Fairies

I believe in fairies.

You may immediately think of such cute creatures as Tinkerbell, the glitter of corporate toy adverts directed at girls, and quaint A5 illustrations by stuffy Victorian artists hung up in guest bedrooms made from butterfly wings and paper.

Let me rephrase that.

I believe there are life forms living in my garden. I believe that they are unique, surprising, and important. I believe they can come and go of their own volition. I believe that they can show unusual behaviours, appear in many forms, and that they are elusive to the unobservant. I believe these creatures are older than humanity and can teach us lessons about ourselves. I believe that without them the modern world would collapse, and we would wash away like footprints on a beach.

I know it brings me great joy to build shrines and places for them to reside, and in response they give me emotional benefits that I don't receive from people.

I believe my enjoyment of these things is deeply personal, but that anyone could enjoy them, if they believe that they are important, mysterious, and have a right to exist more than astroturf, concrete, a train station, or an airport.

Fairies come in the form of flowers, beetles, adders, butterflies, caterpillars, ants, bees (bumble, carpenter, mining, mimic and otherwise), fungi, lizards, trees, fruits, birds, mice and foxes. Their domains are hills and rivers and meadows and stone walls and mud wallows, and you will feel the cathedral-like awe if you allow yourself to. They are the absence of humanity and the presence of something.

They are inscrutable and capricious. They will let you see them if you are patient and you make space for them and respect them. They do not have human feelings or motivations, only their own, and they can manage and look after themselves if they are given space in order to do so.

The mystery and excitement is external to human documentation, and can remain real and important if you believe them to be.

We needn't gild the lily. Fairies don't have to be human-like for us to empathise with them. They don't have to have miniature tea parties or dance in circles in the moonlight - their whims can be far more exotic, strange and delightful than this.

I am not the first human to put a name to these feelings for non-human life and nature, and I hope I will not be the last.