In this rainy weather, and with a predicted rainy summer on its way, I sometimes wonder how it affects nature spirits. Do they shelter under shrubs or in burrows, do they huddle on branches like birds or do they simply slip out of body and wait it out in energy form?
Many years ago, I had an encounter with nature spirits in a National Park, and sense them now and then in my garden and wild areas.
A friend told me that she was once woken by a yeti (we call them yowies here in Australia) outside her van. It was looking at the mirrored window of her van, perhaps surprised to see itself. It couldn't see in, she said, but she saw it clearly before it disappeared, for she had turned on the outside light. This is not the first time a yowie has been seen on that mountain, either.
I wonder what other creatures of myth and folklore might share this planet with us, indeed, what terrestrial aliens or human-like creatures might be hiding in the shadows. Little people, for instance, faerie, elves and gnomes that live in dimensions that intersect with, and influence our reality, but operate according to their own natural laws. They are sometimes seen and can, it seems, manifest in our physical reality as either small or tall strange beings, but mostly they hide away from us.
According to the old stories, nature and earth spirits once took an interest in us and our wellbeing. Now, it is said, most of them are so disgusted with our treatment of earth and her creatures that they want nothing to do with us. To those who treat nature gently, with love, though, some of the less disillusioned nature spirits may speak and make themselves known.
Findhorn in Scotland, whose improbable gardens built on rocky ground once amazed botanists, might never have been without the active help and guidance of nature spirits and devas. We can, it seems, invite them into our gardens by leaving part of them to grow wild, untended, as nature grows them. I have such an area - not big, but wild - at the side of my house.
In our ignorance, we cocky westerners tend to dismiss such things as childish imaginings. Fortunately, there are some that don't, who are careful not to offend or harm the invisible folk and their places. Some still believe in the old tales of pretty girls or boys being stolen away as in the old ballad of Tam Lin, romances between faerie and human, and children born of those unions.
Almost half of Icelanders, it seems, believe in elves, and elf 'experts' are often consulted prior to roadworks and other constructions to determine whether elves live in that area and what to do about it. Iceland has elf gardens, elf whisperers, even an Elf school where one can learn all about elves!
What about little human or hominid people who live or have lived in our known physical world? Such populations have existed, and some still do.
To those of us raised on Celtic or Scandinavian stories of faerie folk, the Negritos of southeast Asia and Africa's pygmies may not seem much like faery, elves or gnomes, which is a pity for they might otherwise have been protected from mistreatment by their bigger neighbours. Yet they do have some notable fairy-like qualities. Left to themselves (which they no longer are), they were known to live peaceably; happy people who loved to dance and sing, and who were exceptionally sensitive to nature and her secrets, as are the faery folk. Their elders still retain an astonishingly deep knowledge of herbal lore.
Anthropologist Ian Turner wrote of the strangely magical qualities he found among the African pygmies. Late one night when all slept, he woke to see a man dancing alone beneath a full moon. When asked why he danced alone, he was told by the young man, who smiled radiantly, "I dance to the moon," something, I note, faerie and elves often did. Like the faerie, the pygmies also make hauntingly beautiful music. The American Indians tell of a magical race of little people who were so mistreated by the big ones that they hid, and that they still are hiding in the secret places of the earth, rarely seen.
Perhaps these races of little human people carry are part faerie, still carrying in their genes and consciousness traces of faerie ancestors who loved and mixed with humans. Anything's possible.
It was a great shock to the scientific establishment when evidence of a tiny human being was discovered.
I took a course on this latest human addition to hominids, Homo floresiensis, known as the Hobbit. There are indications that the Hobbit might have interacted with Homo sapiens (us) before disappearing off the face of the earth. Or maybe a few are still around. (See link below).
Then there is us, the genocidal hominid that annihilated our early relatives as readily as we destroy other human beings right now? Where did they go, the Neanderthal, the Denisovans (traces of whom were found in Siberia and whose genes exist in Australian Aboriginal and New Guinean populations); the Red Cave people (traces found in Red Cave, China), a hominid so far dubbed Enigma man also found in China, the little people popularly called Hobbits found in the Philippines and more archaic lines, including our accepted ancestor, Homo Erectus?
Some of these lines might have ended due to natural causes, but given our dark history of inhumane, murderous treatment of different races, I hold grave suspicions about the true reasons for us being the last remaining hominids.
The question remains, though, are we the only remaining human-like creature on the planet? Are there yetis, yowies or bigfoots in the wilderness wisely avoiding contact with human beings? Do small groups of human relatives or similar creatures still hide from us deep in the bellies of caves? Are there little people - or giants - who have watched in dread our clumsy civilizations rise and fall, waiting for us to truly evolve, not physiologically but intellectually, emotionally and spiritually into a human race that one can actually talk to without fear?
We might think that we can answer those questions, but the truth is, we just don't know. For me, the book is still wide open.
Read more:
Elves in Iceland https://faeriemagazine.com/seeking-elves-iceland/
Could 'Hobbit' still exist? http://www.rense.com/general58/exist.htm