The Faeries Make Me Do it

"The faeries make me do it" are the words that will be etched into a bone pin for my next Ren Faire excursion. I meant it as tongue and cheek sassy - the kind of attitude that has led to trouble... fun trouble, scary trouble, exhilarating trouble, exhausting trouble, irresistible trouble… Faery flights and pixie delights.

It all seems light-hearted, almost flippant until the faery magic settles into something more real. Afterall, we are nearing Beltane.. a playful, frolicsome and yet seriously intense faery holy day.Faery dust began to fall when I meandered into the Hans Christian Anderson museum at the Book Loft in Solvang, a truly walkable town replete with historic downtown facades, scrumptious pastries and many dishes that carry the mark of the Danes who first arrived in the 1800s.

The museum stores rare copies of Anderson’s books as well as modern takes on his fables such as The Princess and the Pea, Thumbalina, Snow Queen (the inspiration for the wildly popular Disney movie Frozen) and of course The Little Mermaid. Hans was the son of a shoemaker and wrote over 150 fairytales. I bought a book for my niece Della's sixth birthday and immediately fell under the magickal spell. I am so incredibly inspired by his simple, powerfully allegorical tales that I feel my entire being shifting - my course is changing, as if the Lorelei have taken over of my ship's wheel and I'm heading to a uniquely charming place, if I can...

Hours later we arrived at our friends Rita & Rob's place in Cambria and are resting in a nest made of twigs while blue jays and squirrels play out their dramas overhead and the faeries flit around a luscious garden. Tonight we'll bathe under a nearly full moon at Esalen where I will allow the faeries to take me through the possible, probable, magickal world we share.