Through the Firefly Forest: B is for Bluebells...
Warning — danger ahead...
This letter is part of my Through the Firefly Forest: The Creative Journey series, where I look at the gifts and challenges of the creative life (one alphabet letter at a time). Start here, at A is for Apple Tree…
Dear You,
In spring last year, when the world had brought down all of its shutters, a friend told me about a hidden river trail he’d discovered. It was so difficult to find that he gave me pinpoint-precise directions.
‘I’ve lived in this part of the city for twenty years, walked the length and breadth of it, and I didn’t even know this walk existed until last week’ he told me. I was intrigued.
And like the beginning of any good story, the walk started at a little gate at the end of a nondescript street, a gate that felt as if it didn’t even belong there. It opened onto a rough and muddy trail that led me deeper and deeper into the woods, until I reached a rushing burn to my left and to my right, a path leading off into the trees. On a whim, I wandered up the path and stumbled upon a sudden flash of violet — a bluebell glade enclosed by silver birches. And I knew that I’d found what I’d been looking for.
Because what I had been looking for was some kind of confirmation, although I hadn’t fully realised it until I saw it. I’d been looking for confirmation that all of the enchantment hadn’t left the world just yet, despite everything that had happened. That I could still find it waiting for me in some green and shady place.
And there it was.
There is something about blue flowers that seem to startle us in the same way we might be startled by a sky full of blue stars. We look and we look and we can’t look away, we are entranced. Maybe this explains the old folk belief that bluebell glades are portals to Faeryland, that hidden realm of luminous wings and nectar sipped by moonlight.
Which is also why people were afraid of lingering too long in patches of bluebells, in case they got spirited away against their will. Because everyone knew what happened to those who travelled to the faery place — they came back changed, seven years later, a head filled with poetry, prophecy on their lips and the inability to ever tell a lie. Who needs even one of those burdens?
Something happens to people who step into that secret realm, something changes in their essence. It’s as if some torch is lit within them, it’s as if the stars had dripped blue dew upon them and they’d leaned back their heads and drank every drop. They are not who they were. They are not even who they are.
Which brings us to the question — now that we’ve paused beside the Bluebell Glade on our journey through the Firefly Forest, will you step inside of it? Will you pass through the portal?
Be warned, I have no idea what will happen to you if you do. Well, except for your first few moments in that Other Place — I can tell you what those will be like…
You step into the centre of those silently chiming flowers, those petals that peal without making a sound. You close your eyes. You feel the whirring of wings against your face. Fireflies? Faeries? You don’t dare look just yet. You think you hear a whisper, maybe even a laugh. A breeze lifts the scent of the blooms, the air is electric and unsettled. Suddenly, you sense that you have travelled somewhere else, that you are no longer where you started. You open your eyes, expecting a world of wonders…
And you find that you’re just where you were all along. Standing in a patch of blue, your knapsack rubbing against your shoulders, boots damp from the morning’s downpour, stomach rumbling with hunger. Nothing happened and there is no magic, not one drop of it in the whole wide world.
Except…
Something is different, you see it now. It’s the way the trees seem to be looking back at you in the same way that you are looking at them. It’s the way the world seems to shimmer from within. And it’s the way your heart now seems to pulse through every single thing, instead of being a lonely drummer trapped in a cage of bones.
Everything looks exactly as it did before you stepped into the glade, yet you know that you are not in the same place — in fact, nothing at all can convince you otherwise. You realise, then, that the faery realm is not a destination but a way of being and seeing. This is the secret that reveals itself best in bluebell woods and places like them.
And it is the same when a poem, painting or song invites you to create it. (Nothing is as persistent as uncreated things, they will pester you senseless until you bring them into being, you will feel the whirring of their wings against your face while you dream).
And when you accept that invitation — when you enter into the soft blue grove of it, into the violet wildness of it — your world doesn’t necessarily change in any obvious way. Your stomach still rumbles, there are still bills stacked on the hall table, the kitchen floor still needs sweeping. Troubles will still rub against your shoulders and you’ll wonder when the next downpour is coming.
And yet…nothing is as it was, although you can’t fully explain why. It’s something in the way the world seems to shimmer from within, in the way that the air rings silently. You’ve come back changed, your head filled with poetry, prophecy on your lips, truth burning through you. Your heart is no longer alone.
When you step right into the centre of the true-blue you, everything looks exactly as it did before, but you know that you’re not in the same place at all. Because you have held out your fingertips and felt the scent of bells. You have sipped on nectar in the moonlight, you have soared through the night on illuminated wings.
Love,
Deborah x
P.S. As I said, strange things happen to people who go to Faeryland — read the intriguing tale of medieval Scottish nobleman, Thomas the Rhymer, on The Faery Folklorist blog.
P.P.S. Thank you to my kind and lovely Ko-fi supporters, your encouragement is what keeps me going. You are Guardians of the Firefly Forest.
Want to treat me to a cup of floral tea sprinkled with bluebell petals? You can do it here.
Images by Stewart M, Zoltan Tasi, Click & Learn Photography and Nicolás Beltrán López via Unsplash.