THE FIRE AGATE, THE FAIRY SHRINE, AND THE GNOME

 

It was May of 1985 and I was at a month long Intensive Spiritual Workshop, at Salkum, Washington, with Jann Weiss, intended to align the conscious mind with our spiritual purpose, and to open ourselves to the experiences of the Spirit Realm.

It was our "day off". Myself and my then husband, Larry, and another couple, Ron and Nancy, decided to go rock hunting for fire agates. How Larry knew where the beaver damn was is a mystery to me; he just Knows roads and places. We walked through the woods on the beaver trail, seeing several sharp two foot high stumps of young alder trees that the furry creatures had utilized. There was the flooded small valley with the mound of sticks in the middle of the lake. The drowned trees around the edge of the pond made me feel sad, even as I felt honored to actually see the beaver's home. I closed my eyes and concentrated. I asked for a column of Golden Light to come from the Center of the Universe through the beaver pond and surrounding land and be grounded at the Center of the Earth. I felt the Golden Light transmuting the negativity in the area.

The trail we had followed through the woods had been long and winding. The road was actually only a few hundred feet away. We decided to take a short cut back. Ron was in the lead. He stopped and through his hands out to the sides so we couldn't pass.

"Stop! There is a cathedral!" He pointed to an old growth, moss covered, springboard, cedar stump with huckleberry bushes sprouting from its top.

"A what?" Larry asked.

"A Fairy Shrine," Ron explained. "It's like their church. We can't go this way, it is Holy Ground. We have to find another way out." He started to turn around and go back.

"Isn't there any way that we can go by? We're only fifty feet from the road," Nancy complained.

"Yes, please, ask them if we can pass," I encouraged Ron to find a peaceful compromise to our situation. I started radiating Green Light to the area, especially toward the Shrine.

Ron closed his eyes in concentration and communication with the Faeries. "They say it will be OK to pass if we leave some pretty, shiny trinkets at their alter," Ron exclaimed.

Immediately, we started searching our pockets for the pretty rocks and shiny things we had found on our journey. Reluctantly we parted with some of our best treasures, like a white quarts rock shot with pyrites, some red and green jasper and various colorful agates. We each carefully placed our treasures on or around the moss-covered stump, then thanked them for permission to pass.

At the foot of the hill to the road we came upon an old junk pile. There was an old rusty car body from thirty years ago nearly buried in bottles and cans. The others were appalled by the mess, but I thought we'd stumbled onto a treasure chest. While they were trying to gather as much trash to take away as their arms could carry, I was collecting beautiful old bottles, treasures. I even took one bottle back to the Fairy Shrine and thanked them for sharing their treasures with us.

We walked back to the van with our arms full; they with junk, me with treasures. The warm spring wind whipped my thigh length hair, usually worn in a bun on top of my head, up into my face. I turned around to face the wind, letting my long fine hair blow back away from my face. Starting for the van again, it felt as if a single hair or a spider's web trailed across my right elbow and forearm. It tickled. I stopped to brush it away. All the hairs of my forearm were standing on end. As I stroked my arm with my left hand, all the hairs on the back of my hand stood on end, too. That startled me. I'd never had goose flesh on the back of my hand before.

Then this area of static charge moved up my arm, above my sleeve, where my flesh shouldn't creep and crawl from a spider's web brushing across it in the wind. Still, I continued to try to brush it off. The feeling of goose-flesh moved up onto my shoulder and around my back where I couldn't reach it. Nancy assured me that there were no bugs crawling on me. I asked her to brush off my back, anyway. As her hand swept down my back from my right shoulder, she got goose-flesh on the back of her hand, too.

We discovered that this statically charged area was ten inches tall, six inches wide, and four inches deep. Ron closed his eyes and described what might be termed a Gnome. I closed my eyes to "perceive" him, too. He had a red stocking cap covering a shock of nearly shoulder length white hair, but he was clean shaven. A bright red vest covered a white shirt with puffy sleeves. His knee-pants were brown, stockings white, and shoes shiny black. The Gnome could be felt by the others, but could not be lifted off from me. Mr. Gnome moved across my back from my right shoulder to my left one and back again during the van ride.

Our next stop was where a smaller creek flowed into a larger one. This was a good place to hunt for agates. Larry waded the rapids in the large creek, then proceeded to try to hold a conversation with me over the noise of rushing water. I couldn't hear him, so he beckoned me to come over also. I took off my shoes and socks, rolled up my pants legs and began to wade the knee-deep rapids. Footing was difficult on the river-washed-round, algie slick stones. Out in the middle was a big hump of water where it went over a large rock. I started to go below, but found it too deep. I didn't want to get my pants wet, so I retraced a few steps and went above it. A flash of something red in the water caught my eye. I looked closer. It looked like fire burning! Rolling up my sleeves, I reached into the water. It took both hands to lift the rock from the water. I came up with my shirt front soaked, but triumphant with my prize: a ten pound fire agate, a gift from the Gnome! Soon after he gave me the agate, he thought himself back to his home.

Larry said it wasn't really a fire agate, that it was just a red agate with too many fractures to cut and make jewelry. I don't care, though, it still sits at the base of the fragrant red rose by my front door; one of my most valuable Treasures in the world!

 

 

(C) Sharri Lorraine, 1985, 2001