Farewell Sweet September

Hello, dear faeries and fauns, satyrs and selkies, and fey folk of all sorts!

My intention was to get this missive out to you before the end of September, but a double vaccine on Friday knocked me out of commission until this very moment when I crawled back onto my laptop to write up my thoughts on the previous month!

It has been quite the busy time for me lately, including one big piece of news I’ll save for the end of the updates. No skipping ahead! There’s plenty of other fun information.

I’ll start things out though by getting the only negative out of the way. Remember these fun pictures from the local apple orchard? I wound up with some unwelcome stowaways from that experience: excruciating chigger bites that left me in misery for the first couple of weeks of the month. Learn my lesson, nymphs and dryads…wear leggings or tights when you go to a fruit farm to take photos.

Advice I definitely took for myself when I went to a meadow a week later to take some collaboration photos for Fable England of their adorable Ralph the Brave Adventuring Mouse necklace.

I tried to dress up similarly to Ralph, with his Dungeons and Dragons - style cowl and his hands in tight fists ready for any fight that might come his way. Such a cutie!

I haven’t taken pictures with the scarf or backpack yet that I was also gifted, but I did do an unboxing video you can see on my YouTube channel if you enjoy such things! I for one love to watch unboxings. They’re like being in the room with someone on their birthday or Christmas morning.

On the weekend of September 9th, I decided to go visit my dear friend D.M. Anderson again, and attend the Michigan Renaissance Faire where she vends! I had a splendid splendid time, and felt so welcome among her friends I had met at the photos we took together in …was it July already? Wow.

Of course being able to come back from explorations of the faire to her gorgeous booth led to me coming home with two stunning Mesiree Ceramics mugs. My collection is up to four now!

But the biggest souvenir from the weekend was my troll tail!! Words cannot express how smitten I am with this wearable item of art and pure magic. I could sit and stare at it all day, and in fact I made a display for it from a curtain rod so that I can look at it like the artwork it is when I’m not adventuring through nature with it and adding stories to it (her tails are made to add even more bits and bobs and to collect pieces of nature in the locks as you go through the woods and wild)

On Saturday the 16th, I woke up excited, ready to go to the woods in my tail and take some pictures. I put on some recommended music on Spotify, and discovered the most wonderful, joyous, inspiring, and new-to-me song, “Only Desire What You Have” by Kate Rusby. I chose an outfit I love, and put on my tail. It was instant utter joy. You know the feeling when you put on a fey ensemble and it doesn’t feel like a costume, but like it reveals some aspect of rightness about yourself? Yeah.

I went to the woods, to a clearing of trees where I often have great luck finding mushrooms, and I started to just…be. At one point I turned my phone onto Spotify (softly, respectful of others) and played the new Kate Rusby song. I started dancing around in my tail like no one was watching. And I didn’t stop, even when some hikers went by on the path. Y’all, I do not do this. I don’t dance. I especially don’t dance in front of strangers. But I felt such utter joy in this moment, I couldn’t help it. I danced to the whole darn song, and then couldn’t stop smiling.

On my way back to my car, I gathered what autumn leaves I could find (there are plenty now, but they weren’t numerous at the time) and at the start of the trail, I put them on a rock by the path along with a heart shaped rock I found by the stream. I always try to give when I receive, and I received so much this day.

Last weekend, I went to the same park, but this time at sunrise to the meadow. (I wore leggings! lol) I took some photos for a collaboration with the flower crown brand, Mostory. They sent me a gorgeous flower crown that truly legitimately looks like it’s made from dried straw and wheat stalks. The sales pics don’t do it justice…when I was taking it from the tissue paper and box I was being super careful with it because my brain said “these are dried flowers” even though it’s not. lol

I’m quite happy with the result! I wore my Fancy Fairy wings and went for a monochromatic look.

Because I woke up to take the photos so early, I wound up with plenty of time that day to work on another project, so I pulled out the patch jacket I’ve wanted to do since spring or so. It has been laying on my Dreaming Room bed this whole time with all the patches, acting as a cat bed for my baby girl Ella (I used so many rolls of duct tape to remove black hair before I started to work on it! lol!!)

I couldn’t even fathom the idea of hand sewing on all those patches, so I took gloves, my airpods and a good podcast, and a ton of q-tips with a whole bottle of E6000 out to my back patio table and spent about two hours gluing everything on. Will it need touch ups? I’m sure. Does it work well enough? Yup! FYI all but the top patches and the vines are by Cat Coven, a great queer-owned company with the most fun merchandise. I’d seriously buy everything there if I could.

On the blog this month…two short new posts. One just basking in the beauty of an autumn day, and the other recounting an incredibly sweet experience I had that same morning when I danced in the woods. I was on my way there when it happened!

Also a quick note, just to say…I’ve written my exclusive one-page story for my Patreon patrons in October already, and it has to be one of my top three I’ve made for them so far! I had such a great time creating it and cannot wait to share with them.

And now, finally, for the biggest bit of news from the whole month.

The day after the troll tail dancing in the forest, I was chatting with friends about my possibly visiting England in spring. I decided early that evening for the heck of it to go ahead and call Virgin Atlantic. See, I had a trip to England planned for May 2020, airfaire bought and paid for, plans all mapped out. And of course that went to poo when the pandemic happened and the world shut down in March. There’s no way, thought I, that Virgin still had the trip on file, let alone any credit from it.

But they did. The whole amount. IF I planned the trip for 2023. Not bought the tickets now and they could be for next year, no. The trip dates had to be 2023.

So, dear ones, I am going on a trip to England in November. I’m finally doing it, going to the land of my heart’s dreams for the first time. First trip overseas of my life. I can hardly believe it, and it has been a whirlwind. I’ll be flying into Manchester and staying with friends who I trust implicitly to know all of the magical places we need to go. I’ll be visiting standing stones and gothic follies, staying in a gothic gatehouse for one night, visiting the ocean and seeing my first Waterhouse painting in person (I expect to cry). And most importantly, meeting dear dear friends in person for the first time, some of them I’ve known for a decade or more.

So. Wow. I’m still in shock, honestly. What a month it has been, and October is guaranteed to be a whirlwind of autumn enjoyment and trip preparation. I hope I get a chance to share it all with you! Coming soon on the blog, I hope to talk about an awesome book I was sent by the author who is a friend. The Art of Fantasy by S. Elizabeth. And I am definitely going to the Ohio Renaissance Festival in October as well. So many adventures to be had!

In the mean time, be well dear ones. I’d love to hear what joys you had in September.

With Faerie Wings and Magical Things,

Grace