Weekly Zephyr #5: Fairy Takeover

June 28, 2017

Weekly Zephyr #5: June 29, 2017

Richard Doyle, Fairies Dancing Under the Leaves, 18-? Sometime between when he was born in 1824 and when he died in 1883.

I don't know what's going on here but this issue of The Weekly Zephyr is a shout-out to fairies.

AND I'LL TELL YOU WHY.

As soon as I figure it out.

I don't think about fairies a lot, so I don't know what this is all about, this suddenly-an-entire-newsletter-devoted-to-fairies. I can't say I'm some kind of 24/7 fairy aficionado. I have family ties to fairies, which sounds odd, like I'm saying I have a cousin who's a fairy, which I don't, that I know of. (I'll explain later.) But maybe it's because this is the last newsletter of June, which is the Midsummer month

why is midsummer in june?

didn't summer just start

shouldn't it be in july
but no

and Midsummer drags A Midsummer Night's Dream into it, and that means fairies, but in addition to that, maybe it's because June is the most ethereal month. No contest. It's not just the most ethereal month; it's the only ethereal month.  

January = grim, epic February = glum, cozy March = mossy, tweedy, good for solving murders in an English village April = crisp, perky May = buoyant, yellow June = e t h e r e a l July = seaside, ticking-striped August = golden, wine-drenched September = burnished, melancholy October = gray, haunted, theatrical November = charcoal gray, abandoned December = starry, candleful

So we have to act now because next week it's too late. We'll be stripes at the beach.

  WHAT'S UP WITH FAIRIES?

Point: Well, they're not real, is what's up. Counterpoint: No. They are real. Me, I don't know, but if I had to bet, I say they're real. I don't know what their deal is, but I think they're there.

what about the thing where your cousin is a fairy?

My granny

(here's her Wikipedia page) ("Wikipedia" sounds like fairies live there) <treble voice> "we are the fairies of Wikipedia" </treble voice>

on my dad's side was clairvoyant, and so was her mom, and her grandmother, and like fifty different people in that wing of the family back there. And she wrote a book which is still in print:

    
               
this is the cover in use now I always think THAT'S NOT A FAIRY, THAT'S A LADY when I see this cover because I always forget to look down at what she's looking at   THIS is the original, cooler cover Groovy 1970s Charlie's Angels fairy, what I grew up with, therefore better:

                         She wrote this book when she was 19, back in 1923, but it wasn't published until 1977, when I was 8, I mean when she was 73, and I read it over and over and over and over and this is where I got most of my ideas about fairies, although Shakespeare got in the mix with his much more sophisticated, confusing, combative fairies—his adult-feeling, sort of sexy fairies—which vibe is very much at odds with what I learned from Granny.

Do you want to learn the real deal about fairies HELL YEAH, WHO WOULDN'T Okay let's look at some excerpts

From Chapter Two, "A Typical Fairy":

The material of his body is as loosely knit as the vapor from the spout of a boiling teakettle and is somewhat of the nature of a cloud of colored gas. In fact it is exactly that, only the gas is finer than the lightest we know and is less readily detected even than helium or hydrogen. But this does not prevent it from being held together in a form, for it is not a chemical but a living substance which life saturates and holds together. In truth, his power of this matter as a living creature is shown by the fact that his body is composed of two distinct densities material. The body proper is a true emerald green and fairly dense, considering the stuff of which it is made; around this on all sides, both front and back, is a much thinner cloud of the same matter in which he is not so vividly alive. This thinner portion, which extends from all sides of this body proper, is a lighter green.

FAIRIES ARE MORE ALIVE IN THE MIDDLE.  Fairies put on shows, good ones, even if they're not long:

The fairy has an immense power of mimicry and a sense of drama. He is an emotional artist of rare ability, and a group of them will put on a show for mutual entertainment. I must explain again that a fairy has the power not only to change his form but also to clothe himself in marvelous garments, a process that is carried out by drawing the denser part of the material about him by means of his will power or desire into a thought garment. This requires effort and concentration and takes a few minutes to achieve, especially if he desires to change his form. The thought garment will last as long as he sustains the effort at transformation. Most fairies are deficient in concentration, and thus they do not keep up the show for any length of time.

What's the thing about them:

Between the human point of view and that of a fairy, or any member of the angelic kingdom, one of the main differences is that we live in a world of form, and they live in a world of life. Our thoughts are primarily concerned with the form things have, and we seldom go further than that. But fairies are mainly concerned with the energy and life flowing around and within the form – life that is everywhere.

 

For example, if we look at a tree we respond to its size, its shape, its color, its leaves, and fruit. These things combine to create its beauty for us. But when one comes to think of it, this is rather a limited way of seeing the world in which we live. In contrast, the fairy first beholds the spirit of the tree and responds to its vital energy. To a fairy, the tree is a living, breathing personality which is expressing itself in the form we see. There is then an exchange of feeling, a mutual response, between the fairy and the tree.

This is what I think fairies actually look like

and I will keep thinking they look like this until I can finally ever see one. I've been trying since 1977, acting all cool and sneaking glances in my peripheral vision and trying not to use my actual eyes, just like Granny tried to teach me once, with no success.