The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry

I was surprised by a friend last week when she invited me to join her at FaerieCon. Everyone that believes in the Fae knows that this is the premier fairy gathering for the year. All the faerie artists, musicians, and writers will be there, not to mention a few thousand true believers.

Needless to say, I am more than excited, especially since I thought that I wouldn’t be able to go this year. When I told Arial, she immediately started tugging on my ear. “I want to go! Please! Take me, take me, take me!” Her insistence was hurting my ear so I gently lifted her off my shoulder and set her down on the counter. ” I don’t know….”. Arial paced back and forth, waiting for my decision. “How would I take you.”  I tilted my head and pulled at my lower lip. ” Let me see, how about I pack you in my suitcase?”

With a dainty leap and a flip of her wings she landed back on my shoulder. Wrinkling her nose she ask, “What is a suitcase?” I felt that this was one of those moments that couldn’t pass without some sort of a visual aid so I started up the stairs. “I will show you and then you can decide if you really want to go.”

I had been packing all day and the suitcase lay open on the bed. “This, is a suitcase. We use it to carry things like clothes and stuff when we travel. You can just lay in there and I’ll close it up. No one will know you’re in it. What do you think, want to give it a try?”

Arial tip toed over the dresses and plopped down in the middle with an indignant huff, eyeing me carefully. “You don’t really expect me to stay in here, I would not have any air, or space. I could not see!”

I motioned for Arial to move and closed the bag. “Well, I just don’t see how to get you there any other way. So you are staying then? The emerald guard could use your help with the portal while I’m gone.”

My little friend hovered, mid-air, with her hands on her hips. “Oh, I am going, just not in that.” She pointed at the bag. “Do not underestimate fairy ingenuity, we have our ways of moving through the mortal world undetected.”

With those last words she winked out, leaving me to wonder just what she was up to. I mumbled to myself. “Well, I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. I wonder if she will be able to get through the security gates at the airport?”

© Tami Ruesch, The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry, 2009.

” Arial, come and look.” I was working at the computer when an e-mail message came in from a good friend, Katherine Bourgeois. Kat and I met on a social site for business people and were immediately friends. I was told by Queen Litha that faerie people find each other, and I am finding out that  she was right, people from all over are writing to me about some faerie sighting or another.

“Remember Kat? She introduced us to Patricia Saxton.” Arial was all smile’s as she made herself comfortable on my shoulder. “Yes, I do remember, have you received new tidings from her? (Fairy’s tend to talk “old world”).

“I have, would you like to see?” Arial jumped up and swirled about in a fast, rather complicated series of aerial maneuvers. She stopped suddenly and drew a tiny silver flute from  her belt. It wasn’t long after the sweet, melodic notes had faded away that the room exploded into hundreds of fall faeries, all struggling to look at the monitor. I had faeries sitting on my head and slipping off both shoulders, one even tried to perch on the tip of my nose. “Um…excuse me!” I carefully removed the offending faerie by lifting her up by the wings and setting her down on the desk, where remarkably, there wasn’t one other faerie. “Thanks Arial, just what we needed, a faerie fan club.”

The room vibrated with excitement. Arial darted back and forth, “Hurry, hurry hurry!” A couple of  things I have noticed about my faerie friends, they don’t have much patience, and they love a good story (that’s probably why Arial is so insistent that I write things down). “All right, calm down! I’m opening it, look, here it comes. She sent pictures too!”

Kat wrote:

Tami, on a recent trip blueberry picking in a beautiful valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, my granddaughter Chloe and I discovered several beautiful faerie hideaways.  These lovely little spots also sparked a little faerie haiku.

Arial wrinkled her nose as she tip-toed around the keyboard. “What is “haiku?” She ask this as if it were something to avoid stepping in.

I had to laugh at the expression on her face. “Haiku is a form of non-rhyming, Zen-like poetry that originated in Japan. It has a formal structure limited to seventeen syllables, five in the first line, seven in the second line, and five in the third line. Would you like me to read them to you?” All the faeries clapped and cheered so I began:

Deep in the valley

I thought I saw a glimmer

Of faerie luster.

Twinkling by the stream

Sparkling, blinking, and shining

Faeries as flashlights

******

Faerie, tucked in for

The night, did you hide your light

Under the covers?

******

Silly Faerie, why

Do you think I cannot see

You blinking at me?

******

Do faeries smile and

Stop to talk a while and be

Friends like you and me?

******

Is there faerie time?

Or can their days be measured

In winks of an eye?

******

When faeries get mad

Do they blink slowly and point

A mean wing at you?

There was a soft collective sigh when I stopped reading. Fairy eyes are, for the most part, large and dewy, but now I noticed that there were more than a few misty eyes in the group. I smiled. “Judging by everyone’s response I take it that you like Kat’s Haiku?” The faeries were sitting in groups of two and three hugging each other and humming softly.

Arial came up close to my ear and whispered “We must send Kat a missive this instant thanking her for her charming words and her captivating still life!”

The fall faeries drifted off, one by one, still caught in the magic of Katherine’s words.

© Tami Ruesch, The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry, 2009.

With Arial’s help, I have found my way back to the mortal world, and my garden. I have never been to a midsummer faerie festival and I’m here to tell you that it can take a lot out of a person, even a person like me with faerie blood flowing in her veins.

The summer season is progressing and I can feel a touch of fall in the air, Lughnasa, which marks the beginning of the harvest (Aug. 12th) has come and gone and we are quickly advancing on Mabon.

Mabon is celebrated on the Autumnal Equinox, the time when day and night are equal and is sometimes called the second harvest, the Festival of Dionysus, or the Feast of Avalon. In times past, a good harvest meant surviving the cold winter months.

At Mabon, we  reflect back on our accomplishments of the year and give thanks for all that we have achieved. We plan for the dark cycle of the year, but look  forward to the future and the promise of spring.

In looking back, I am proud of my accomplishments but it is Warren, my little gnome friend, who surpasses me . This year, I decided to grow a garden. In the spring, Bill surprised me by digging up some stumps so that I could plant a faerie cottage garden. Warren helped where he could but kept getting under foot so I insisted that he just watch. I planted several different  perennials and some herbs, and when the weather warmed up a little, I planted some snapdragons and petunias.

When the cottage garden was planted and happily growing, I turned my attention to the vegetable  garden. I planted tomates and cucumbers, green peppers and zucchini.

After all the starts were planted, I had one little tomato plant left over. It was the smallest plant of the bunch and I thought that I would just throw it away but Warren ask if I might let him have it. I didn’t know where to plant it so I just stuck it in my flower garden. I put a cage around it and left it for the gnomes to tend.

August has come and the tomato’s are ripening. Mine are having some difficulty, the spring was wetter than usual so I have been fighting powdery mildew and blossom end rot. Warren’s tiny tomato plant on the other hand has grown into a gigantic vine and has taken over the entire flower garden! I knew gnomes had a way with gardens, that was one of the reasons I asked Warren and Odette to come and live in mine, but this is amazing. I have never seen a tomato vine get so big.

It has grown up and over the cage, then down and over all my perenials. Warren loves teasing me, he is very proud of his work and has offered his expertise for our garden next year. I think I will take him up on his offer, but if all my tomato’s grow this big, I will have to have more space.

The days are getting shorter and soon the fall faeries will arrive to help usher in the hibernation of winter. As much as I love the fire faeries of summer, I can’t wait to see my winter faerie friends again. Arial has been  spending a lot of time lately looking toward the north in anticipation. As I watch her now, I wonder what the dark winter nights have in store for us…it has been to quite at  Mrs. Shunner’s house.

© Tami Ruesch, The Misty World of Arial Hollyberry, 2009.