A Magical Mermaid's Tale

She began with a beautiful tail, full of the sea, and I gave lightest hint of definition to the creatures swimming within the silk, so as to maintain their freedom to move and the possibility for your eyes to see them differently than I do. Then I shared this watery magic with the mermaid herself. I wonder if perhaps I do not write enough of this part of my creating with the magical beings, the listening, the waiting for the atmosphere to be what is needed, the communication and love as they slip into being. I know that many of you perceive this etherial enlivening of the cloth when you hold these beings, and sometimes it is hard for me to put into words, but today I have tried to show it a little more clearly. 

I will also tell you that the silk that she is wrapped in, of which some will be hers to wear, was a gift from my grandmother when I was eleven when she visited me after a trip to China and gave me snippets of the silks she had found there. The colours and pattern of this sea coral like print is perfect for this mermaid, and she reminded me that I had it, so I could not refuse her, thus the story and preciousness of this silk will grow into the hands that will come to love her.

Slowly she swam into being and called for her companions 

When I began stitching this wonderful being I had no idea that she would call forth so many companions and whisper about such precious snippets of silk for me to stitch with. 

 

Here she is cradled in the sea

This piece contains so much precious treasure and has so much possibility for play, story-telling and celebration of the sea. Of course the mermaid and her babe can be taken from their seat amongst the waves and either have their tails around them or their feet showing, all their companions, two jelly fish, a seahorse, a starfish and schools of tiny fish can be moved from their places on the mobile too, and as well as the sea treasures that I have added you may choose to collect some of your own to twirl from the mother of pearl buttons around the mobile. The size of the mermaid means she is perfect to hold in a puppeteer’s way for the telling of your own magical seaside story.  Your story might begin like this..

And then this beautiful pearly heart shell that came as a gift on my seashore just as I was completing this magical creation, it felt like a beautiful message of validation from the beings of the water and it fits so perfectly at this mermaid's heart

She is now looking for a magical home to play in.

Midsummer's first song

You probably already know
all about the garden folk who help the garden grow.
The gnomes who nourish the roots,
The fiery faeries who guide the sunbeams to ripen rosy fruits,
Those swift small sylphs bearing up in the air,
Dandelion wishes to grow here and there.

But I wonder if you might have heard

Of the wee ones who help the birds,

Carrying twigs to furnish nests

and helping find berries that taste the best.

 

At this magical time of year,

When midsummer festivities are drawing near,

The birds all sing with happy din,
Enjoining festivities to begin.

Dear robin has a lot to do
Delivering mail all fairyland through,
So these little ones give a helping hand
Carrying letters across the land.

Here’s a tender request from the wind to the rose,
to share her petals as a carpet for tiny dancing toes.

There’s a letter from the moonbeam fays to sweet slow snail,
Arranging for reflection of silvery sheen around this mysterious veil.

 

And a precious request from the fairy queen,
bearing a special stamp not often seen.
A letter to dear Robin himself,
Carried with great care by this kind helping elf
‘Honourable Robin, it is the wish of wee folk all,
That you should sing the first note of midsummer’s procession call.'

Filled with all this preparation
the whole garden is full of elation.

If you were to wake
At first day break,
And tiptoe to peep
While many still sleep,
You are sure to find
Magic beings of all kind,
Dancing midsummer blessings for the ground
To the trill of the birds first joyfully sung sounds.

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This story was first published as a tiny booklet insert in the bird-zine 'Perched' by The Knothole Tree, you can subscribe here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/617525287/perched-a-bird-zine-issue-5-junejuly

If you would like your own wee fairy robin helpers please request them from the Magic Fairy Lady here: Dear Robin's fairy helpers 

Advent Blessings for the Elemental Beings

 The first week of Advent, blessings for the Gnomes, children of Earth

Deep deep, deep beneath

Winter’s frost firm blanket of sleep

Magical children, dwellers of our ground

Hold love to be awakened and re-found

The Gnomes tenderly care

For Earth’s treasures resting there,

Each child polishes stones to glow,

With murmurings of ancient dreams they know,

And from pointing hats they draw, soft slumbering stories

Soon to urge, small seedlings into Spring’s flowering glories

Dear Gnomes

We are holding love with you

In gratitude

This Adventide

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  The second week of Advent, blessings for the Undines, children of Water

Clear clear, clear within

Still moon pool reflections, where wonders begin,

Magical children swimmers of seas and stream,

Form love into patterns, spiraling powers to be seen.

The Undines gently shape,

Small Nooks of raindrops and glaciers great.

With the tip of his wand a young boy carves

Trees into sea-sand and puddles-glass stars,

And though Winter’s rivers surge fierce and rushing,

Soon with soft burbling, Spring’s babes they’ll be hushing.

Dear Undines

We are forming love with you

In gratitude

This Adventide

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 The third week of Advent, blessings for the Sylphs, children of Air

High high, high above,

Tree tops listen for the song of the turtle dove,

Magical children, beings of fair air,

Breathe love to sustain life here, there, and everywhere.

The Sylphs joyfully twirl and gustily blow

Golden leaf flutterings and flurries of first snow,

And while caught in the woosh of windy wild dancing

The air they’re preparing for dandelion wishing.

 Dear Sylphs

We are breathing love with you

In gratitude
This Adventide

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 The fourth week of Advent, blessings for the Salamanders, children of Fire

Free free, free beyond

Flickers of starlight in dreams are thronged

Magical children creators of fire

Nourish love in harmony with Sun’s heavenly choir.

The Salamanders guide warmth and light

To comfort the world on cold winter nights

And the flames of our hearths serve to remind

Our hearts to share love with all living kind

Dear Salamanders
We are nourishing love with you
In gratitude
This Adventide

The Apprentice Puppeteer

There is an ancient winding trail that gleams o’re fairyland. It is not laid in stone or tar or even from long trodden earth and leaves. This way is made of wisps of mist, layered think and thin enough to forget journey’s toil and drift within.

For almost all of each hour and day and for nearly the full turning of the year, a cart and unicorn travel this wayward road. Sometimes a faint or louder hoof fall can be heart and sometimes it may simply be imagined that the travelers glide.

It would be foolish to hope to see them as you went about your busy day ordinarily, but if you gaze for long moments through the shimmer around the sun-kissed petals of a rose, or breath the morning dew blessed air with your eyes half closed….then, who knows.

Children of fairykin or human kind, and older folk who know how to stretch still seconds, are often lucky enough to see the pathway in the distance. And to remember that, there, to the rhythm of clippety clop, and turning wheels, is where wishes dance and tangle with story and what might be.

Perched high upon the cart’s hollowed bark seat, from which wild sweet strawberries tumble and climb, and looking out over and past the horizon where the unicorn’s horn pricks new stars into the sky, rests the Apprentice Puppeteer.

This ageless being is not apprentice by the usual human understanding of the word, but apprentice in all humility to the stories of worlds, never presuming to know what will unfold.

Once in a while, at times that are not most times, or when a story needs to be told, or when a being needs to be held and rocked by marvel, the cart pulls into a clearing, into a pause, or a bubble of glistening air. And all around little announcements and invitations can suddenly be found.

And whispers fill the air…. The Puppeteer is here, the theater cart has come, stories of tenderness and glory will be shown and told, gather gather young and old!

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Once upon a time the puppeteer wove a story for the little pussycat blue who had no home in a busy dark town and who weary and hungry one long night had slipped and dipped his paw hopefully into milky mist, and there found the answering longing of a flowering fairy girl in need a galavanting furry friend.

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Once upon a time the puppeteer lent her hand to the wind who was unknotting a mother’s wash basket of worries, teasing each care free and tossing it up to float away in the arms of the dancing trees.                
This story when it was told, began at dawn with the twitter of early rising birds and babes...

....and continued all day,

 moving through the magic cart's theater windows as evening came and settled into night.

And then that story went to sleep with the Apprentice Puppeteer and hummed and danced with the other stories that were sighing themselves into her dreams.

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Often it is the children who bring stories that want to be told

and they delight in sharing the telling of these stories

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And always the puppet show is brought to a close with the story or the young girl, who was born in fairyland, but gave her wings to an old lady who needed them where she was going, and received in thanks from the stars, the possibility to hear and tell stories, and guardianship of the gleaming pathway,

The story tells of the unicorn who heard her loneliness one day, when she felt sad that she could no longer fly, and helped her and kept her company...

and of this story tells of the heart that grew on her back, just gently where her wings had once been.