Watching a video on “The Modern Fairy Sightings Podcast” today reminded me of an experience I had a little over 30 years ago, while living in Washington State.
I had never thought of it as a fairy sighting before, and the idea is intriguing. It ws certainly an encounter with an otherworldly being.
But because I think, as I suppose most people do, of fairies as ‘little people’ or at least as small in stature, and this was a very large being, I’d never tied the idea of fairy to it.
Over the years I have come to think of this as my ‘Green Man’ experience. It happened in the doorway of my kitchen one morning, with no partidular pre-amble, just spontaneously, there he was.
He was tall, completely green and seemed to be more plant that person. But he was definitely not a plant. He had eyes and a nose and mouth and face, and a body and arms and legs and hands. And just as I was looking at him, he was looking directly at me.
I remember that when I saw him I was so intrigued by how he looked I just stopped and stared at him for a long time. I was working to take it all in.
Neither of us moved or spoke or did anything, we just looked at each other.
He was quite a bit taller than I was, and I was standing just outsdie the doorway and had to look up slightly to see his face. He was behind me, and when I turned around, there he was. I didn’t scream, or move, or even hardly breathe, because I didn’t want him to disappear before I had time to take him in.
I called him “The Green Man” because I had no other way to describe what he was- he was fully ‘human’ in one sense – having a body and head, limbs and a face, but he was like nothing I had ever seen before. He looked more like a giant plant than a person, in one way. The details of his features were all plant-like, except his eyes. His eyes were eyes just like mine.
And, as long as we’re on the topic of eyes, I wear pretty strong corrective contact lenses for myopia (near-sightedness) and have for most of my life.
I was not wearing them at that moment, and yet I could perceive every detail perfectly. This in itself is a sign to me, as I have noticed this is true in every case when I have ‘althered state’ expeirences. I always see clearly and well.
What I knew instinctively, just by looking at him was that he would become completely invisible just by standing still if he were outsdide in nature.
Because he looked like a plant in ways that are difficult to explain. His skin was like the texture of tree bark, but green. But not ugly at all. He was actually quite beautiful.
He was not a person in any sense of the word as I know it. He was somehow a perfect mix of person and plant. As if he were what a plant would be if it had decided to take on human form.
I was completely cabptivated and engaged in looking at him for such a long time, and then, something, I don’t know what, shifted my attention, and I looked away. When I looked back, he was gone.
As if he had never been there. But I was standing in my house, in a space I knew well, and his absence left a view into the next room that had not been there a moment before. I immediately became quite confused and excited all at once.
I should say it was during a time in my life when many magical and amazing things were happening, and so it was only one of many that occurred at that time. It was also a time when I was channeling almost daily, and the channeling itself on the matter of this event is quite compelling.
It was a profound experience, and it left me with a powerful sense that what we think of as ‘real’ is not at all what is ‘real’; but only what we tell ourselves is real, and shape our world to look like to keep us from being uncomfortable.
That is to say, our boundaries are set not by ‘reality’ per se, but by our ability to perceive and comprehend what is possible, and what our consciousness can alow.
While this is a difficult thing to explain it has a perfectly clear felt sense. It is understood at such a deep level of the self that the rational mind’s explanations all fall short of the interior knowing which accompanies it.
Here is the channeling session from that experience:
“So where would you like to begin? Okay, we shall begin with the green man.
The green man represents an aspect of reality of which you are generally not aware. What you
might call one of your probabilities. And of course, to him, you seem the same. He is
brought into your awareness through mutual desire to expand your experience of what is
possible and to inspire you and him. He is an excellent symbol for you, being both man and plant. In a way it seems at once familiar and foreign. He strikes chords of remembrance in you which when seen from your own perspective, seem too fantastic or strange to be real.
And yet, real he is. And also, your sense of deep familiarity.
In some ways it is an opportunity for you to experience creation, that is, what you
desire becoming manifest, as you were seeking some form of alternate experience, which
you can now say, you have experienced. In other ways, of course, his reality exists separate and distinct from your own and you have glimpsed or peeked into his world as he has glimpsed yours. Quite a shock for both of you.
His existence reminds you of a flexibility of reality and detaches you, somewhat,
from your own perspective. And this again, provides you with an opportunity to observe
your own reactions to things which seem quite outside the norm or average experience in
your culture.
For it is one thing to manifest parking spaces and green signal lights. It is another thing to see large green men in your kitchen.
It also provides you with the opportunity to see the rational mind at its best, or perhaps, worst, as it moves in, so discreetly, so quickly, and so adeptly, to plant its seeds of doubt and leave you with a comfortable experience of something which may or may not have occurred.
After all, if it were only your imagination, it would be quite simple and reasonable to accept. You see, there was really no green man, you just thought you saw something.
It was a trick of the mind, it was a trick of the eye. Never mind that it had never happened before, or at least not in this particular way. The rational mind is always prepared to rationalize these experiences out of reality and back into imagination where they belong.
When you can accept the role of the rational mind in this instance, and suspend judgment, simply allowing for all of the counterparts of the experience, that is, the experience itself, your perception of it, the rational mind’s response to it, and your own sense of a longing for the experience.
When you accept all of these, then it becomes easier to allow the experience to be what it is.
Simply an experience.
It is in the judgment, the placing of values, right or wrong, real or unreal, substantial
or imaginary, that you lose the experience. And it becomes just so much fodder to be
chewed up by the machines of analysis and spit out in meaningless pieces. By allowing
yourself to simply be with the experience, you allow yourself to explore the symbols and
meanings of your own inner communication.
And they emerge naturally. This also opens
the doorway for more experiences of this nature, providing you with the opportunity to
expand your own repertoire, to increase that which is known to you.
In some ways this comes back to the difference between understanding and nalysis/explanation. Through acceptance and relaxation of judgment, larger pieces can be revealed. By refusing to catalog, rationalize, or analyze the experience, you leave room for understanding to emerge.
You leave room for the experience itself. Notice again how the psychological structure, that is, the way in which you interpret the event, either expands or limits your own ability to perceive and experience. Within narrow confines of what is and is not real, what is or is not physical, the experience does not exist as part of reality. And yet
the experience, by virtue of its being, has some validity.
And so, it is relegated to the world of the imaginary. In its own way, this is the rational mind’s attempt to make the experience powerless or to take the power back from the experience and place it with the rational mind.
By refusing to make such judgments, the system remains open and the energy is free
to move where it will. The intensity and meaning of the experience are free to reveal
themselves. Again, the experience is a demonstration of the concept of real vs. imaginary.
It is there to show you the choices available. Acceptance without judgment opens new
doorways. Rejection closes them.
Yet none of these doorways are outside of you. None of these doorways exist separately from you. It is only a matter of your willingness to expand into the self – this is not some fantastic voyage of great distance. This is a fantastic voyage right here. Traveling inward.
The green man represents a territory or a new terrain, so it could be said, that you have begun a journey into a new landscape and yet this landscape is not distant in ways which your current system of reality recognizes. In fact, it is very close at hand.
But the psychological journey required to perceive it is not undertaken or understood by most of you.
Indeed, the experience itself also represents a breakthrough by its very nature because of the strict and strictly enforced codified rules in your own system regarding reality.
You are now stepping into the borderlands where you run the risk of being assessed
outside of the normal parameters of what is called sane in your culture.
You should recognize, based on your own experiences of the past week, that these can be frightening and treacherous areas, particularly for the psyche which fears the “crazy” label.
So we congratulate you and assure you that crazy would not be an accurate definition at this time.
Crazy more accurately represents, particularly in your system, a running away from overwhelming fear and a need to hide from the self.
You on the other hand are most assuredly running toward, unwilling to hide and expansively embracing the self. So you
see, there is no need for fear of this “disorder.”
Again it is a question of disfunction vs. function and so we will give you this little
test for yourselves. This little way for you to reassure yourselves when you find yourselves in the borderland and questioning your “sanity.”
Simply ask yourself, “Is this a form of
disfunction? Is this, in some way a pattern of fear, denial, or self-deception?
Or, is this simply an experience for which I have no rational explanation?” Now, before the rational
mind jumps in and begins its elegant job of proving disfunction, let us say this. Feel first.
Feel and discern. If there is fear, is the fear a response as in surprise or is the fear the base or root of the experience.
Next, ask yourself if this is a way that you are separating from the self, dividing, or is this unity. Your green man, while appearing to be physically separate from you, sang with the energy of union – you could feel it. There was wholeness and the base of the experience was not fear but joy.
In those instances or those cases where persons are separating from aspects of themselves of which they are fearful, the tenor and root feeling of the experience is quite literally, terror.
This is because the separated part or parts
of the self are becoming visible and even though they are becoming visible as separate
entities, or experiences, separate from the self, it is their invisibility which is required by the fearful self to remain calm.
In other words, it is the need NOT to see which these experiences violate.
So now that we have assured you and you do not have to think of yourselves as crazy, we encourage you to expand and be willing to perceive more.
To explore these borderlands and definitely to enjoy the experience. Do not feel that you need to analyze or comprehend distinct and specific meanings for yourself, rather allow the meanings to emerge.
Allow yourself to encompass the larger idea of what the self is and of what reality
is. For it is not necessary to perceive or understand how all of this works. All that is
required is in allowance and experiencing of the experience.
