Forest Spirits and Fairies
To be in the rugged PNW mountains in mid-springtime is to be in the presence of forest spirits without knowing. They dance between the shadows and through rays of light lying across pine needles. Layers deep, these forest fairies, when no one knows or sees, weave their way through the duff, and up, and begin dancing in the spring woods. My inner child can’t help but want to dance and play with them as I search for them.
When wandering the mountain elevations in late April, May, and early June, I often find myself, aimless through forests on the eastern Cascade slopes in just those places the fairies are known to take off their slippers and dance about for a while.
The offering in the wandering is the expansion of imagination playfully embodied in moving my body. I run through forests as just another expression of spirit, of life, as natural and wholesome and beautiful as the orchids, the trees, the birds, this one life.
When I am on trails and aware enough, I feel completely connected to the life pulsing with energy around me. Often when pausing to sit in the forest I will look closely at the ferns or salmon berry bushes, the hanging cedar bows, and though the forest may feel still, everything is moving ever so perceptibly. Maybe the forest gently moves due a breeze I don’t quite notice? And what is the breeze but sky spirits dancing through the forest, the ferns, offering life? The water of life we terrestrial spirits need to breathe.
There is no connection. All there is is connection.
Fairy Slippers
The Fairy Slipper Orchid
poses slim and elegant.
A forested ballroom affair.
A purple crown.
A fan of five feathered
petals lifting an
opening of
deep red beneath
an inviting
blue speckled
white chest
spread to earth.
Her corms
cause breasts
to rise.
Ahh…
the female
of the ages
so gracious
and demure
when abiding
so rare
and hard
to find.
Such rugged
desire for life
in shadows
of half-lit
forests pushing
pine needles aside
with the edge
of her silky
green-leafed-gown.
She holds court
behind stone sentinels
guarding the ballroom
through the ages
for fairy spirits
to dance among
and caste aside
their slippers.
Fairies.
Orchids.
