My Fairy dream 

About fairies and the elements of nature

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My name is Briony, and I am kind of a mother of fairies in Belgium. I have created a fairy CD and book, a fairy school, a fairy theatre and a fairy arts festival. In this fairy theatre I perform together with my fairy team, children who have trained in the fairy school. I am also an Economics teacher and coach people who want to start their own business.

You are probably wondering what do we learn in this fairy school?

We learn to make magic with the power of the four elements of nature: earth, water, air and fire. We discover the qualities of the different natural elements together with the help of the earth elves, the water fairies, the fire elves and the fairies of the air.

The fairies of the air teach us that everything begins with either a dream, an idea or a thought. You can think of thoughts as clouds floating through the air. We pick up some thoughts and we let others just float away. Therefore different people can pick the same thought at the same time. The fairies of the air also teach us that we should use our wings to fly beyond our limits. They teach us that the sky is not the limit and that we should use our creativity to realise our dreams. The fairies of the air represent our mental abilities.

The fire fairies teach us that joy is extremely important. They like parties, enjoy playing, are often mischievous and like to laugh a lot. Everything that we create should have its origins in joy, not in guilt or in feelings of fear or sadness ... Quite often we are confronted with a series of measures for sustainability and sometimes we feel guilty because we use too much electricity or water. The fire fairies teach us there is enough for everyone if everyone acts and creates in harmony with the natural elements.

To create harmony with the natural elements in the outside world, you should have an inner balance between your natural elements. The outside world is a reflection of your inner world. If people have an inner balance they will automatically make new creations in harmony with the people around them, in harmony with society and in harmony with nature and with the Earth. Such creations will be fulfilled with joy and stimulate other people to do the same thing.

The water fairies teach us to balance our feelings and emotions. They teach us that we can use water to make all our worries float away. What happens when someone is sad or anxious and s/he takes a shower? All their emotions flow away with the water.

The water fairies also teach us to be soft towards ourselves. It is very important to educate little children in softness because children are so open and dependent upon us. Softness gives them the space to explore and express themselves.

Everybody would like to be treated with respect. But you can only truly respect others if you first respect yourself. If you accept all your qualities, including your weaknesses, and you carry them out in softness, you will accept the qualities and weaknesses the people around you have. This acceptance can also help children a lot to learn about the patterns of bullying. A child who feels an inner balance will never have a need to bully another child. Bullying happens always out of a combination of frustration, jealousy and pain. If you heal the source pain below the surface, the need to vent frustrations upon another will disappear. It is important that we teach children that they should not put the responsibility for their feelings on another and should become self-aware of and take full responsibility for adjusting their own inner balance. This process of realisation gives an extreme power as we are all creators, able to create enormous things.

Water also teaches us to be flexible and to go with the flow. The world is evolving and in a continuous, fast process of change. So we need people who are extremely flexible and adapt themselves to all kinds of climate change, economic change and societal change. We need people who can find an opportunity to grow and create new things in situations of change or creative destruction.

Water fairies also like to take care of their body. They like massage and they like water dancing. Or should I say belly dancing....?

Last but not least, the earth fairies teach us that we need the element of earth to give our ideas an earth-like shape. That we need our two feet rooted into the ground. Otherwise our ideas keep on floating further away and we will never be able to realise our dreams. Native peoples are still very connected with the element of earth. They believe that everything in nature has a living essence and that we should have respect for every little plant or stone.

Maybe now you can imagine what magic is created in the fairy school?

It is about making your inner dream come true, as Walt Disney once said, being someone who climbed the ladder of both an inner dream and outer actions!

It is very important that we educate children in these ways, because children are still connected with their inner dreams. They still believe in fairy tales and in making magic. They like to dance, to sing songs, to perform on stage, to be creative ... If you look in the eyes of a little child you can see purity, authenticity.

Why is it that adults do not always carry this purity? It is often because as children they were not seen and treated in their authenticity. Their parents had their own needs and their school wanted them to get good grades. So after a while the connection with their inner dreams was lost. Then someone else's dreams were being lived and not their own dream. As an adult you may always feel like there is something missing in your life, you do not know why you are here and why you are actually doing what you do. If you really want to feel fulfilled and happy, you must make contact with your dreams once more and realise them.

So the fairy in this project symbolises the mystical child which is present in everyone. Children are spontaneous, authentic and full of joy. They are in balance with the natural elements inside and in balance with the natural elements in the outside world. It connects with our inner dream and believes that all dreams can come true.

I hope you can feel the importance of introducing these concepts in regular education. Do we want to create "businesspeople" who want to fill an emptiness in themselves, and therefore create business which are based on the idea of 'I win, you lose'? Or do we want to create "enterprises" creating and conducting business in balance with themselves and the wider environment based upon the idea of 'I win, you win'?

An interesting fact about fairies, elves and natural spirits is that they appear in all kind of stories and myths and are found in every culture. Of course their appearance sometimes differs and yes nature looks a bit different in every country.

What do all these countries have in common? Nature. In every culture, we have plants, trees... and yes the elements (water, earth, air and fire) are always there.

Fairies also exist in all kind of ways, just like nature and just like humans. They can be thick, thin, long, small, strong, black, white, green, yellow, female, male, ... (even appearing to be human?)

I have an invitation for you: you can learn the song of the elves about the four elements together with the children in your home country and make a movie about those elements and what they represent in your culture. I will publish this movie on my website www.fairytheatre.com so that we can learn from each other what the four elements represent and what are their magical powers.

About Briony

Briony is the founder of the Vzw Sterrencirkels organization (2007). Vzw sterrencirkels (www.sterrencirkels.be) is an organisation aiming to help children, youngsters and adults develop their intuition and creativity. To achieve this goal, Briony and Fabienne Huygen use dance and art techniques from different cultures and traditions to experience them and discover the similarities existing between such apparently 'different' cultures . You can choose among many concerts, workshops and tours.

Out of this idea a new project has arisen: the Fairy Theatre. Briony and Fabienne have created for schools a new interactive and intercultural introduction about fairies and the four natural elements. During these concerts and workshops children learn to understand the typical characteristics of nature's four elements (earth, air, water and fire) as they have been taught by older cultures such as that of the Native Americans. Also they teach different ethnic dances and songs illustrating a specific quality of these four natural elements. Natural tribes believe strongly that within each tree, plant or stone lives a creature of nature. So the project gives leading roles to the earth, water, fire and air fairies.

Songs and fairy tales have been created especially for these concerts and fairy workshops. The Fairy songs became a CD (October 2008). The Fairy CD became a Fairy book (November 2009), illustrated with Fairy puppet photos by Diane Guelinckx and then the Fairy book became a 'Fairy Theatre'. Briony and Fabienne bring this show to cultural centres together with the Fairy company comprising several children between 5 and 11 fairy years old. First these children follow courses in the Fairy School where they learn fairy dances, arts and theatre techniques. After finishing the Fairy School they can shine and glitter on stage.

In the story of the Flower Fairy in the Fairy book, the Rainbow Butterfly wants to bring colour to the lives of the fairies and in the world they will discover. So we want to bring colour, beauty and emotion to the lives of the spectators/visitors. During our story we create an impressive, colourful, light atmosphere and in this way observers can discover the world of the child: a world of nature, tales and magic where everything is still possible. In this way children are invited to show their 'true colours´, to show who they really are and the wisdom and beauty they have to offer. Many adults have lost their beauty and infancy. Our aim is to remember our true playfulness and the childlike nature that lives in each of us. We also want to bring this same message to everyone big and small in our Fairy Arts Festival.