Friends, I've been sorely in need of some good news. Today I got it. I called out sick to go see the surgeon who fixed my hip. Reason: the other hip was hurting. The surgeon looked at my new x-rays and pronounced my unfixed hip good to go for years and years! Woo Hooooooo! What a relief!
EXHIBIT A: PRINCESS, BY SEITOU
One of my readers has asked about how to build a faerie house. Princess and I think that's a good post topic, so here goes:My sister constructed a faerie house in her backyard. Her yard is rather abnormal, since the end of it is a big, steep bunker made when her McMansion was carved into a cornfield. Steep bunkers are great for faerie houses, because usually the local wildlife moves in quickly and carves out a portal. This had happened in Sis's yard. A groundhog laid the ... ground work.
Oy. That one makes even me groan.
Sis used her imagination and filled the vacant cavity with colored stones, little trinkets from the flea market, and pieces of broken glass. The part that I like the most is that she placed many pinwheels along the sides of her faerie house. Any wind makes that location lively indeed. I contributed a ceramic troll I found at a yard sale.
I don't have a faerie house in my back yard. I feel that faeries only visit our dimension. They live elsewhere. When they are with us, they revel in the natural environment.
This is not to say that you can't attract faeries to your back yard with some enticements. I would build a simple cairn of stone and decorate it with shiny items or pretty stones and feathers. I would lean heavily toward feathers found in the wild. Don't worry if they aren't colorful. It's the texture that the faeries like, not the hue. Also I don't think it matters what bird they come from, so long as you haven't gunned the fowl down and gutted it.
The world as we know it today is very different from times past. I think that faeries understand and appreciate this. Therefore I am always on the lookout at flea markets and thrift stores for unusual items of jewelry and/or trinkets. Do faeries mind if you leave one earring on their cairn when you've lost the other? I don't believe they see this as a sign of disrespect. Some of them love shiny things. By all means shower your backyard with diamonds if you like. And then give me your address!
One decorative embellishment I have used in Shrine of the Mists is marbles. Have you seen today's marbles? They aren't like the ones we actually played with back in the day. You see, this is another place where stuff becomes collectible. Companies are putting out theme packages of marbles for collectors! So I bought a theme package of marbles (the solar system) and dropped them into my shrine. They are beautiful by moonlight. Heck, they're just plain beautiful, and they didn't cost very much at all.
If you want to build a faerie house or cairn or shrine, be sure not to neglect the foundation. For this I recommend landscaping pebbles in the color of your choice. I put about five inches of them into Shrine of the Mists. Those puppies are pretty too, and nothing will grow up through them if you layer them thick enough.
Mindful that faeries travel between dimensions, you can keep the ones in your yard (and your life) happy if you give them offerings of chocolate and wine or other spirits. In this case I do go with fresh offerings, because who wants a stale Girl Scout cookie? Bard Andrew says that even if the faeries don't carry away your offering, they still take energy from it.
One of the things we seek from faeries is an energy exchange: our life force for their spirit force. Any way you choose to honor them and invite them to your home will be acceptable to them. I've seen everything from high-end OOAK faerie houses to a few stones piled together with a pinwheel anchored on top. Suit your own personality. If you build it, they will come.
Last thought on faeries: If you address them, be sure to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen," not "faeries." In the days of yore, faeries were called The Gentle Folk or The Gentry. They appreciate respect.
This valuable advice is offered, as always, free of charge.
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