It's only taken 50 years
There's nothing like something in nature to bring back memories from childhood, causing all the pieces to click together like one of those games of sliding squares.
It started with the blossom.
My favourite time of year is spring. The colours and the freshness of nature are so joyfully unfurling, unlike the heat of summer when nature is parched and we pray for rain. The spring is time for cow parsley in the lanes, and the bright yellow rape fields that cover the Somerset countryside.
We have an ornamental cherry tree in the front garden. We call it the 'free-tree', because it was a kind of gift when the small cul-de-sac opposite was built and they ended up with too many trees. The builders offered some to surrounding houses so we took one. Every year the stunning white blossom shows spring is well and truly in full swing, and then the wind takes the petals like snow, and it's finished as quickly as it flowered.
This year I remembered to collect some blossom so I could write this post for you.
As a young child of about six or seven years old, I would collect the pink blossom from a tree at the front of our house. I'd pick leaves, and place the petals on top so I could roll them up like a brandy snap, with the blossom spilling out of the ends as I secured the leaf with a twig. I'd take them to the back garden and place them under a hedge as presents for the faeries. I thought that was quite normal.
No Imaginary Friends
I can't say I had spirit friends as a child, but like most children I read the Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton, and knew that faeries, elves, gnomes and pixies were out there, but we couldn't see them.
On a caravan holiday to the New Forest as a youngster - probably around 1973 - I remember my father telling me that if I was very, very quiet, I would hear the pixies saying 'One, two, three, and off we go!' I always remember that!
Now, my father isn't very 'woo'. Well, to be honest as I've got older, I haven't really asked him, but thinking back, he did say some interesting things.
When I was about ten years old, two classes of our primary school were situated in portacabins about half a mile from the main school. They were in quite a large field, and one day I went home quite worried that the teacher had said we would be walking around the field in silence the following day, so we could listen to things around us, and then we would write a list of what we heard when we got back to the classroom. I'm now in my mid 50s, and having taught many mindfulness seminars, this seems quite normal, but back then in the 70s, it was very strange indeed! Maybe our teacher was very ahead of her time?
My father said, 'don't worry, just tell them it was so quiet, you could hear the grass growing'.
Now, I think he was making a joke, and I didn't tell the teacher that's what I heard, but I did listen really hard. I couldn't hear the grass, because thirty pairs of wee shoes were marching over it, but now when I need to settle, I go outside and lie in the garden. Yes, I can hear the grass growing, just as I can feel the gentle throb of the earth beneath me. Try it. In America, they call it Earthing.
Maybe he was on to something?
My mother would be the one who bought me the Beatrix Potter books and kept Santa's secret for many years. Mind you this was the age before internet and fifty thousand TV channels, so I guess it was much easier in those days. My father however, became less interested in the magical side of faerie land as I got older. Or so I assumed.
In my early teens I moved on to books about reading auras, and how to make a natural face packs. At secondary school we would try to astral travel in our dreams to meet up for adventures, although I'm not sure it was worked! My parents meanwhile headed towards divorce, my mother had been to see a clairvoyant, and I discovered my father with a book called 'Bring Out The Magic in Your Mind' by Al Koran. I was probably about 14 at that time. I was thinking about this book a few years ago, and asked him about it. I don't think he remembered it at all, and he certainly didn't have it. So I found one of my own! It's quite dated by todays standards, but I have it on my bookshelf. It talks of the magic of love, and the magic of colour - explaining about chakras and vibration. One of my first mindful woowoo books!
Many years later, I'm full circle.....
In between my childhood where I made little gifts to the faeries, and present day where I am creating powerful pieces of art to rebalance and heal people and spaces, there have been 35 years of holistic therapies. Three salons, two day spas, and the sixth one still running here for clients who need me.
(I don't think I'm ready to stop seeing my amazing clients just yet, after all, I work with energy, and that means on all levels!)
So here I am, about to hold my fifth exhibition that features, among other things, sprites and elementals on handmade rag paper. These started to emerge in my work last year while on a Residency in Cornwall at The Scarlet Hotel. This was where my journey into professional art really jump-started. If you are new to my work, you can read about it here.
The exhibition is called VIBE. It's about colour, frequency and vibration! I had read about this in the Al Koran book in my late teens, but had forgotten because it wasn't relevant. Or was it subliminally sitting there ready to transmit when the time was right? That time is NOW.
The sprites are showing themselves to me after all these years although I've always known they are around, I just needed that nudge to show them to you! It was more than a light bulb moment! A friend recently said to me, 'Where have you been hiding all this?'
Well, now it's not hidden. Now you know!
Meet the Frogmary Dragon Sprite.
Emerged while filming a little montage to
promote a Sprite Catching Workshop in a few weeks time.
