Hey all, hope you all had a good month since our last meeting. It was for me, the Rade Chronicles project is moving along quite well, and I’ve developed a love for copywriting that I can fully explore with a gig I have writing audio ads and other short commercial texts. But my focus today will be on the Rade Chronicles if that’s ok with you. And the existence of Fey Folk (or Fairies).
I began this project with the intention of writing a metaphysical story with imaginary creatures sprinkled throughout the book and using that to expose how human consumerism is depleting our earth’s capacity to renew itself. From the very first pages of research I read; the project began to change. It became apparent that the lives of the Fey Folk and humans are intertwined on a much deeper level than I had anticipated. In human history and folklore, some cultures have some features that others don’t because of geographical or temperature-related realities. One will worship mountains and the snow while another will revere the ocean and its plentiful bounty. With Fey Folk, or Fairies, or imaginary beings, call them what you want, they exist in all cultures across all parts of history, including the present day. The most well-known originate in the isles of Great Britain and Northern Europe — Banshees, Leprechauns, Elves, Kelpies, Kobolds, etc. But every culture is home to very similar creatures. The Japanese have the Keiju. The Lenape people in Northeast North America have the Pukwudgie. Along the east coast of the same continent roams the Wendigo. The Chinese have the Huli Jing, the Malaysians have the Pari-Pari, The Peris roam within the Persian mythology, the Dharmpur-Kasauli appear in India’s folklore — I could go on for pages, but the point here is that I’ve come to the conclusion Fey Folk are real. That the various forms they take in the world have the same origin. The stories that fill each mythological text carry the same elements. What they do exactly and how they interact with us is still a profound mystery, but it is apparent they exist just outside our peripheral vision.
Before you go off and accuse me of witchery or anything like that, let’s be clear. First, my belief is personal, based on observations that don’t quantify into scientific proof but appear as a growing list of circumstantial evidence. Second, it doesn’t change how I perceive the reality we live in — it only adds a layer to it. If you’re still with me, you might be wondering what the circumstantial evidence I speak of might be? Well, it’s not much, I’ll admit, but here are some examples.
To respect their presence, I built a Fairy house that I placed in my living room. On the very first night it was completed, I had a dream where I was invited to a housewarming party by beings I could feel but not see. Since then, I have been invited a few more times to that house (it’s not the same as the one I built, but it feels like it is) and those dreams are especially different… and real.
I promised one share of each dessert I make (I bake all my desserts, never buy them) as appreciation for any help they might have for me. Last summer, we had a period during which flies pretty much took over our environment. This was due to a combination of the extreme heat, humidity, and compost containers not properly closed along my street (in Montreal we have a public composting program). That meant it was essential to never leave any food out as it was quickly broken down by the flies. Except the Fairy-house didn’t have windows or a door that closed so we left the food exposed to the fly invasion. They never touched that food, even when it was especially sweet and filled with fruit jam.
I started with a different version of the book, and the deeper I got into it, the more strange occurrences happened around the house — broken dishes, the strap on my grocery bag giving way at the worst possible moment, spilling my dinner plate before even taking a bite — general mishaps that happen in most homes, but the more I wrote, the more they happened. When my computer warned me it was dying, I took that as a message (I still didn’t believe at that time but thought why not explore that avenue) and scrapped what I wrote and started over from a totally different perspective. That was sometime in the summer of 2021, I’ve yet to break or spill anything and the tech equipment is running smoothly.
If a cat is playing around as if running after a ball or something similar but has nothing physical to play with, it is said it is playing with a Fairy. In the same breath, if a cat runs away and hides for no reason, it might be afraid of a Fairy that could be malevolent. Both happened in my house. During the first try at the Rade Chronicles, my cats would regularly disappear while I wrote and had a general demeanor about them that seemed off. They were pretty much always on alert. As soon as I started on the current version, both cats began joyously playing with imaginary play balls, running around the house in happy chaos. And while I write, they stay close, purring almost the whole time.
There are other examples, but I think you get the gist. My conclusion is that they don’t exist in a parallel world, they exist simultaneously. We live in the physical reality of classical physics, they exist in the chaos that lies just beneath our reality. What I mean by that is that their world is present at the same time and space coordinates in the Universe as ours.
I don’t expect you to dive in with me, just felt it was important to share with you that the Fey Folk are companions of our existence since before we counted time, and with the Rade Chronicles, I hope to impart the idea that what we call magic is nothing more than a different perspective of our world. This is but the first part of something I feel will grow to unfathomable heights.
That’s it, hope my words today will help you find some enchantment around you. And if you do, why not take a moment to salute whoever or whatever might be present. I’ll keep you updated on the progress of the Rade Chronicles book one, many fun things will be happening soon.
For those who read this and want to know more about Fairy lore, I suggest starting with author Morgan Daimler. Her focus is Irish, but the insights she has are priceless and her books are fun to read.