Faeries,
Nature Spirits, Elementals
Article written for and published by PanGaia Magazine
By R J Stewart © May 2001
During my travels in the USA teaching
workshops, one question keeps recurring, in various forms. “What
is the difference between/connection between Faeries,
Nature Spirits, and Elementals?”
Like most questions, there are several possible answers,
and none of them are true. However, we can draw near to
the truth
of the matter, especially through meditation, vision, and
direct experience of the spirit world of our planet. Not
the spirit
world of angels, but that of our planet, which teems with
spiritual life.
So this article is intended to help set the scene for your
own experience, to offer some simple thoughts, ideas, questions,
and challenges. Especially challenges to popular established
dogma and propaganda about Faeries, Nature Spirits, and
Elementals. As with most spiritual matters, let us begin
at the end of
the list, and work our way towards the beginning.
Elementals
Some years ago I had a conversation with the author
Isaac Bonewitz. He said (approximately)
that Elementals only exist
in the formal
temple or lodge where the ritual magician has created
them. We discussed this for some time,
and I think we disagreed
in a friendly manner. However, his statement made me
think about
the popular idea of Elementals, as it is presented in
modern literature on magic, paganism,
witchcraft, earth mysteries,
and so forth. There is, I concluded, a problem. If we
think about Elementals as small components
of “pure” Air,
Fire, Water, Earth, with some sort of consciousness, we are
making them too abstract, and too small. These “pure” Elementals
are what Isaac Bonewitz was talking about, and they are
indeed mainly found where they have been impressed into
existence
by temple magic. They have no independent existence in nature,
and will fade if they are not constantly maintained. This
is similar to many experimental or analytical situations
in science,
which cannot be maintained outside laboratory conditions.
Back in the late 1970’s I was at sea during a terrible
storm in which several ships, including sailboats in the Fastnet
Race, were lost. This experience left me in no doubt about
the existence of Elementals…. they are large conglomerate
beings of one primary Element, but with the other three
present also. Thus the Storm lived as many huge wind Elementals
(Air)
and the mountainous seas (Water). It was also itself, a
Storm. This made it, for the duration of its life, a Nature
spirit,
defined by both power and place.
Elementals are a gathering of forces into undeniable
and certain patterns: the forest fire, the volcanic
eruption, the tornado,
and the earthquake. Anyone with spiritual sensitivity
who
has been in any such events will confirm the presence
of a host
of beings that make up the greater being, the total.
Thus to attempt to isolate “an Elemental” is like
isolating an atom…perhaps exactly the same.
It is a technical or artificial process. They all
exist in Nature,
but do not
exist naturally in isolation, for they are defined
utterly by one another. Many Fire elementals make
a bonfire, or
a firestorm, but they can do so only through interaction
with those of Air
and Earth to build that larger Elemental being.
It is a matter of relativity and not one of abstract
absolutes.
We are already Elementals!
Do not forget, dear Reader, that you are already
an Elemental, several of them in fact.
Our bodies are
made of Water,
Earth, Fire, and Air. Our consciousness and energies
are Elemental.
That is, the philosophical or metaphysical concept
of the Four Elements as relative states of motion
and energy,
but
not the
modern idea of elements as defined in chemistry
and physics. So to find Elementals, we
need look no further
than our
own bodies and moods. And, I would suggest, we
should pay more
attention to the way our bodies and emotions interact
with places and with weather changes. In the faery-
based spiritual
traditions, interaction with weather and with place
brings deep insights. This idea of ourselves as
Elementals, raises a fundamental theme
for our discussion, maybe
even (greatly
daring) a definition:
1. All beings in nature,
corporeal or spiritual, are made up of combinations and
rhythms of the
Elements.
Thus
faeries, nature spirits, humans, trees, plants,
animals, fishes,
insects,
mountains, oceans, continents, telephone calling
cards, chewing gum, and canned soft drinks, are
all composed
of Elementals
in varying patterns or sets of relationship. Some
are highly active, some are relatively inactive.
2. Occasionally we will
experience large Elementals, such as storms, fires, earthquakes.
3. Elementals are not faeries
or nature spirits, but faeries and nature spirits are
often strongly
elemental
in their
character.
Nature Spirits
So Nature Spirits are…what? As is so often the case,
we can discover what something may be, by discerning what it
is not. Surely they are not cutesy little things posturing
upon cultivated irradiated mutated cut flowers or lisping thoftly
to us from the well-pruned toxin -laden trees of suburbia.
I feel, sense, and commune with nature spirits as Spirits of
Place…. powerful zones of consciousness and energy
in and of, say, a forest, a hill, a river. They have distinct
presence, powers, and perceptions, but they do not move
around
beyond their own boundaries. They are the spirits that the
ancients called genii loci.
By comparison, and of a different order,
the spiritual forces of plants, flowers,
trees,
are collective
entities, within
the natural world, and segments of these
may live within or comprise organs of,
any specific
Nature
Spirit. The
collectives are found over huge areas,
sometimes world wide, just like
humans.
Thus Nature Spirits are complex entities,
made up of a totality of many other
beings…all involving Elementals. Just
as humans, animals, and all living creatures.
What about the Faeries?
Traditionally, Faeries were the first order
of spiritual beings in the world, before
humans existed.
They,
like all things,
have Elemental relative patterns. They
are made up of Elementals, as we are, as all
things on
this planet
are.
But they, like
us, are not just Elementals. The whole
is more than the sum of the parts.
Faery beings, however, often tend strongly
towards one Element. Thus a powerful
faery being of
the ocean will
be of Water
more than any other Element, but
it is not a water elemental. When
one of the huge storms develops,
short-lived water Elementals grow in power,
along
with short-lived air Elementals.
These large vessels or Elementals
are traditionally ridden by
the faery beings, which exalt in
the wild Elemental power. So there
is an exchange, an interconnection,
but the faery
beings are not the Elementals.
More significant is the long -standing
tradition of the independence
of faery beings: many
of them are
not bound
by place or elemental
qualities, and can move and interact
freely with considerable power.
Thus they are
not Nature Spirits
or Elementals,
though they may participate for
some time in the life- cycle
of certain places (just as we do).
To put it more simply, faery
beings have independent personalities,
aims, thoughts,
practices, powers,
sports, customs, loves,
desires, and use no computers
or
cell phones. They are free
spirits.
Elementals, however, are utterly
and only defined by elemental
patterns beyond which
they have
no existence. Nature Spirits
are defined by a complex interaction
of power and place,
a fusion of many varied energies
of
consciousness and vitality.
In Kabbalistic tradition,
the Elementals are said
to be the
result, the end
product, of the
consciousness
and energy
of
universal angelic forces
impinging upon our planet Earth,
and thus generating a response.
All living beings on the
planet, physical and spiritual, partake
of
that response, being energized
and, so to speak,
given definition
by the ceaseless
Elemental
dance of relationships.
Conclusions
So we might conclude thus:
humans, living creatures,
and faeries,
are complex. They
are made up of
complex interactions
of the
primary Elements
of Air Fire Water and Earth. They
all
have affinities
to certain
Elements
more than
to others:
the
fiery temperament
in a flamenco dancer, the earthy
strength
of the goat, the
airy power of the
trooping
faeries that cleanse
the polluted cities
as they
pass, and so
forth.
Nature Spirits are
less complex,
have less volition,
but are
immensely powerful
through
their continuing
interaction with
all the other
beings and Elementals of
a locus,
a place. This
is why we feel
distinct
sensations
in
certain parts
of the
forest, in the
mountains, by the shore.
Elementals are
usually within
and interacting
with, all
other forms.
Just the same
as we have
many smaller entities
that
comprise our
organs, cells, and so
forth.
Occasionally
large
and temporary
Elementals
will grow together,
from many,
as natural
forces build into major
events, such
as storms,
volcanic
eruptions,
tidal waves, earthquakes.
These active
Elementals
are comprised of all
four elements
(like everything
else) but with
a potent preponderance
of one Element
that
is undeniable
until it runs
it course.
And in meditation
1. Try meditating
on one single element, then discover how it exists in relationship
to the others.
2. Seek to escape
from sentimental images of faeries, nature spirits, and elementals.
Explore the images, descriptions, and wisdom tales, of our older,
worldwide, ancestral traditions, rather than the trite products
of modern whimsy and commercialism.
3. Go out in the
worst possible weather, on foot, without a Sony Walkman.
References & Links
