Becoming a 'Fairy-Bringer'

Roald Dahl said, "Watch with glittering eyes the world around you. Those who do not believe in magic will never find it."  This quote had come to be a sort of motto in my life- around the time I starting having children.  As a child I was always watching with glittering eyes - what child doesn't, really - looking for magic in the woods near my home.  And I did in fact find it!  Nearly every time!  There was magic in every little thing I encountered.  What a marvelous time in my life.  J.M Barrie most masterfully wrote in Peter Pan, "All children, except one, grow up." I wasn't the one exception. I grew up and as I did I stopped looking, I became like Mrs. Darling, "after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies...She believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person."  Too, like Mrs. Darling, I started to remember when my children came, "Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds.  It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for the next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day.  If you could keep awake(but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind, and on top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on." I think this is when and where I remembered the magic of childhood.  It was then that I realized I could again be apart of this old familiar world with my children.  Oh, I know it sounds sentimental and really, it is.  Sometimes  I wonder if we have enough sentiment in the world today.  Peter Pan brought the fairy (Tinkerbell) into the Darling house and stole away the children for a time.  We, too, can bring fairies into our homes - we, like Pan, can be Fairy-Bringers.   I really believe that there is less and less magic in the world today for children...I mean the old sentimental magic of the imagination.  Technologies have created for our children what they could be creating for themselves.  I have always been concerned with whether my children could think for themselves (a big reason why we homeschool) but I am equally concerned with whether they can create for themselves. Given the chance a child's ability to create magic -or find it within themselves- is exponential.  This ability will dull as the years pass and other more pressing matters must take root in their maturing lives but until then I feel a call to defend and preserve it.  That is why I am a Fairy-Bringer in my home. It's not hard to become a Fairy-Bringer, you simply must have one thing... a 'sweet mocking mouth' with 'one kiss on it...perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner."  (What that means I will leave up to you. May I suggest you read Barrie's Peter Pan for a few insights into the matter?). Have you ever heard of a fairy house?  If not, please go to the library and get your hands on Tracy Kane's book Fairy Houses.  Tristan made a fairy house just a few weeks ago out of sticks, rocks, grass and flowers (he thought the fairies might like honey on crackers too).  Where was his mind while he created?  What stories were twirling about?  What ambitions were forming?  These are questions a Fairy-Bringer must prepare for.  We must tickle the imagination with such activities as building Fairy-houses, finding fairy rings and all sorts of other play which get ourselves and our children outside and under the canopy of mother nature.  Really, that is where the magic can best be found.  A simple stick fallen from the clutches of a tree becomes the sword of a courageous knight or the staff of a powerful magician.  We are able to get down close and gather those treasures from nature's floor - rock, flower, herb and more.  It's a place to imagine and to enjoy -even to learn. So...let me just write a little more from Peter Pan.  This is the scene where poor (although hardly poor) Tinkerbell lay dying... "Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said.  Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies. Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees. "Do you believe?" he cried. Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate. She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn't sure. "what do you think?" she asked Peter. "If you believe," he shouted to them, "clap your hands; don't let Tink die."   Are you clapping?  Just checking.

Comments

[The Never Fairy]

Very sweet post! :)
I can bring a fairy to you...
There's a new Peter Pan book out...and it's very different from the rest of them.
Check it out:
http://www.peterpansneverworld.com/
(clap clap clap!)
BELIEVE!