An introduction from Mark Roberts, Merlin-of-Avalon...

In 1963, at Chalice Hill Cottage, Glastonbury England, Margaret Lumley-Brown made me a steward of the Faerie Faith Lessons and Mysteries, in that I was to share of such materials in America.

 

There were no patriarchal pledges of secrecy. It was a sharing of knowledge from one spiritual person, to another, that she assumed would be shared properly, and in a spiritual manner.

In the early 70's I began the Tradition of Hyperborea, a Tradition whose spiritual path was Dianic in philosophy, and more Nature oriented than most Traditions. At that time, I was free to fully share the Faerie Faith materials in the manner you see in the following pages.

To accommodate the sensitivity of incoming participants from other, more standard traditions, I chose to not include the Faerie Faith Initiation - in that it prohibited many features, such as athames, which the participants were used to using. (However, you will note that within the 12th and 13th Lunar Mysteries, the Faerie Faith aversion to steel knives is made evident and somewhat so, in the 5th Solar Mysterie, where reference is made to the use of an obsidian blade. This same accommodation for original-initiatory practices of local participants was made when I shared the Faerie Faith in Georgia.

When I returned to Dallas from an extended stay in England, I discovered that much more were using the Faerie Faith Rites than had been originally included within the Hyperborean Tradition. It would seem that the photocopy machine had replaced my personal sharing of the Faerie Faith.

This did not overly bother me, for my charge had been only to share the Faerie Faith to all who would properly respect such. Many added their own personal touches to this effort. High Priestess Epona, researched and added local trees to the Mysteries that only involved English trees. This is a most worthy example of keeping a spiritual practice alive as its path travels both time and geography. On the other hand, I was troubled as I saw others stack up extended lists of rules - where the original sharing in Avalon contained none. More so, many of the rules were quite alien to the essence of the Faerie Faith Initiation.

At this point in time, with the inspiration and assistance of Morgan-of- Avalon, and Kerridwen, we began to prepare a Sacred sharing space, so that the Faerie Faith could be shared to all, in its pure form, including the initiation.

Morgan-of-Avalon and I shared a vision of a Sacred Circle where all could gather to learn and share spiritual knowledge, free of dogma and rules. A spiritual space to share a spiritual path - a vision that still lives within Morgan's Circle of Avalon. More so, with her decades of life-training upon a spiritual path, Morgan was able to assist me in preparing the Second Level of Faerie Faith Mysteries, which uses the gem-Kindred for sharing additional Mysteries of the Moons, and the metal-kindred, for sharing the Solar level of Mysteries. (There is a third level - that moves the Mysteries to a special level of merging the High Self to Sacred Symbols that shall be shared from Avalon next year.

From my years spent in England at the beginning of the 90s, more so, with my many return visits to Avalon (Glastonbury), I had accumulated the essential information of the second level of Mysteries.

As Avalon began, a series of magical events occurred that when Morgana invoked the rebirthing essence of Avalon (on December the 18th), she called in the magic of the protective Mists of Avalon - and surrounding our space, a mist began, that within hours covered the whole of the Metroplex for two days (an event so unusual, it was referenced on all of the local news programs).

The value of a protective mist was soon to be perceived, for we were surrounded by those that cared not for a Sacred space that shared freely of the Faerie Faith.

Then, we learned that those who saw only negatives in our sharing, had planned to make the Solar Mysteries as a separate training for women only. The Faerie Faith is very open to the concept of all-women covens; however, to purposely set half of the first level of Mysteries apart from all male participants went against every essence of the Faerie Faith. Frankly, this seemed a bit of an awkward rule, since those Solar Mysteries that were to be never seen by a male had been shared to them, directly, or indirectly, by this male steward of the Mysteries.

Mark Roberts
Boreas
Merlin-of-Avalon