White fairy This page is basically a very much expanded version of the ‘first fairy encounter’ that I described in my: ‘Tales of meeting real fairies‘ article.

I’m going to use this page to help those who would like to try and engage with any type of nature spirit to have a better understanding of what I am doing when I’m trying to do this myself.

In this respect on the page below I give a much more detailed description of how I was directed to the place where the fairy was and then of the process I went through that allowed me to become aware of the presence of the fairy and then of how I built up up greater details of the fairy herself.

This fairy encounter was just off an old railway track somewhere between Rolands Gill and Medomsley. At that time I was in a phase were I was going out every few days and jogging about a mile or so up this track starting from Rolands Gill and heading up the valley in the direction of Medomsley.

Being ‘guided’ to Become Aware of a Lonely Faerie

While jogging up this track, I would often never actually make it to where I was aiming for as I would find myself being ‘directed’ and sometimes even very strongly ‘pulled’ into the woods that lined this track pretty much all the way up the valley.

This energetic pulling or redirecting was often being done by one or more nature spirits whom wanted to either interact with myself or to take me to areas in the woods that they thought I might find interesting.

On one such occasion I was led off the path into the woods until I found myself in a semi clearing with a small boggy stream running through it.

On reaching this clearing and finding myself no longer being ‘pulled’ then I just stopped moving and stood very still in the space I’d been led to and started to allow myself to ‘deeply feel and sense’ everything within the entire space within this clearing.

How to Orientate your Senses and Perceptions to become aware of the presence of nature spirits

Just to make it clear, I’m NOT actually ‘looking’ with my physical eyes, I’m ‘feeling and sensing’ the space within the clearing that I’ve been led to. What I’m doing is focusing my attention on trying to engage all of my senses so that I can try and perceive and sense what (if anything) is in this space that was the reason why I had been taken there.

So, I’m standing very still and in my terms I am orientating to and putting my full and complete attention on my entire range of ‘senses and perceptions’ so that I have a chance to become aware of anything they are picking up within this small clearing.

After spending a few minutes orientating in this way then I start to ‘sense and feel’ the presence of ‘something’ within the branches of a small overhanging tree that is on the opposite side of the stream from where I’m standing.

How do you sense the presence of a Nature Spirit, how do you ‘see’ a fairy?

I then ‘internally’ orientate my attention to focus on the senses that are picking up this ‘presence’. You could say that I am trying to amplify as much as possible the subtle sensory signals that relate specifically to this ‘presence’ while trying to eliminate everything else or push everything else into the background.

After doing this for a minute or two I then become aware that the ‘presence’ seems to be some sort of ‘being’ which is positioned in the centre of the first set of forking branches that radiate out from the main tree trunk about two meters above the ground.

As I’ve become more certain of ‘presence’ in the tree then I’ve also bee moving physically closer to where it is. So, I end up crossing the stream and standing within about 2 or 3 meters from this tree and very close to the ‘being’ sitting in it.

I rarely physically ‘look’ at where this being or presence is.

What I’m doing all the time is I’m focusing my entire attention on my senses and waiting for them to build up a ‘best fit’ physical presentation of this essentially none physical presence. In moving closer then my own senses can take in more detail which helps for me to build up a more coherent internal physical image and particularly one that I can ‘relate to’ with regards my own experience and understandings.

As this is happening then the ‘presence’ very gradually resolves into a smallish ‘person shaped’ creature which seems to be wearing predominantly white ‘lacy’ clothing and which I also ‘feel’ is a ‘she’.

At the same time I become aware that ‘she’ also seems to be holding a longish white stick looking thing which was actually very definitely twinkling or sparkling at one end.

A fairy holding a wand with a ‘sparkly’ end

After letting my senses focus on this ‘stick’ for a while longer I found myself doing a mental ‘double take’ in disbelief when the ‘stick’ eventually resolves into what I can only describe as a magic wand. At the same time this was happening, the ‘white creature person’ finally ‘resolves’ into a very definite fairy with lacy see through but predominantly transparent but ‘whitish’ wings.

What really confused me was that the fairy seemed quite big in size (she was about two feet tall (60 cm)) and also seemed to be somewhat overweight.

As until this point I actually believed or more accurately my ‘understandings’ of fairies were that they were very small, perhaps no bigger than six inches tall (15 cm) while also always being skinny.

At least this the impression I was left with from the very few pictures I’d seen depicting fairies.

As a result this particular encounter caused me more than slight confusion as did the fact that it very definitely seemed to be holding an actual magic wand.

Attempts to communicate with her went something along the lines of;

Me – “Are you ‘really’ a fairy?'”

Fairy – “Yes I’m a fairy”

Me – “Ehhh!! – Are you sure?”?

Fairy – “YES!!!”

Me – “Aren’t you . . . eh!! . . . a bit too BIG? . .  to be a fairy . . . ?”

Fairy – “”$%^$%”!!!” . . .

Me – ” . . . and EH!!! . . . . is that ‘really’ a magic wand? . . . . . “

I felt that she wasn’t impressed with our interaction particularly because she became ‘sulky’, or perhaps disappointed. Overall I got the impression that she seemed lonely BUT that she wanted to keep to herself.

I never asked if she could cast spells with her wand but was a bit worried that she might be able to and a bit worried that she might use it on me for asking ‘impolite’ questions.

So, my first fairy encounter didn’t fit my ideas or expectations of what a fairy actually looked like or how a fairy ‘should be’ in the slightest. All of which helped to stretch my conceptual boundaries and my beliefs about real fairies.

Where did this real fairy encounter happen?

Firstly if you want to try and engage with nature spirits then any decent old, well cared for mixed woodland will likely have places where nature spirits are present.

So, look for somewhere close to where you are and particularly because I’m sure nature spirits will move and go live somewhere else if they get pestered by too many people disturbing their spaces.

This encounter was on the Northern borders of County Durham, South East of Rolands Gill, on the east side of the Derwent River valley down from the old disused railway line.

Clicking on the map below should give you a larger scale map.

derwent-walk-map

From what I can remember this place was below the track on the river side and it’s likely it was either below Priestfield Wood or in Friarside Wood. The red dot marked on the map is my best guess, BUT as this was 20 years ago it just might have been further up the track. I occasionally jogged past where this map ends.

Also, this page describes what I do to become aware of ‘the physically un-present’ under certain conditions. At particular times I’ve also spontaneously just ‘seen’ a nature spirit without having to make an effort to ‘tune into’ their living space.

Sometimes it requires ‘effort’ and sometimes it just happens.

How to Learn to become aware of Fae, Fairies & Nature Spirits?

Some people reading this page may be interested in trying to become aware of Fairies directly themselves. I have a page here called: Meeting, Contacting & Connecting with Nature Spirits which explains what you need to do to give yourself the best chance of becoming aware of fairies and other types of nature spirits, so click on this line to read this page.