Reflections – New York Faerie
I have always traveled through the realms of Faerie. Even as a childe, I was always far more resonant with the deva than I was with human beings. My early education consisted of learning the voices of the Wind, the Water and the Stars, of dancing in Storms and feeling the kiss of the Lightning. In their elemental majesty did I find solace from what seemed like a World of humans whose very thoughts and emotional patterns were constantly screaming, hammering at my senses like rocks on still Water.
Even when I lived in New York, it was the deva that were my closest companions. I felt as though I was living in a parallel universe, where the cacophony of human agenda was an echo of the much deeper constancy of the deva loci, the elemental intelligence that was the True Heart of the cityscape. I would walk through the streets, often barefoot, feeling the thrum of the metallic elementals that played at being subway cars beneath my toes. Around me, the pulse of Her, of York herself, would beat her incessant rhythms, the cars and busses of her aspect platelets and white blood cells within her circulatory system, feeding the many orifices and expressions of a more fundamental insistence that played out in the thoughts and dreams of the People.
Even then, early in the Quest, my orientation was far more about what truly is than what things appear to be on the surface, wrought to the neverwhere* that lay beneath the boughs and the buildings of the urban jungle.
Once time amongst many, I found myself wandering through the Central Park in the thin hours between 2 and 4 in the morning. Like all aspects of the subtle realms that lay beneath the surface of what things seem to be, such was a movement across the landscape of my own transformation playing out in the eyeblink between sleeping and Awake.
I wandered the edges of the Park then, finding my way to the sculpture of Alice in Wonderland, it’s substance still vibrating with the tones of association to the tome from which it was inspired. Magick flowed here, a wash of kaleidoscopic transformation beneath the surface of perception. I could feel the tones of so many travelers previously arrived at this effigy of inner journeywalk, their thoughts and Stories still singing between the letters of their tales.
Nearby a copse held space for a small stream, whose quiet voice called me over. Leaning down, I felt the tones of the Mother, the Goddess Herself. Gaia. Tremors ran through my form, a feeling of being unmet, of unseen and unloved within the Incarnate plane. Softly I whispered, “Mother. Please do not reject me” letting the Words flow along the waterway.
She answered me then, a feeling-tone of nurturing and emerald warmth that soothed my aching Heart, if only for a little while. Sensing then that the magick of that moment was spent, I ventured deeper into the park. For a moment, a flicker of fear moved through my Self, wondering if some criminal element awaited me in the emptiness, yet I dismissed these things as faithless. I walked the roads of Faerie, and such things were too pale to stand in such Light.
Witnessing the Park is so beautiful when it is devoid of People. Where it is simply my Self with the elements. As I walked, the birds called to me, singing. Feeling the undercurrent of their timbre, I matched their tones, whistling back, sending the emanations of my Heart in appreciation. Quickly they sang back, settling into a call and response pattern as I felt the flock following me, hovering in the treetops or in the Air. I found my footsteps leading me deeper, ever deeper into the expanse in delightful chorus.
This continued for quite some time, as I felt Joyful at the connection with the primal World beneath the stones and gridwork. As I did, a number of the birds came down, alighting on one of the metal rails within the Park. Together, we sang a bright orchestra, feeling the tones of the underlands as daylight crested the horizon.
It was beautiful. A feeling of freedom, of connection with the elementals and the creatures of the Land. For what seemed like an endless time, I wandered through the Park, following the trails northwards. Eventually, it led me outwards, the soft Light of the Earth dawning back towards the Sun mixed with the jaundiced yellow of streetlights. I was in a new location then, outside of the Park. I glance at a street sign, I am past the 100s, into the northern territories of Manhattan.
As I walked, a man walked over to me, his aura dirty and scratched. He makes some kind of an offer, a trade perhaps. I don’t like the feeling. It is sickly and confused, difficult to digest in comparison to the birdsong only an hour or so earlier. Gathering my wits about me, I dismiss him, and start walking West.
As I do, I come to an empty street, not yet filled with the day’s traffic. There, in the distance, I see a deer, standing in the middle of the road, framed in the morning Light. He looks at me, unafraid. Even from the distance, I can smell the feral nobility, the Land, pulsing through his bone and sinew, the feeling of Life itself, seen when the mind and soul are quiet, when there is reverence, when we arrive in sacred moments, at peace with the Worlds beneath the WorldLady York, the Goddess of the City herself, shines upon me, and I start the long walk home with a smile on my face.
* – an homage to ‘Neverwhere’ by Neil Gaiman, who so beautifully described an aspect of the Worlds beneath the World
Note – this adventure had no official photos, images were gathered from Google to communicate the concept 🙂
Responses