The Mysteries of the Fairy Godmother
When I adopted the image of the Fairy Godmother I searched my memory for recollections of what I knew of the Fae world and the Fairy Godmother specifically. The Fairy Godmother has magical powers….but how did she learn to be a Fairy Godmother? Is there a school Fairy Godmothers attend? Who was she before she became the Fairy Godmother? Did she apprentice to transform herself into this iconic figure? Was she born as a hereditary master into the role? Where does she live? What does her home look like? Who was her mother? Her father? What does she do when she is not involved in tasks specific to her role as the Fairy Godmother? Does she have a social life? Is she married? Has she created a line of Fairy Godmother products? How can we know so little about a culturally iconic figure? I tried reading up on the Fairy Godmother. There isn’t much information.
In my twenties and thirties I practiced the tools of mysticism, alternative healing, divination, meditations, and shamanism simultaneously. Yes, it was overwhelming. I’d been traditionally educated as a therapist. I went through my internships and became licensed. I don’t often tell people but after I graduated with my Masters in counseling I had great tools to unearth pain. I had very few methods to calm and self-comfort. I had a mythic-sized breakdown confronted with the pains of my past. I was living an emergency, or in Fairy Godmother speak “a healing crisis.” I needed mythic-sized tools. I had to find and implement multiple approaches to heal the pain of my past. My life depended on it. I stumbled into the stories of mysticism. As a result, thirty years later I had a working construct of dreaming. Exploring the dimensions of the Sacred had become second nature. I decided to utilize these instruments to search out more information about the Fairy Godmother. It was in part, the expertise collected from the landscape of my ceremonial efforts that allowed me to pull back the curtain and glimpse the Fairy Godmother’s version of flourishing. I used visualization, dreaming and synchronicity. I decided to study her interactions with Cinderella to find the keys of happiness. I read to search out a single meaningful sentence I recognized applied to the Fairy Godmother. If you search out the Fairy Godmother she may look different than what I found.
Here is what research tells me about the Fae. When the earth was created out of stardust, the heartbeat of the earth spoke the language of the stars. The creation myth of Fairy describes the marriage of earth and stars. Their children were the ancestors of the Fae. In the beginning, mortals and fairies danced, played together and spoke the shared language of earth’s heartbeat. When mortals sought dominion over the earth they stopped hearing her song. Now it was easier to exploit the earth’s resources. Mortals imagined the earth as inanimate. We lost our ability to speak the language Mother Earth, Father Sky and Fairy. Nature became a great divide. The realms of matter and spirit, previously indivisible, were now unrelated. Mortals lived in the world of matter. Fairies live in the dimension where all things are alive and related. Sometimes mortals sought out Fae within earth’s heartbeat and became lost in the song of creation. Only a few mortals spanned the divide seeking a foot in matter and a foot in spirit.
I am one of those individuals searching for this balance. I wonder if this is what gave me access to the dimension of the Fairy Godmothers. I know it sounds mystical at best and crazy at worst. Because the worlds have drifted so far apart it is a miracle to stand with a foot in spirit and the other in substance. Not valuing one over the other, instead dwelling within such a powerful equanimity we embrace both. Honestly, I’m not certain, specifically, how I came to peek behind the veil of the Great Mystery. I meditated. I imagined the Fairy Godmother’s aura and tried it on. I practiced her aura in meditations and some as an experiment in yoga. I visualized dialogues. I created focal points of beauty related to the Fairy Godmother….Sometimes we draw information from the Great Mystery.
Here is what I’ve found: The Fairy Realm is far more transparent and fragile than the human world. Instead of vibrating with the density of the substance, Fairy vibrates with a purified energetic resonance. However there are crossover points in geography, as well as, other crossovers in seasonal time. I wondered could beauty be another bridge? Beauty so potent it could crush you or beauty so delicate a breath destroys it. There are infinite faces of beauty. Beauty carries the harmonics of the stars and the heartbeat of Mother Earth. Making acts of beauty magnetizes the interest of the Fairy Realm and the two worlds are drawn together. In addition to acts of beauty, qualities like compassion, integrity, truth, faith, graciousness, genuine personal transparency, random acts of kindness, harmony, joy and laughter can create crossover points—a bridge—to the home of the Fairy Godmother. It was a mystical event when the Fairy Godmother appeared in Cinderella’s garden.
It is a mystical event we can recreate. Drawing our Deepest Desires into the frequencies of the material world purifies us, producing the qualities of self-hood that resonate at the highest frequencies. While writing The Way of the Fairy Godmother I wondered what does the aura, the personal radiance of the Fairy Godmother feel like? I began visualizing myself surrounded by the Fairy Godmother’s blissful vibration. I wrapped myself in her aura before yoga and people started commenting. “You look radiant today.” Their comments were confirmation. ‘This is real.’ Within the glow of the Fairy Godmother I felt whole—substantial yet light as a feather.
I was looking for the DNA of the Fairy Godmother. I started asking myself to look at situations the way I imagined the Fairy Godmother might perceive them. I practiced her incontrovertible positive nature even as my financial and physical life began to fall apart. People continued to comment on this ineffable beauty. You might ask, “What was the value?” My substantial world was in crisis. How could the Fairy Godmother help? Look at the story of Cinderella. The Fairy Godmother came to her when Cinderella’s life was perilous. I decided to live the experiment. When I stayed within the positive aura of the Fairy Godmother I felt better. I wasn’t exactly serene. But I felt I had access to serenity. I know, “whatever that means.” It doesn’t make sense but at the time when I was frantic, disenfranchised from the life I had created, and access to serenity was meaningful, easing my desperation. It doesn’t matter to me if the Fairy Godmother is “real.” Living within the aura and possibilities of the Fairy Godmother made me feel better. Feeling better is real enough for me.
This is the characteristic of the spiritual world—it’s nature is concealed. People entrenched in the material world decided, based on invisibility, spirituality has no value or meaning. This, of course, is nonsense. There is much in life, both real and invisible. The wind, electricity, the internet! And what is this computer cloud where everyone hides their secrets? Or consider this: You, the reader of The Way of the Fairy Godmother, right now you are invisible to me as I type this book at my computer. And yet you have a material body, and a spiritual body. I am reaching across this invisible spiritual bridge conversing with you. I feel your presence looking over my shoulder. We are not sitting face to face. I cannot touch you. I don’t know the color of your hair or eyes. You are invisible to me. But I know you exist. We share writing this book, as every reader rewrites the books they read. Yet we don’t even share the same time. You exist in another time and place in the future. (Pretty cool, right?)
Confronted with two worlds, the visible and invisible, matter and spirit, we choose. Will we live in limiting beliefs? Will we be defined by the literal and material elements of our circumstances? Will we be defined by our now invisible past? Another irony? People who don’t believe in the spiritual dimensions often make their invisible past King of their internal domain. They make choices, creating a future out of the remnants of the now invisible past. And yet they maintain they don’t believe in the invisible world of spirit. Others deify work, education, jewelry or clothes, the outward external elements of life. Will we be defined by our past, intellect, degrees and education? All of these aspects of self are valuable and make up a portion of our totality. But we are more then what we see, feel and touch. All of us including the world we live in exist beyond time and space interfacing within the Great Mystery. We can deny or embrace the Mystery. We can deny or embrace the Sacred. We can deny or embrace our Deepest Desires. Choose. Will we penetrate the unseen dimensions of joy? Will we be solely defined by the tangible? Will we allow ourselves to be touched by the Fairy Godmother’s incontrovertible positivity?
All this leads me to more questions. Do you have a set of practices and traditions that nurture your spirit? Do you have time for the spontaneous, the inexplicable and the sacred? When was the last time you experienced reverie—just letting your mind wander where your spirit pulls you? Do you ever just breathe? Do you take in the colors of the sky at twilight? How often do you practice the most dramatic and quickly effective spiritual practice, a cleansing breath?
I’m not talking about fancy convoluted breathing where you cover one nostril with your ring finger. Breathe up one side of the body and down the other side, quickly shifting your fingers over to the other nostril on the downside of the breath. I get aggravated just thinking about these breathing machinations. I’m talking about just noticing your breath. A cleansing breath is like pushing the re-do button. It helps you let go of the past and prepare for the future. Try noticing the path of your breath as you inhale and exhale. Don’t change anything. Just notice the path of your breath with conscious volition. This is instantly, mysteriously, calming. Having a day where your heart is broken? You don’t have to fix it. Breathe through and around the wreckage. Let’s face it. we’re human and life is messy. Our task is to find meaning and joy amidst and beyond the difficulties. A cleansing breath allows us to pick up the pieces and begin again. There is a lot of power in giving yourself permission to start over.
The Fairy Godmother and I share an essential value. If what we are doing, in the world, and in our spiritual practices, is not effective and purposeful; if it isn’t relevant in both worlds, why are we doing it? I have a friend who says, “If it doesn’t grow corn, forget it.” I’m interested in a life where spiritual acts talk to practical acts. I want to reside where words and images, speaking to behaviors, congruently produces results both Spiritual and mundane. Try wiring in the spiritual with everyday tasks and chores. For instance, when I practice yoga I set an intention. I have a prayer, and I let my body and my movements carry my prayer. When I’m cleaning the house I imagine a spiritual vortex of Divine Essence washing down through me and my home. I see the whirlwind of Divine Light carry away all of the debris. I ask an aura of Divine Love and Protection to permeate and fill the void.
Find your ways to invite the Divine into your goals and ambitions as you manifest evolving Deepest Desires. Make a place for the sacred. This practice invites the serendipity, flowing along the edges of our mission, to enter, bringing us a fragment (or a world) of unanticipated good fortune. Serendipity might show up as an accident or a fluke. It could be a happy coincidence. Serendipity is a regular phenomenon in scientific research that gets very little press. Think the discovery of penicillin.
Traditionally when seeking connection with the Sacred, the Creator the Universe, we say a prayer. Prayer can be a petition for help. Prayer can be a sacred promise. So often I find prayer comforting. Recently dwindling money led me into a panic attack right before sleep. Because of my auto-immune issues, (separate from occasional anxiety, (!)) getting rest is essential. I can’t really explain what happens to me with fatigue. It feels like the heat leaves my body. It feels like what I imagine altitude sickness might feel; making me ache, pursued by a feeling of doom. So when I had the panic attack around midnight I freaked out a little. Fortuitously I remember to initiate a prayer. My prayer was filled with intensity and dread, when I noticed a comforting weight on my shoulder gently pressing me down. The weight not just a comfort, it also created warmth. Was it the substantial yet invisible weight of an angel? I felt this warmth guide me into sleep and beyond, soothing my panic and fears.
Prayer reduces stress. Prayer buffers the strains of daily life. Prayer intertwined with Deepest Desires is a form of reverence. It’s a spiritual connection, a phone line, a direct communication to the Great Spirit. Prayer has been around for a long time. Try it. Create a prayer from your Deepest Desires. Say a prayer to whatever face the Sacred wears for you. Invite the Great Mystery into your dreams, aspirations and goals. Write out your prayer. Describe your hopes. List your fears. Confess. Ask for help. Petition for the transformation of your obstacles into opportunities. Ask the Divine to permeate the Deepest of your Desires.
Many books have been written about the power of prayer. I can only add that prayer is an indispensable part of my days and nights. It is another bridge to the realm where all is alive, sacred and related. Prayer is a place I go for solace when I’m frazzled and nothing can calm me. I regain my center and my serenity through prayer. Collaborating with the Fairy Godmother is a form of prayer I’ve found healing. Don’t take my word for it. Experiment with prayer. Invite the Divine into your life. Make room for the miraculous. Consciously ask the Great Spirit to guide, direct and protect you as you manifest your Deepest Desires. It is the nature of evolution and the Divine to continually transcend itself.
When we commit to manifesting Deepest Desires, in a way that benefits us and the world, we hook into Divine Evolution. This is the beginning of the process called ascension. All that we are encompasses the mundane and the Sublime. When we can hold within our heart and spirit both the mundane and the Divine, and when the mundane and the Divine are integrated into the fabric of our life, we have resolved the paradox of duality. The energetic vibration within and around us is raised. We are sharing the realm of the Fairy Godmother. People will want to catch a little of the glow we emanate.