"Journey to the Shire" – February 11, 2009

2009-2-11

The Books of Fae

2009-2-11 – "Journey to the Ashland Shire"

"…I must leave the mountains. I resolve to follow the trail of my kinbrother McLain to a place called ‘Ashland’ in the northwestern territories of the Americas. It is a journey along the northern roads, deeper into the Earth plane. Along the way, I pass through Berkelee, to the side of the City of Clouds, to draw energy from one of the temples of Story. …"

"The Invocation of Pan"

"Avalon Grove"

I must leave the mountains. I resolve to follow the trail of my kinbrother McLain to a place called ‘Ashland’ in the northwestern territories of the Americas. It is a journey along the northern roads, deeper into the Earth plane. Along the way, I pass through Berkelee, to the side of the City of Clouds, to draw energy from one of the temples of Story.

It was through these kinds of brick & mortar temples to story that I recharged my powers, drawing on the strength of the ideas which existed in-between the letters and in the white spaces of the pages.

The Winter Masquerade of Faerie

To be in such places was enchantment to me, the assembled characters part of a living world of myth and legend. To come here fresh from my time in the mountains of Tahoe was deeply magical, a sign of the constancy of faerie upon my quest.

Such was one of the things I admired so much about McLain, that he wore clothes of his own making, traveling on a dragon of his own creation, embodying the archetype of the kindly wizard and maker on their journey through the realms.

He carried his flutes with him wherever he went, selling and sharing his mystic creations as a true-born traveler and sage of story.

And we were this thing, creatures of faerie in the modern world. Beings of poise and elegance and excellence of story and song, making our way to places of gathering where we could see ourselves and each other in faerie light.

Frouds and Faeries

The construction is fascinating to me, yet not so much as the reality that this is the nature of the archetype of the fae shaper, the teaching of classes and distributions of one's talent to the people in hotels and hostels across the realms.

I scent the energy around him as I did when we first met in the fields of Faerie, thick with the earth and with the patterns of the mortal plane. In my fae fugue I had not considered the nature of a story growing up in the Hollywood and in the industry and was learning, feeling the essence of Faerie moving beneath and through what Toby appeared to be on the surface of the world.

The Healing Waters

As it happened my companions knew of a hot spring, one of many in the Cascadian territories of the northwest, where we could rest and recuperate on the journey back towards the Ashland Shire.

And his work was excellent. Made of the oaken roots of life and lineage, of the authenticity of the carpenter and the storyteller, the shaper and the maker of magic.

Leaving Tahingaard – The Northern Road

After the events of the Winter Masquerade, it is clear that I must head northwards, leaving the sanctuary of the Tahoe mountains to follow these avatars of Faerie deeper Into the Mythica ….

Here my sense of the underlands continues to deepen. There is significance in my heading along the northern roads into the winter season. A recognition that I am moving from the realms of air and fire into one made more of earth and water. It is my sense that as I make this movement, I will gain more affinity for the earthen aspect of the Circle.

The Wellsprings

It is here McLain showcases the land to me, where I see gardens and intentional geometries, a sense of intention and thickening magic there upon the landscape of the Wellspring.

The sign of the rainbow comes to me, carrying the tone of the deva, and I witness a photo of it, witnessing it's significance on the Quest.

It is in these times that I see McLain as an avatar of the Earth plane an ally whose very embodied presence and integrated understanding of the mortal plane is helping me to understand that which is so inconstantly within my grasp. I remember a moment when he was cooking some avocado toast on the wood stove within his bus and I was amazed at it and unable to grasp the simplicity of warming up pieces of bread with toast upon them. It seemed so distant, so alien, the physics of it's process ungraspable by my fae fingers. In this Noah was kind and enduring, and while I did not perceive him as truly understanding how distant it was for me he nonetheless provided as was the nature of his embodied self.

Avalon Grove – Dak, Dak Dakini

Seeing the various Daka and Dakini in the subtle energies of the peoples of Ashland as they were getting into their various tantric practices, gradually coming to comprehend the larger energies that were going on in the landscape of the Shire as part of that larger geometry of stories.

In an akashic way, this is my first real coherence into the idea of the Daka or the Dakini, of the "skydancer class" of intentional magician and their placement within the karmic structures of the worlds. It is a realm of sacred sexuality and emergent rituals, pulsing with the chords of both the old world and the new. Over time, I will see that this aspect of the Divine Mind, of the sacred embodiment of sensuality and ritual presence that is the tantrik arts as an integral part of the emergent culture within the Ashland Shire and across the planet, playing itself out in sacred dance gatherings and various forms of trauma resolution through the somatic arts.

All throughout my Path the Aka of Sexual Energy has been present, connected to the various avatars that i've encountered in my dharmic gravity. This section is to organize those notes, get clear on how I want to put that together and how it relates to the tantras, etc.

The Tale of Mushrooma

The Tale of Mushrooma is one of my most favorite "American Gods" moments of life. It happened during a rainstorm which is of course a place of power for me, and in the towne of Ashland, itself thick with the energies of the ley lines, deep in the pages of the Mythica.