Robert Kirk, a 17th century reverend who was proclaimed a ‘faery scholar’, originally coined the term ‘Co-Walker’. A Co-Walker was a being that could not only walk between the earthly and faery realms, but also among all of the ‘Otherworlds’.
Rev. Robert Kirk, the vicar of the parish of Aberfoyle, Scotland officially investigated the faery world. He documented first hand accounts of those who visited faery hills, faery courts, and recounted the lives of these magical beings. In his book, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves and Faeries, (which was published in 1891 by Sir Walter Scott) the stories Kirk collected represented evidence of the reality of these ‘Otherworlds’.
A few hundred years ago seeing faery beings, having conversations with them, and observing them appear from and disappear to the faery realm was considered somewhat commonplace. In fact, until the mid-19th century, most people in Ireland and Scotland still believed in the ‘good folk’ and considered them an important part of their heritage. Fairy lore wove through centuries of ballads, poems, and stories. Good and evil, large and small, charming and grotesque, almost everyone had a story about an encounter.
To those of us who were raised in a materialistic, ‘scientific’ world, the existence of spirits or any invisible intelligence such as fairies is relegated to the sphere of imagination or primitive thinking. As our world has become more urbanized, industrialized, and we spend more time surrounded by electronic gadgets than in our natural environment, we are seeing ourselves less and less as part of the natural world. Human beings, as all life, are intimately connected to the ecosystem from which they emerged. Their strength flows from the connection. As humanity has become increasingly more divorced from nature, we are not only feeling the loss of this innate connection but are suffering many ailments associated from what Richard Louv has termed as our nature deficit. Various forms of illnesses, physical, emotional and spiritual have been directly linked to our diminished bond with the natural world. We have attempted substituting artificial objects and environments for natural connections but we are beginning to realize that this has only exacerbated the problem. Hiking, climbing a trees, or paddling down the river using our Wii video games may actually convince some that it is a realistic simulation, but our senses know that this is a poor imitation. The world that was previously instinctively understood, and profoundly felt is now invisible to us. We cannot conceive of beings or places that exist on a plain that is not manufactured, measured, or monitored by ‘objective’ means that have been defined in a way that devalues an inborn knowledge or logic.
Only through our stories that tap into ancient knowledge and bring forth imaginings that reflect our yearning for the connection we have lost, that defined our essence as humans, do we remember who we really are. This alienation or loss of vision has been the subject of discussion among those who realize that our spirituality, our understanding of our place in and connection to the universe, has made us increasingly more dependent on the things that have reduced the vast powers we were created with.
The breakdown of our relationship with nature began when Judeo-Christian beliefs reduced pagan ideals or nature based belief systems to superstition or even dangerous expressions of evil entities created to conform our behavior to man-made religious organizations that sought power and status. Instead of being born from nature, Humans came to believe they were created in the image of a God that was above and separate from nature. We were the ‘Masters of the Universe’ who could exploit nature to meet our immediate needs and wants. Nothing on earth was considered sacred.
As long as most people tended their farms, and lived among nature they still instinctively understood their connection to it for their livelihood. But as the world became more urbanized and technology and science were seen as the solutions to all our problems, the idea of nature became abstract and remote to most people. The countryside was something one visited, maybe. And as we became more detached from the natural world, and we began living and working in concrete cubicles deliberately designed to separate us from the environment that sustains us, we have seen the rise of anxiety, depression, apathy, and insecurity. In fact, the outdoors – nature itself, has become a fearful concept to many.
The Co-Walkers Kirk originally wrote about were special beings that could not only ‘see’ beyond our realm of existence and experience the extraordinary, but build relationships with spiritual beings that populated other plains of existence. Restoring our loss of vision – reawakening our connection to nature to receive the knowledge it holds - should be given as much consideration and priority as the time and resources dedicated to developing new technology to solve the problems our technology has created in the first place. We have created a vicious cycle of dependence that has diminished our capacity as humans, creating a spiral of destruction that if not broken will lead to the extinction of the human race. Now scientists are saying our only salvation is actually merging with the machines we have created because we are too inferior to survive without them. And as shocking as it seems to some, others are beginning to embrace this idea of the future.
We should be looking to the ‘faeries’, to the nature spirits, to other forms of life on this planet to save us from this ultimate degradation. The faulty paradigms defining what we consider quality of life – unending consumerism and material status – have created illusions of progress that have blinded us to seeing and feeling the call of nature to reconnect to our home and protect our future. Sustainable peaceful co-existence with each other, all life on this planet, is seen as an unrealistic goal because our vision of the world has been altered to blind us of this truth. The many vested interests in our current system continue on a path of domination. They will continue to terraform nature and even our human body until we will no longer recognize ourselves as humans, nor value our humanity, children born of the garden.
Restructuring our model of reality to perceive the world as our ancestors could is not the abandonment of reason or even science but broadening our paradigm of learning to include a fundamental belief that other energy levels, dimensions, planes of existence exist and can be accessed through nurturing all our senses to a heightened level, enabling us to interpret and ‘see’ the constant flow of information made available to us from our natural environment – much in the same way most other living things are able to do. Expanding our consciousness to receive and experience the world in a different way that requires us to live more cooperatively with nature is the basis of a real revolution, true progress that humanity has not yet been able to achieve.
Nature spirits, fairies, or whatever name we assign them may be our guides or our way of understanding an expanded vision of our natural world and our critical role within it. Our stories and the beings that inhabit them may provide us with the means to rediscover who we are and how we are all connected. Adopting new paradigms of reality to motivate positive change and abandon destructive patterns of existence may be the awakening we have been hoping to experience.
Rev. Robert Kirk, the vicar of the parish of Aberfoyle, Scotland officially investigated the faery world. He documented first hand accounts of those who visited faery hills, faery courts, and recounted the lives of these magical beings. In his book, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves and Faeries, (which was published in 1891 by Sir Walter Scott) the stories Kirk collected represented evidence of the reality of these ‘Otherworlds’.
A few hundred years ago seeing faery beings, having conversations with them, and observing them appear from and disappear to the faery realm was considered somewhat commonplace. In fact, until the mid-19th century, most people in Ireland and Scotland still believed in the ‘good folk’ and considered them an important part of their heritage. Fairy lore wove through centuries of ballads, poems, and stories. Good and evil, large and small, charming and grotesque, almost everyone had a story about an encounter.
To those of us who were raised in a materialistic, ‘scientific’ world, the existence of spirits or any invisible intelligence such as fairies is relegated to the sphere of imagination or primitive thinking. As our world has become more urbanized, industrialized, and we spend more time surrounded by electronic gadgets than in our natural environment, we are seeing ourselves less and less as part of the natural world. Human beings, as all life, are intimately connected to the ecosystem from which they emerged. Their strength flows from the connection. As humanity has become increasingly more divorced from nature, we are not only feeling the loss of this innate connection but are suffering many ailments associated from what Richard Louv has termed as our nature deficit. Various forms of illnesses, physical, emotional and spiritual have been directly linked to our diminished bond with the natural world. We have attempted substituting artificial objects and environments for natural connections but we are beginning to realize that this has only exacerbated the problem. Hiking, climbing a trees, or paddling down the river using our Wii video games may actually convince some that it is a realistic simulation, but our senses know that this is a poor imitation. The world that was previously instinctively understood, and profoundly felt is now invisible to us. We cannot conceive of beings or places that exist on a plain that is not manufactured, measured, or monitored by ‘objective’ means that have been defined in a way that devalues an inborn knowledge or logic.
Only through our stories that tap into ancient knowledge and bring forth imaginings that reflect our yearning for the connection we have lost, that defined our essence as humans, do we remember who we really are. This alienation or loss of vision has been the subject of discussion among those who realize that our spirituality, our understanding of our place in and connection to the universe, has made us increasingly more dependent on the things that have reduced the vast powers we were created with.
The breakdown of our relationship with nature began when Judeo-Christian beliefs reduced pagan ideals or nature based belief systems to superstition or even dangerous expressions of evil entities created to conform our behavior to man-made religious organizations that sought power and status. Instead of being born from nature, Humans came to believe they were created in the image of a God that was above and separate from nature. We were the ‘Masters of the Universe’ who could exploit nature to meet our immediate needs and wants. Nothing on earth was considered sacred.
As long as most people tended their farms, and lived among nature they still instinctively understood their connection to it for their livelihood. But as the world became more urbanized and technology and science were seen as the solutions to all our problems, the idea of nature became abstract and remote to most people. The countryside was something one visited, maybe. And as we became more detached from the natural world, and we began living and working in concrete cubicles deliberately designed to separate us from the environment that sustains us, we have seen the rise of anxiety, depression, apathy, and insecurity. In fact, the outdoors – nature itself, has become a fearful concept to many.
The Co-Walkers Kirk originally wrote about were special beings that could not only ‘see’ beyond our realm of existence and experience the extraordinary, but build relationships with spiritual beings that populated other plains of existence. Restoring our loss of vision – reawakening our connection to nature to receive the knowledge it holds - should be given as much consideration and priority as the time and resources dedicated to developing new technology to solve the problems our technology has created in the first place. We have created a vicious cycle of dependence that has diminished our capacity as humans, creating a spiral of destruction that if not broken will lead to the extinction of the human race. Now scientists are saying our only salvation is actually merging with the machines we have created because we are too inferior to survive without them. And as shocking as it seems to some, others are beginning to embrace this idea of the future.
We should be looking to the ‘faeries’, to the nature spirits, to other forms of life on this planet to save us from this ultimate degradation. The faulty paradigms defining what we consider quality of life – unending consumerism and material status – have created illusions of progress that have blinded us to seeing and feeling the call of nature to reconnect to our home and protect our future. Sustainable peaceful co-existence with each other, all life on this planet, is seen as an unrealistic goal because our vision of the world has been altered to blind us of this truth. The many vested interests in our current system continue on a path of domination. They will continue to terraform nature and even our human body until we will no longer recognize ourselves as humans, nor value our humanity, children born of the garden.
Restructuring our model of reality to perceive the world as our ancestors could is not the abandonment of reason or even science but broadening our paradigm of learning to include a fundamental belief that other energy levels, dimensions, planes of existence exist and can be accessed through nurturing all our senses to a heightened level, enabling us to interpret and ‘see’ the constant flow of information made available to us from our natural environment – much in the same way most other living things are able to do. Expanding our consciousness to receive and experience the world in a different way that requires us to live more cooperatively with nature is the basis of a real revolution, true progress that humanity has not yet been able to achieve.
Nature spirits, fairies, or whatever name we assign them may be our guides or our way of understanding an expanded vision of our natural world and our critical role within it. Our stories and the beings that inhabit them may provide us with the means to rediscover who we are and how we are all connected. Adopting new paradigms of reality to motivate positive change and abandon destructive patterns of existence may be the awakening we have been hoping to experience.
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