meadow and the gate, it is time to tell both of your guides good-bye. Each of the guides bids you "farewell" in its own way, perhaps even with a hug or a kiss.

Before you leave the Otherworld, please take the tiny mothan, that small, precious flower that you picked earlier, and place it back among its leaves. Unlike the flowers of the mundane world, it will reattach itself to the plant, still blooming brightly. It will be waiting here for you when you next return.

When you have put the mothan back, your awareness and consciousness begin to change and you gradually find yourself back in the ordinary world. Be aware of your body sitting in the chair and your feet resting on the floor. Be aware of your breath, and take seven breaths, counting from seven back to one as you do so.

While you are counting, with each breath become more aware of your body and of the space around you. Feel the touch of your feet on the floor—how different is that from the way your feet felt touching the earth of the meadow and forest?

Notice the feeling in your hands, right to the tips of your fingers—how is that different from the feelings you had when you were touching the mothan, when you were holding hands with the fairies, when you were holding your gift from your true guide?

When you reach the count of "one" with your breath, flex your fingers and toes and take one last deep, deep breath. As you exhale that breath, slowly open your eyes. Notice if the world around you looks any different than it did before your journey to the otherworld.

The Follow-Up

First, remember the promise you made to your guide. Write that down in your journal and then add a description of the gift and what it symbolizes. Add anything else you would especially like to remember about the journey and what you encountered and felt there.

Next, draw a sketch of your guide. Don't worry about whether you can draw or not—whatever you can do is fine. If you feel that you don't have a clear enough picture of your guide in your mind at the moment, just remember back through the imagery journey and select one or more images or symbols from it and draw them. For example, you might draw the gift you were given by your guide. The more energy and fun you put into doing this, the better a connection you establish with the journey and the guide. Once you have made the image, put it on your Card 0: The Faery Guide, and the deck is now ready for you to begin using it.

Putting this picture on Card 0 isn't about producing great art—it is about strengthening the energy connection between you, your guide to faery, the Otherworld, and the Oracle itself.

© Copyright 2001 by Jessica Macbeth. All rights reserved.
This article may not be reproduced anywhere,
electronically or in print or by any other means,
without the written consent of the author.

Back to Faery Wisdom