Confessions of an Explorer, Part 6: On the Nature of Faeries (And Mermaids)

"Every once in a long while a fisherman reels in a mermaid." - comment by a friend after hearing my story of the blue circle.

There's something curiously Faerie-like about the art making process.  We've all heard descriptions related by novelists of how they plan a story idea, work out the outlines and structure of the tale, frame the attributes and personality of each character - all of this only to find as the writing proceeds that the characters start to write their own dialogue, changing the direction of the narrative seemingly to suit their own purposes.  All of this culminating in the author questioning who exactly it was that wrote that novel.  I imagine improvising musicians often have a similar feeling, as well as musical composers - Johannes Brahms spoke in an interview in the early 20th century of how he felt that his best music arose when he was able to hand over the work to a higher power and just get out the the way.  In other words, let the Faeries do their work.

I've written before in this blog of my finding those moments when, after finishing a piece, I could think back and remember every step, every decision, every nuance - yet still wonder where the heck this thing in front of me came from.  Some call this almost typical creative experience an intuitional breakthrough, perhaps one facilitated by a letting go of the small egoic self that allows the usually veiled higher self to move to the center and speak.  The experience is quite magical, yet something the creative agent can grasp, can own.  Let's call this a borderline Faerie experience.  

In contrast, the experience of the blue circle is of another order.  I set up the conditions - the circular panel, the grid laid out to accentuate a spherical effect, the failed attempts that led to a thick layer of blue paint to establish a new starting point.  That was the extent of my input, and as I explained, when I left the shiny-wet blue circle laying on a table to dry I was more than a little discouraged.

Then something I can't account for happened overnight and I returned to discover a masterpiece; a totally unexpected, unimaginably sublime message from some source outside my experience, conscious or unconscious  This was a real, full-on Faerie moment.

Which begs a question - what exactly do I mean by the term 'Faerie'?  As you may have surmised, I'm using it in a generic sense pointing to the possible existence of realms or dimensions outside of our usual rather limited 5-sense perceptions and equally limited cognitive abilities.  I could use the term spirit world, or inter-dimensional realms, other-worldly habitations, or just simply the ghostly realms.  The word Faerie was suggested to my by my Irish friend, that being a term meaningful to her culture.  Another might say Angels, or Daemons, or Spirit guides.  I like Faerie because it's so in-your-face goofy.  It directly challenges the rational mind-set because it's so silly in a way, so childish - think of fairy tales, or Peter Pan's Tinkerbell.  We've all grown out of that, haven't we?  No one over 8 years old believes in Santa Claus....right?

But then a blue circle happens, and suddenly Faeries seem perfectly reasonable, or at least reasonably possible.  I mentioned that encountering that artwork immediately gave me a sense of otherness, of forces outside my day-to-day perceptions. Is there something, or some things, or energy, or entities that exist beyond our usual abilities of detection?

For the off-the-cuff doubters out there, I simply suggest they examine the dream world they inhabit every night, remembered or not.  I'm not speaking of psychological analysis, as valuable as that method can be.  I don't think I'm at all unusual in having found myself, on occasion in dreams, within completely other-worldly landscapes among other-worldly inhabitants; places and 'people' of shape and form and mysteriousness such as I have absolutely no reference in the waking world, including Hollywood.  Even in the most common dream we might fly, or breath underwater, or hurtle off a cliff in a car headed to a deep river valley below, only to slow down and finally hover safely over the raging waters just feet away.  Where could this all possibly come from, on a nightly basis?  Is it such a common experience that we mostly ignore it, mostly lose any sense of wonder about how it could be?  How many times have you told yourself "It's just a dream"?  And you think Faeries are silly and childish?

For the rest of us non-doubters, or at least non-dismissers, the idea of a Faerie realm is an intriguing possibility, if for no other reason than most of us have experienced at various times in our lives experiences so unusual that no reasonable explanation cuts the cloth.  In fact, reasonable explanations can be completely irrelevant.  But it's hard to admit these experiences, given the usual ridicule they illicit.  I know.  Who seriously believes what I've described as my Kundalini experiences?  Not many, sadly.  I can't blame them; at times I can hardly believe it myself!  Yet there it is. And there is the blue circle, hanging right now in my new exhibition space in my studio, which I've titled " Fairy Portal".

And so, what do we make of the nature of Faeries?

To be continued...