The Fairy Door Project. Taylor.
Taylor is an RP (Qualifying) and Professional art therapist in private practice in Ottawa. Her private practice is aptly named Wellness Grove Therapy to reflect deep connectivity and relationship to nature, and the groundedness we find while accessing natural environments, particularly groves of trees. Taylor has an affinity for eco-art therapy and the spirituality found in natural spaces. It is her intention to provide accessible, affirming, and anti-oppressive therapy from a client-centered framework, which recognizes the individuality and uniqueness of each person accessing therapy.
Taylor and I connected through the Toronto Art Therapy Institute in 2018, and more recently when I reached out to the TATI community to invite art therapists to contribute their stories. I am so pleased that Taylor is sharing her eco-art and legacy story about a mini-community project/installation she facilitated in 2020. This inclusive project/prompt explored her own spirituality in terms of nature connectivity and Celtic faeiries, while inviting the larger community to explore hopes through intention setting at the four installments around her neighbourhood. Sharing our wishes allows us to shift our gaze to hope, and connecting to nature encourages us to take the time to replenish our spirits, connect to the present moment, and support our resilience - so very needed in these draining and stressful Pandemic times. Thanks so much for sharing your story Taylor, and reaching out and creatively connecting with your community in such a meaningful way!
The Fairy Door Story.
“The host is rushing ‘twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair?”
The fairy door project was a community based project which invited participants from every walk of life to externalize their wishes and intentions for their own lives. I set out on the first of October, under the full moon, to install four fairy doors around the neighbourhoods surrounding my own home. I placed the doors in a circular formation, with my house as the centre point of the circle. The circle was not created perfectly, and the trees were not chosen before I ventured out to install the doors. I walked in the crisp fall air with the intention of having the trees choose me, rather than me choose the trees. I listened as the wind whistled through the drying leaves along the sidewalks, painting the ground in hues of orange, red and ochre. I placed the doors at the base of their respective trees, created an inviting pathway with stones and dried flowers, and placed the box with hemp string and the invitation to passersby to participate in the project.
Image Credit. Taylor Bourassa 2021
The materials chosen and their placement were intentional. I wanted to ensure the materials were biodegradable and recycled materials, to mitigate against damaging the natural environment in any way. Once I created the doors, and set out the boxes, this became something bigger than and outside of my self. I could no longer control for how passersby interacted with the project: my intention was to collect the materials on November 1st, the day after Samhain, however regardless of my intention, there was a possibility that someone may destroy, or “clean up” the project before that time arrived.
Image Credit. Taylor Bourassa 2021
According to Jung (1981) the circle, or mandala, represents the totality of the self, as does the number four. My intention for using the circle and the number four then follows directly in line with Jung’s teaching. In addition to this, faeries can often be found in circles: dancing in circles under the light of the moon; formations of rock circles, fungi or flower circles also indicates the presence of faeries (Stewart, 2000; Evans Wentz, 1911). With this in mind, the creation of the four faerie doors, in the formation of a circle, was intentional.
Image Credit. Taylor Bourassa 2021
The installation occurred on the first of October, the night of the first full moon of the month, after nightfall, when the veil between this world and the otherworld is thinned. The faerie doors were to be in place for the entirety of the month, until the day after Samhain: a Celtic celebration we now know as Hallowe’en, when the veil between this world and the otherworld is at its thinnest. Belief states that the spirits, Aos sí and faeries or sidhe of all types, walk amongst us on Samhain (Selling, 1998). The second full moon, the blue moon, occurred on Samhain, arguably making the spiritual aspects of the night that much more potent. The hemp strings imbued with participants life wishes, placed at the fairy doors across town, were an externalization of and acknowledgement of the hopes and wishes for each individual. Placing them at the fairy doors added a more spiritual element to the process: an acknowledgement of something mystical and whimsical outside of ourselves, a gifting of these wishes and hopes to the faeries for safe-keeping.
Image Credit. Taylor Bourassa 2021
The fairy door project was set up as a way for community members to find and acknowledge some magical aspects in life, as we navigated the confusing, potentially emotionally harmful or damaging global pandemic and its effects on how we live. The project invited a sort of playfulness, with its whimsical, magical nature, and invited participants to look inward for hopes and wishes, and to release those hopes and wishes to a higher, external power.
Image Credit. Taylor Bourassa 2021
There was no need for participants to ascribe to the Celtic fairy faith (a belief in a spiritual realm inhabited by spiritual beings which has existed from prehistoric times in Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany; Evans Wentz, 1911), or to recognize a belief in faeries or sidhe of any kind to benefit from the project. It was my intention to create a community based space for people to explore their intentions, wishes or hopes for their life, and future. To carve out a space where community members contributed their own wishes to the growing pile of intentions and wishes. Reflecting on the piles of hemp string, we could see a growing community of intentions, positive energies for the future coalescing into a gestalt of hope in the midst of a global pandemic where community based interactivity is denied, restricted, and inaccessible.
The hope was that through this project, its participants were offered a brief moment of positivity, a glimmer of hope for the future. There is no way to know how this project unfolded, no way to know its impacts, the participants reflections or contributions. We know only of the piles of hemp string, presumably imbued with individual hopes and wishes found at each individual fairy door. The truth lives only with the faeries now.
References.
Evans Wentz, W. Y. (1911). The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries. Oxford University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1981). The archetypes and the collective unconscious (Vol. 9). Princeton University Press.
Selling, K. (1998). The Locus of the sacred in the Celtic otherworld. Australian International Religion, Literature and the arts Conference proceedings. Centre for Studies in Religion, Literature and the Arts, Australian Catholic University.
Stewart, L. (2000). Celtic Traditions. Senior Scholar Papers. Paper 272. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/seniorscholars/272
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Taylor Bourassa • DTATI RP (Qualifying) and Professional Art Therapist
Instagram. @wellnessgrovetherapy
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