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As is faerie lore I am having difficulty in remembering what happened last night at our second magical get-together of the Daisy Faerie Ring.  I really wanted to start writing straight away, but by the time we had finished it was well past one in the morning and I could hear my bed calling me very loudly!

So where to begin?  Well – our Beltaine celebration felt a little flat to tell you the truth before we ventured into it.  We had meant to hold it on the Friday night of April 30^th; however, Daisy had been ill and off school for most of the week and the girls had not had a chance to do any planning at all when Friday arrived.  So instead of having our rite on Friday, Daisy and Alcina got together at The Mouse Hole and planned what we needed and what we would be doing.  I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel that excited at the prospect of a Beltaine rite.  We’d all had a rubbish week, along with one thing and another and it felt like too much effort!  There was no blossom on the hawthorn yet anywhere on the island and things just felt a little under-prepared.

In-between our first rite and this one Daisy and Alcina had been model students and had written up the previous rite in their Books of Elfin.  They had taken great care and attention over it and Daisy had written nine pages and Alcina three and a half.  A good start to their magical apprenticeship!

Beltaine for us was postponed until the night of Saturday 1^st May.  Daisy arrived at The Mouse Hole at 8pm, thankfully in full bouncy-ness once more after being poorly.  None of us felt particularly energetic though.  We all had a cup of tea and sat around for an hour watching Psychic Sally, yawning and generally feeling lethargic.  All of us mentioned from time to time how tired we felt and that we weren’t going to be doing a long rite as we were all so frazzled.  I envisaged us to be in bed by 11pm – oh how wrong I could be!

Finally we busied ourselves with getting ready.  Daisy and I had 3 minute showers, Alcina had her usual 15 minute shower fiasco The girls donned their faerie wings, set up the faerie altar, lit the charcoal and incense, laid out cake for the faeries and then when everything was set to go at around 10.30pm we came together and held hands to form our faerie circle.  I was still envisaging myself in bed my 11pm-ish.

Then something peculiar happened.  I should have known that Beltaine, Mischief Night would not have let us down.  The giggling began.  I can’t even remember what we were giggling about, but we couldn’t stop, from the moment that faerie circle was cast we didn’t stop giggling until we went to bed long past 1am.  Daisy had learnt her words for sweeping the circle, so she did this brilliantly for the first time.  After she had swept the circle, we could all feel that the energy had shifted.  By the time it came for us to Call the Quarters we felt as if we were in an Aardman Animations episode of ‘Sean the Sheep’.  Right outside my living room window is a small paddock reserved for ewes and their newborn lambs.  Yes, I do live in the middle of a field.  The Middle of Nowhere to be precise.  As soon as we began to come together in our circle we had noticed the sheep were being really noisy.  As Daisy began to call the East Quarter of Air we distinctly heard a sheep fart – I kid you not.  This did not help the giggling situation one bit.  It was then that I realised that noisy dogs and mice were absent from this rite but the sheep had taken over.  There wasn’t a syllable we could utter without a sheep baa-ing or a lamb bleating loudly over the top of us.  Why weren’t they all tucked up in bed with their cotton socks on by now, that’s what I wanted to know?

The casting of the circle amid baa’s and bleats continued as smoothly as could be expected until we invoked the Faerie King Oberon and Faerie Queen Mab into our circle. I suggested that we should invite Puck along too, as is customary on Beltaine.  True to form he carried out Mischief Night to the letter.  We Raised the Power by whispering at first and then gradually getting louder our favourite chant; I do believe in faeries, I do, I do…  Nothing we could do without collapsing into giggles.  We all chanted firstly with sensible whispers holding hands and dancing around in a circle.  Then gradually the silly voices appeared, an opera voice or two broke through and the giggling prevailed.  We were giggling our socks off (not to be confused with the sheep’s cotton ones) and by the time we reached the peak of our power raising we were all holding our sides for aching so much with laughter.  It was as if we had been injected with giggle serum; triple strength.  I wish we could bottle it and put it in the cupboard for emergencies.

As we hadn’t been very organised prior to our ritual we decided to celebrate Beltaine by following a pathworking.  I chose The White Faerie Mare’s Spiral (page 166 of my book Faeriecraft if you would like to follow it yourself).  Since before the beginning of our Daisy Faerie Ring daisies had cropped up everywhere in our lives, but especially in Daisy’s, that’s why we had had no trouble in finding a name for our faerie ring and Daisy had her magical name waiting for her too.  Things had not calmed down in the daisy-department on the formation of our faerie ring and we were all continuing to discover daisies everywhere threading their way through our lives like an enchanted daisy chain leading us to the most magical experiences.  The pathworking was no exception.  As you will see, if you have this pathworking in front of you there are daisies in it.  You are asked to make a daisy chain from the hundreds of daisies growing in the white faerie mare’s meadow and then put the chain around the mare’s neck as a gift to her for carrying you throughout the meditation.

Daisy and Alcina had frantically looked up the magical and folkloric meaning of daisies when we were forming our faerie ring and what they discovered was quite revealing.  A magical meaning for a daisy is ‘innocence, loyal love, I’ll never tell and purity.  The girls and I all felt that these were all qualities that a teen faerie ring of faerie priestesses should aspire to and hold true.  The daisy is our emblem, which in this faerie ring anyway we would like to think we strive to keep those watchwords central to everything that we do.

Serious stuff aside; Puck was playing havoc with our pathworking.  Daisy was being prodded in the side by two invisible fingers, making her nearly jump out of her skin every couple of minutes.  I felt someone constantly looking over my shoulder trying to put me off reading the pathworking.  We all experienced mischievous prodding, poking and some of us hair pulling throughout the meditation time.  This obviously led to giggling of the explosive kind as we were ticklish.  Everything became funny, ridiculous and concentration was variable.

Prior to the forming of the faerie ring I had felt slightly concerned that the energy raised in a ritual setting would be too deep for young teens and that they would be jumping in too soon at the deep end.  However, my fears have been unfounded as Daisy and Alcina bring along with them to the rites their own light and bubbly energy.  It is a fantastic experience for me to feel a part of faeriecraft growing and emerging into the future.  The energy that they bring is completely different to that of an adult faerie ring and I feel that it is faeries’ way of introducing them gently to magic of a fey kind.

Once the pathworking was complete and we all felt pretty mellow and blissed-out by now the girls had wanted to learn how to send healing.  We lit a white candle for someone we knew that was really poorly and visualised golden light being sent to them. I said a few words asking this person to become weller.  This sparked off a lively discussion about whether ‘weller’ was a word or not, which of course it isn’t but I was feeling particularly silly.  Puck’s fault.  Naturally Paul Weller cropped up a few times in my defence.  Giggles prevailed.  Sheep baa-ed.  The situation was quickly becoming surreal.  Puck’s fault again.

Then came a spell for protection.  There has been a recent spate of thefts on our island concerning oil being taken from domestic oil tanks.  Neither Daisy’s house or The Mouse Hole had yet been burgled of oil, so we took our chance to set up protection.  We visualised a well-practised protection spell of mine by imagining our oil tanks encircled in a protective light and then elven sentries permanently marching up and down around our respective oil tanks.  These protection spells can last for years and you can strengthen them now and again by re-visualising the elven sentries from time to time.  Job done.  It was time for cake.

Daisy and Alcina used their wands to consecrate the cakes (faerie cakes that Daisy had made with pink icing) and apple juice.  You’ll not be surprised to learn that we all had another fit of the giggles.  Can’t remember why.  Maybe Alcina sparked it off when with a flourish of her wrist with a real sense of drama, flicked most of the contents of our wooden chalice of apple juice all over the carpet.  None of us cleaned it up either; we simply sat holding our sides and tried to straighten our faces as they were hurting so much from laughing. 

The time came to bid farewell to the Faerie King and Queen who went quietly with no fuss, unlike Puck who made rude protestations with his fingers, waggling them while poking his thumb up his nose as he did a silly walk out of our circle.  We didn’t want him to go.  It feels a long time until next Beltaine when we will invite him again.

Once our circle was banished we had hot cross buns with melted brown sugar and cinnamon with Lady Grey tea to earth ourselves after all the silly faerie giggles.  We felt on a high and the giggling didn’t calm down for quite a while.  We knew once we were finishing the last dregs of our tea and no one had said anything to each other for ten minutes and we were all staring into space that it really was time for bed.

2^nd May 2010

As is usual after a faerie rite I slept like a log last night.  We all woke up late and the day looks like it is going to be a lazy kind of one.  Daisy says that Sunday is her sleeping day.  Wisdom I think which should be shared.  The apple juice stain still hasn’t been mopped up and Psychic Sally is on the TV again.  Daisy and Alcina are calling me to come and watch it with them. 

Our next faerie rite will be Saturday 29^th May, so catch up with us again to hear how the next rite of the Faerie Daisy Ring unfolds.  Daisy and Alcina will be meeting once a week to plan for that ritual, so I hope to give you updates from those.

Now Daisy has announced that as tomorrow is Bank Holiday Monday that is, she says opportunity for another sleeping day.  Hold that thought…

It is almost 10.30pm and I have had a busy day.  Every so often my mind has wandered to our magical evening and that I still haven’t finished writing about it.  My memories and that of the girls, we find, are quickly erasing the events of Saturday night, quite as if it were a dream.  This is always the way.  This is the way faerie magic works.  Therefore, I am keen to commit to paper tonight what the evening held for us so that I do not lose it forever.  As a Faerie Ring we hold our magical evenings as confidential, so I cannot divulge exactly what happened (our personal experiences), but I can give you a flavour of what we delved into.

All three of us took turns in every aspect of creating a magical circle, a sacred space.  This was the only time that I will allow them the book to refer to.  The next time we meet they know that they have to learn their words off by heart, as to read from a book while you create magic takes some of the magic away.

Tonight was to be Daisy and Alcina’s Faeriecraft Dedication and they were really looking forward to becoming Faerie Priestesses.  If you have my book Faeriecraft, you may be familiar with this particular rite which is in Chapter 8, The Faerie Temptress.  It seemed as though as soon as we cast our circle Daisy and Alcina became transformed into two fey beings.  They looked totally different to how they do in everyday life.  I believe that they shone; that they radiated a fey kind of beauty and the sight of them both dedicating themselves to faeriecraft was a very special moment for me.  They had both written poems to their chosen Faerie Kings and Queens for the dedication.  I was so proud of both of them and the atmosphere was almost effervescent, it felt as if the room was filled with soap bubbles of excitement.

I also explained to Daisy and Alcina that a faerie rite should never be taken too seriously.  Obviously the faeries had informed other occupants in my house to remind us of this as several times we were interrupted; a couple of times by gate-crashing mice.  They dared to make loud noises eating; a lot of crunching and munching was heard while we were concentrating on quiet moments, then by my dog who decided to come and make himself comfortable on the sofa and watch the proceedings while giving himself a thorough and very noisy wash!

Daisy and Alcina took part in every aspect of casting a circle.  Then our ‘work’ for that evening, which was to consecrate Alcina’s Book of Elfin, wand and my new wand which Daisy, had recently made for me from willow.  Then followed the faeriecraft dedications and finally they both blessed the chocolate cake that Daisy had made and the apple juice.  An offering of the cake was also left for the fey, which we placed on the doorstep of the beautiful faerie house which lives in my home.  Daisy and Alcina also banished the faerie circle.

When we had finished our evening of magic we all made sure that we were properly grounded and used techniques such as clapping our hands, stamping our feet and rubbing ourselves from the tops of our heads right down to our toes to disperse the energy and bring us back down to earth.  To make really sure of this, we made cinnamon and brown sugar on toast and had cups of tea.  It is always good practice to have a ‘feast’ after a magical working as food ‘earth’s’ us.

By now it was really late and a lot of yawning was going on.  We were so tired that we could not be bothered to get up and put ourselves to bed.  Thankfully we managed it in the end.

Thus began our happenings in the newly formed Daisy Faerie Ring, which will document the magical training of my students; Daisy and Alcina, both ‘teen’ Faerie Priestesses.  Over the next few days I will bring you up to date with how the faerie ring came about.  The next faerie rite that we will hold will be to celebrate Beltaine, apart from Samhain (Hallow’een) it is my favourite night of the year.

Daisy and Alcina have already started planning it… and the general consensus of opinion is that all noisy mice and dogs will not be invited next time.

I went to bed at about three last night, but I could not get to sleep until around four as I had so many exciting thoughts wisping through my mind about the faerie ring.  Everyone has woken up late and the two girls have slept very deeply and have had interesting dreams.  We discuss their dreams over breakfast and as soon as Daisy and Alcina are dressed they begin to write up their experiences of last night in their Books of Elfin.  Last night seems to have almost evaporated, dissolved, and vanished into a ‘poof’ of faerie dust as magical experiences always do the day after.  This is why I have in suggested that the girls write up their encounters as soon as possible so that they can remember with the greatest clarity.

So…last night, where I did I leave it?  Oh yes, we had all been beautifying ourselves for the magical night ahead.  Daisy and Alcina had gone to great lengths to look their best for the rite. They had spent many hours during last week altering a dress of Daisy’s that would become her special garment to be worn only for magic.  It was black with lots of embroidered silver flowers on it.  Then Daisy had cleverly taken some of the silver flowers from the unwanted material and fashioned her own one-of-a-kind faerie wings to match her dress exactly.  They were in the same black material and she had sewn the silver embroidered flowers onto the back where the two wings met in the middle.  If she had tried to buy those wings anywhere, she couldn’t have found any others more perfect.

Alcina was wearing a layered, fey-tattered dress together with sparkly, darkly purple and black wings.  They both looked perfect and utterly pixie-touched.  Now glittered, powdered, preened and bewitching we went about creating our sacred space ready to meet the faeries.

I have often observed that whenever I have students they end up teaching me more than I taught them.  I have also learnt that there are no exceptions to this rule.  I never fail to notice also that every student who comes to me, however much magical knowledge I have gained so far, always comes to me as my magical equal in spiritual terms.  I remember how green I was at the age of seventeen when I first stepped into the Spiritualist Developing Circle alone with my first teacher (who is now 83) and embarked upon the introductory training of becoming a Medium and learning how to develop and use my psychic abilities.  At that point I had so much to learn and have since encountered a rich inner life of psychic experiences.  Even after twenty four years of training, study, magical partnerships where I have astral travelled beyond my wildest dreams and have wonderful spiritual happenings; I still enter into every teaching experience knowing that my student has eclipsed all those years and stands before me as my spiritual equal. They have the spirituality that I have to learn and study for, innate in them.  I know that although I will teach them how to practise their magical art safely and with all the advantages of my experience to help them, I am always humbled to be standing before them, as I know that secretly; I am the student.  How clever the faeries are…in all ways… and infinitely wise.

Back to our magical night.  I am showing Daisy how to light the self-igniting charcoal to sprinkle my homemade Queen Mab’s Kiss incense upon.  The instant the charcoal rests on the thurible it releases pungent wafts of rituals and magic long past.  It takes me back to all my years of rituals with my coven in England and my previous faerie ring which disbanded a year ago.  As we use the same thurible burner for each ritual, a little incense, ash and magic is deposited and every time the charcoal burns it brings back those scents to immediately remind me and it never fails to transport me from the mundane to the magical.  Daisy was watching me intently with her green eyes as I had told her that it was going to be her job to light the charcoal when we have our next evening of faerie magic.  We busied ourselves preparing our little faerie altar which was an old suitcase (only the best) covered with some pretty muslin.  On it we had daffodils, a wooden goblet of apple juice, a wooden plate of Daisy’s best vegan chocolate cake, a teeny weeny faerie offering bowl of cake for our fey guests, our wands, a candle, wooden bowls of salt and water and a wooden disc with a pyrographed septagram upon it.  Every so often we would get poked in the eye with faerie wings as we dashed about, determined to get started before the witching hour was upon us.

In the run up to this magical moment we had had the most peculiar day.  Things had just had a haphazardness about them from the very start.  If there was an opportunity to trip over something, it had happened, milk had been spilt in a spectacular fashion on the floor, we had bumped into one another what felt like a dozen times, Daisy kept losing things, there had been a gas leak, by teatime we had already cooked for nine people (don’t ask), Daisy had sore knees, I had a tummy ache and Alcina needed food – now.

The minute we switched off the lights in the living room and I asked the girls for us all to hold hands in the centre of the room, our muddled, fuddled, bizarre day slipped away from us as if it had been a cloak made of silken material, slipping effortlessly off our shoulders.  We had made it.  We had arrived.  The Land of Elf was just in touch.  Oh the bliss, bliss of bliss-ness.