This is what happened when I went to Fairy School
When I was a little girl, I wandered through the trees behind my family’s house.
I collected sticks and stones and placed them on the ground by the leaves and moss, and I remember speaking to someone out there. In the woods. It wasn’t a person. It wasn’t someone I could even necessarily see with my eyes, but we communicated.
Then, I got older, and I stopped collecting sticks and stones, and I stopped talking to supposedly imaginary beings in the woods. But I did start collecting crystals and arranging them neatly on my windowsill. Sometimes, I placed flowers nearby, and again and again, when I closed my eyes, I saw a lush world. I felt like I was entering a secret garden, and in that garden, there were winged creatures that were sometimes big and sometimes very small, and whenever I saw this, I felt movement on my feet and around my head—like something was crawling on me—but when I opened my eyes, nothing was there.
Then, I started seeing flitting lights around my apartment. Some shadowy and some bright and sometimes, for a moment, they took the shape of something recognizable. That’s when I started associating all of this with fairies.
Yes, as a grown-ass, thirty-year-old woman, I started believing in fairies.
I pulled the cork on a bottle that read “IMPOSSIBLE!” and as soon as I did—as soon as I simply allowed the possibility that fairies could be real—I felt like I restored a long-lost connection to a world I was once privy to, a world where I was completely loved.
And as my love for fairies grew, I turned to Google and to oracle decks and to Fairy School to understand my experiences.
Now, Fairy School wasn’t so much a “school” as it was a small gathering of individuals one Sunday afternoon at a healing center a few blocks from my apartment in Brooklyn. I’d been attending events and seeing clients at the center for over a year, and while there’d always been bottled glitter labeled “fairy dust” at the cash register, fairies were seldom mentioned. But here it was, a whole afternoon for adults to gather and discuss fairies. I was so in.
Sunday came, and when I arrived at the healing center for Fairy School, I saw that an altar had been built at the center of the room—complete with flowers, crystals, fairy books, cookies (because everyone knows fairies love sweets), and a little sign that read “trust.” I took my seat at the altar and looked around, expecting a large gathering, a community of curious seekers and believers, but to my dismay, only three people showed up—the teacher, one other person, and myself.
While I was initially disappointed, I soon realized that like most things, the exact right number of people had arrived because we—the three of us—were starving to share our fairy stories. We were craving time and space to speak, and thankfully, because it was only us, we had plenty of time to do just that.
I talked about the rich world I saw and the flitting lights in my apartment, and they shared strikingly similar encounters, and when we all finished, the teacher asked the two of us “students” to lie down and get comfortable.
With eyes closed, I listened as she led us through a guided meditation into the fairy realm. There, we were introduced to a fairy guide who gave us a gift. But we weren’t told who the guide was or what the gift was. These were revealed to each of us individually, through our own internal experience.
In mine, I met a small purple fairy named Iris. She led me along a golden path, past a waterfall, and toward a fairy queen. The fairy queen wore a golden gown. Pearls were strung across her forehead, and above her third eye, there was a jewel that kept changing colors from emerald to purple to ruby, and then, she invited me into her cottage.
She removed a piece of brick from the fireplace and pulled out a gold skeleton key. She handed it to me and told me, “This is the key to your home—use it anytime.” She also told me to place a piece of amethyst at the front of my home for protection and to not worry so much about money.
Then, she changed shape!
She became a white-winged fairy and a giant castle, and she told me the fairy queen shape she’d taken was just to show me a part of myself. She said to embrace my fairy side and to help others embrace their connection with fairies, to spread the fairy love, because fairies are here to help, and we will need their help with what comes next.
During the guided fairy meditation (while my mind was being blown with fairy wisdom), my head felt so heavy it hurt lying on the ground. The teacher guided us out of the fairy realm and back into the room at the healing center.
We sat up slowly.
Eyes opening wide.
And the other person offered to share his experience first: “I met my fairy guide, and I was given was a gold skeleton key—to help unlock my heart.”
My eyes lit up. Of all the possible objects in the world, what are the odds that we both just imagined receiving a gold skeleton key specifically?!
Perhaps it’s not so uncommon, I thought.
Perhaps a golden key is a recurring symbol deep in the collective unconscious.
Or perhaps, fairies are very real, and maybe, they hold the keys to unlock many things in our lives and in this world.
I walked the three blocks home, pulled out my keys from my purse, and turned one of them in the lock above the crystal knob to my studio apartment. I stepped inside the small space I’d found years earlier in a way I can only describe as miraculous, and I noticed the outline of one of the bricks above my fireplace.
I’d never consciously observed it before, but looking at it now, I saw that its grout was deeper than the other bricks. It looked exactly like what I’d seen in the guided fairy meditation, and I walked towards it. I ran my fingers along it, just to confirm—the brick was sealed in place.
For a moment, I considered busting through that grout and pulling out the brick and seeing what lay behind it, but then I remembered my renter’s policy and let it be.
I placed a piece of amethyst by my front door, and I opened my phone and shared a story about Fairy School on Instagram. To my surprise, I received an incredible outpouring of fairy love and support. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who commented and messaged me to share their fairy encounters. Far more than just three adults sitting on the floor in Brooklyn. A whole community of curious seekers and believers. And I think that ultimately, that’s the most important thing I learned in Fairy School: I am not alone.
And if you have a similar love for fairies, then I hope you know: neither are you.
