Blog Your Blessings Sunday: Flower Fairies

Cicely Mary Barker's 1920 classic The Flower Fairies has been a long-standing blessing in my family's life. I bought the book when my daughter was three. I had fallen in love with the water colors, the beautiful design, and the pure fancy behind the creation of this brood of nature's caretakers, and I had hoped she would too. Happily, she did.

Over the years, we have traipsed through the woods and along streams and rivers looking for evidence of fairies. When my nephews join us, we also look for evidence of trolls. We have found plenty, and each child has spotted one or the other along our way.

Flower Fairies are tiny creatures that live in gardens. Whenever a seed sprouts, a Flower Fairy baby is born. Each Flower Fairy lives and sleeps in their chosen flower, plant or tree, and as this grows the fairy grows too. Each and every Flower Fairy is in charge of looking after their flower or plant; keeping it strong and healthy by making sure it has plenty of sunshine and water to drink, sweeping away dead leaves, and polishing flowers and stems, according to the Flower Fairies website.

Building fairy forts remains a beloved pastime here. Adella, her cousins, her friends, and our neighbors have fashioned entire complexes of fairy forts, fairy houses, fairy kitchens, and more. Once, they even brought clothespin fairy dolls to a neighbor's backyard--a child unknown to them still but who seems to share the same interest, if the little fairy wigwams are anything to go by.

The other day, Adella and I spent an hour tidying up the forts and remaking fairy salad (leaves, acorns, pine needles in even amounts) after heavy rains washed some of the work she and her friend had completed the day before. The fun of these endeavors--the real blessing, I think--is getting close to the ground and seeing the wonders of the world at and from that level. The roots of fallen trees become haunted universes, hollows in tree trunks become vast fairy castles, depressions in the ground formed by rainwater become dried riverbeds from ancient times. Even the pebbles carry the magic of the fairies. Everything is full of life, and everything is possible.

Kindred spirit: Beatrix Potter