nimuebrown

There are a great many different ways of understanding the idea of faerie/fairy. For Flavia Kate Peters, faeries are elemental beings, clearly divisible into the realms of earth, air, fire and water – she identifies beings like mermaids with faerie – not something I would do, but I find it an interesting line of thought.

To quote Flavia: “The elementals are the faery guardians of a specific element, of one of the basic four, and their task is to literally make that element work. They are the power behind the elements.”

 As elemental beings, Flavia sees faerie as intrinsic to the natural world – the spirit and energy of this world we inhabit. Not everyone understands faerie in this way, but for those who do, the book offers an array of spells, meditations and ways of connecting with these spirit presences.

Flavia Kate Peters has a lively, exuberant writing style and an enthusiasm for her subject that permeates every line. The book itself is very gentle, certainly suitable for beginners. Whether it will work for you depends a lot on how you understand the idea of faerie, and what kind of spiritual path you are on. I would suggest it’s an ideal book for a New Age reader, some Pagans will find it highly resonant, others will not. You need to be willing to see this world as alive with conscious presence, and to see those presences as fundamentally positive and benevolent. If peace, positivity, gentle playfulness and the sparkle of fairy dust appeals to you, then this is very likely a book you want to pick up. If you are more unseelie in your inclinations, or don’t relate to faeries as elemental beings or as present in our world, then this is probably not for you.