“As humans we inhabit a very narrow range of reality. It is as though we walk this Earth with blinders on, never seeing the incredible depth and beauty of all the levels of reality that surround us.” – Naisha Ahsian

Ever since a troop of fairies flew into my novel, I’ve been determined to see one. They’ve appeared in my dreams and I’ve experienced almost-sightings in my garden, but my quest has gone largely unfulfilled.

In his book, Power Animals, Dr. Stephen Farmer suggests that dragonflies are messengers from the elemental world. In a dream, a single dragonfly morphed into an entire flight of winged creatures and arranged themselves in a circle. As I watched this transformation, I sensed their energy and felt their longing to be recognized.

My dream led to a another encounter with a dragonfly, this time in my garden. As I was contemplating a new location for a lavender plant that had been languishing in the shade, a red dragonfly landed on a poppy seed head right in front of me. She sat motionless as I admired her four stubby wings, her bright red body and her big compound eyes. She darted to another seed head and back a few times before twirling up and away. I’d never seen a red dragonfly in my garden before, and while other species flitted through, I’d never seen one sit for more than a second. I took this as a sign that my longing to see fairies was being acknowledged.

Another day in the garden, I was puttering about when I noticed a fluttering of leaves in my butterfly bush. This would hardly seem worthy of attention, but there was no wind, not even the slightest breeze. As I walked over to investigate, something else caught my eye in the banana tree. Whatever is was, it moved. And I felt it watching me, peeking up over a banana leaf. Something, something was in that tree. But before I could move in to get a closer look, it withdrew and faded out of sight.

As I waited impatiently for a real sighting, I queried my friends and learned that several had actually seen these magical beings. Tom (not his real name) who lives in rural Nova Scotia sees 4- to 6-inch tall fire fairies cavorting at the edge of the flames when he burns brush in the fall. Fran (not her real name either) saw what she assumed was a fairy sitting on a stump at the edge of a hiking trail in New Hampshire. This entity was a foot high and all black: black wings, long black hair and black fur covering its little body. And my friend, Steve, saw two tiny beings floating above him as he reached for his bedside lamp one night. Holding hands, wings outstretched, they had munchkin faces lit with big smiles. They watched him intently for a moment or two and then vanished.

These accounts made me more determined than ever to see a fairy. When I read Meeting Fairies by Robert Ogilvie Crombie (ROC), I was encouraged. A scientist, writer, musician, mythologist, psychologist, historian, esotericist, and mentor to the Findhorn community in Scotland, ROC not only saw supernatural beings, but communicated with them.

One day as he sat resting on a bench in the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh, he saw a three foot tall figure with pointed chin and ears and little horns on his forehead, shaggy legs and cloven hooves dancing around a tree about twenty yards away. Realizing the creature was a faun, ROC tried talking himself out of this sighting, but it was no use. The creature danced over, sat down, said, “Hallo”, and then asked ROC if he could see him. After ROC assured him that he could, the faun introduced himself as Kurmos and the two had an enlightening conversation. Kurmos explained that his job was to help the growth of the trees in the garden and told ROC that many nature spirits have all but given up on humans because they don’t believe they’re wanted.

A little over a month later while walking home at night, ROC encountered another faun, the great god Pan. He was only a little taller than ROC, but the next time he saw him, he appeared as a twenty-five foot tall figure with great horns on his forehead, cloven hooves and fine silky hair on his human legs. Through Pan, ROC was introduced to a myriad of nature spirits: elementals, nymphs, dryads, other fauns, eleves, gnomes and fairies. Some were but a fraction of an inch in height, others three or four feet tall.

According to ROC, what we see when we encounter these supernatural beings is determined by our expectations that have been created by myths and legends. Although they have the ability to assume any form they choose, these entities are essentially light bodies or vortexes of energy. But to carry out their work with the plant world, they need etheric bodies and they adopt specific forms and characteristic behaviors to best accomplish their agendas.

After his conversations with Pan, ROC understood that Kurmos had appeared to prepare him for his meetings with him. And after determining that ROC believed in him and wasn’t afraid of him, Pan chose to impress ROC with his extraordinary size and power because he wanted to enlist him to foster a reconciliation between humans and nature.

So why haven’t I been able to see these beings? ROC understood that he wasn’t seeing Kurmos and Pan with his physical sight. And his communication with them occurred telepathically by means of thought transference. Maybe if I release my expectations and keep my heart, mind, eyes and ears open, just maybe I’ll see a fairy or something very much like it.

P.S. I don’t know if this counts, but a very large, not particularly attractive fairy has been sitting in a giant oak tree waiting patiently for me to start my next book.