Fairies in My Garden

By Barbara L. L. Kananen

While meditating in her garden, Jessica, a middle-aged woman, happens upon Mabel. One of the many fairies who have been assigned to care for all of the plants, stones, and insects in Jessicas garden, Mabel introduces Jessica to a whole new worldone in which elves have a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow and where the spirits of trees and rocks can communicate with people.
But none of these magical creatures is prepared for what happens when an oil drill hits a dragon living underground. The dragon becomes so enraged that he escapes from his lair in a subterranean cave and enters the human world.
Jessica knows that many people are in great danger, but she doesnt know how to help. And for quite some time, no one believes that the dragon is real. Luckily, a grizzly bear and mysterious beings try to return the threatening dragon to its home.
Full of fantastic creatures and fueled by imagination, Fairies in My Garden is a wonderful story that will introduce you to a multidimensional world where anything is possible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 17, 2007
• ISBN: 9780595893935

Barbara L. L. Kananen

Barbara L. Kananen lives with her husband Frank in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta. A student of metaphysics and spirituality for the past forty years, she believes anything is possible.

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FAIRIES IN MY GARDEN

Copyright © 2007 Barbara L. Kananen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-0-5954-5082-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-0-5959-1014-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-0-5958-9393-5 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 09/24/2015

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

For Heather and Frank

Who Encourage Me

CHAPTER 1

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I first saw a fairy when I was sitting in my garden. I had been meditating on contacting my spirit guide-or anyone else who would like to talk with me-when I was aware of a buzzing sound near my right ear. This in itself would not be so unusual, as being a sufferer of tinnitus, I hear strange noises from time to time. But when I brushed my ear to shoo away what I thought was a pesky insect I glimpsed what appeared to be a wee doll with wings. But the wings fluttered as fast as those of a humming bird so I was not quite sure what I was seeing.

I didn’t see anything again until a few weeks later when I was working in my flowerbed digging out some weeds and clover and enjoying the pansies, petunias and statice. There on a strawflower bloom sat a wee being looking at me. She appeared to be about two inches in height and she wore a pale blue short dress with elfin slippers. Her blue wings sparkled with what appeared to be diamonds. She just sat there watching me. Could this be real? I wondered. Perhaps I had been meditating too much and now a very strange being was approaching me. I didn’t know what to say for fear that I would frighten her away or blow her away with my breath. Are you real? I was thinking but did not say out loud. Oh, I am as real as you are, she replied. I am sure I did not hear her and I realized that she was contacting me telepathically. Well, I thought, say something. I couldn’t think of any thing more brilliant than that? After all, I was confronted with a fairy and fairies do not exist in our reality, they are only myths from the Irish Isles, aren’t they?

But you see me, don’t you? How can I not be real?

Can I touch you then? I asked.

No, you can’t do that for I would fly away.

Well, I wouldn’t like you to do that. Do you have a name? Where do you come from?

We don’t have names. We don’t need them really. Perhaps you can give me one if you would like. Humans like to give everything a name.

"You said we, are there more just like you?"

More fairies, you mean? Well of course, silly, of course there are many of us. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean others aren’t here and in your garden. ’Tis a nice flower garden, by the way.

Thank you for the compliment. You like flowers I see.

Of course. We are the guardians of the flowers.

Of my flowers?

Yes. We have been assigned.

Who sent you? Where do you come from? There were so many questions I wanted to ask. After all, how often does one talk to a fairy?

Well, she continued, we come from the same place that you do but we have different vibrations so we are usually invisible to humans. Only some of you are perceptive enough to see us, if we want you to, that is.

Perhaps I could just call you the Blue Fairy.

That is not very creative of you. And don’t call me ‘Tinker Bell’. That name is so over done.

This young lady does have her opinions doesn’t she, I thought. I called her young because she looked to me to be in her early twenties, if you can tell about fairies.

I have no age really, say she, reading my thoughts.

In earth years I am centuries old and you would not understand the concept of time as it is where I come from.

Okay, I’m thinking, I’m no dummy now, am I? Angels are ageless and they have wings and it is said that they help people. Perhaps fairies are related to angels.

We are all related you know. But we work on different planes. The angels have other jobs to do. And they don’t have wings you know. They just pretend to have them to show humans because humans expect them to have wings.

I put out my hand to touch her and she was gone. I didn’t really see her go. All I saw was a small orb of light above the bushes. Now I have done it I thought. She may not come back ever again and I would so like to talk with her again. But she did not reappear, at least not that day and not for another week.

I was working in my flowerbeds, dead-heading old blooms and admiring the new ones on the many plants. My husband, Brent, was busy putting Roundup on the dandelions that were growing on our otherwise beautiful green lawn. And there she was hovering near my face and seeming to cough and wheeze.

What is wrong with you?

Poison! He is killing the flowers!

Nobody wants dandelions on their nice mowed lawn, Miss Fairy, I said.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, call me Mabel.

Mabel. Why Mabel? Is that your name? It is a rather old-fashioned name you know and you aren’t telling me your real name are you?

Well you seem to want to call me something even though I told you I have no name. We don’t need names. So, Mabel will do. Now, do you know how those dandelions feel when the poison gets onto their stems and into their roots? They cough and choke and then they die.

Well, I don’t know what to do about the dandelions.

All living things have feelings, and flowers are especially sensitive. You could just let them be and they will die when it is their time to die, after they have released their seeds for the next generation of dandelions.

I could see that this conversation would go nowhere. Allowing dandelions to reseed so that there would be more next year was unthinkable. The weed patrol people could have something to say about that. As I was thinking these thoughts I saw a chipmunk bend down a stem of a dandelion plant and appear to be eating the flower.

See, said my new friend Mabel, the plant has a use that you had not thought about, had you? What if a poisoned flower killed the chipmunk? You would be sorry, wouldn’t you?

Well, yes I would. I like chipmunks, they are so cute and they are, after all, mammals.

So, does that make the chipmunk more worthy that the flower?

But, I responded, flowers don’t think and feel like a mammal does. So they do not feel pain.

Have you heard of an ancient German tradition that said a woodcutter would ask forgiveness of an evergreen tree before chopping it down? Ancient people knew about spirits of the trees, the flowers, the rocks and the streams.

Rocks! How ever can rocks have feelings?

Not feelings as you know the word. But like all other things they have atoms, don’t they? Do not take them lightly. Mabel giggled at her unintended pun.

I felt that this was not the right time to pursue the spiritual life of a rock. But, come to think of it, I was a collector of rocks, pretty pink ones in my gardens, small polished stones in bowls in my house. Do I subconsciously ‘feel’ for rocks? This was something to think about! And I do love my malachite and amber jewelry, to say nothing of the precious gems, diamonds, rubies and pearls.

Mabel, where do you live? I asked.

Oh, here, there and everywhere. Wherever I am needed. And I see that I am needed here now. What is your man doing over there with the spraying can?

He is called a husband Mabel, and he is killing the wasps.

Of course, and you are called a wife, right? But why would he want to kill wasps?

Because they annoy us and they sting when they are especially angry.

Why don’t you just ask them to go away and not bother you?

That doesn’t work, Mabel. They are only insects and they have no brains to process that information.

I think that you could try harder to contact them. Really mean what you are thinking when you send out a message to them. I thought that her tone showed annoyance with me.

Honestly, Mabel! But I was not being heard. Mabel had left me alone in the garden.

The next time I saw Mabel was five days later when I was not working in my garden but sitting in the sun wearing my battered straw hat. The sunshine was one of the things we liked about the province of Alberta, and why we retired to an acreage here. I saw Mabel flutter to a landing on the table near my chair.

So, Miss Mabel, you aren’t mad at me after all are you?

Oh, I can’t be angry with you. It behooves us to be nice all the time, well most of the time. But you humans can be so dense at times and you do not see the glory all around you.

But you can see how I love my flowers and care for them. Sometimes I cut bouquets to take in so that I can appreciate the blooms even longer. I see the beauty in them, really I do.

Do you think to apologize to the plant when you snip off its head?

Well, no, I haven’t done that. Don’t tell me now that we aren’t supposed to have beautiful flowers in our houses.

Of course you may, but it wouldn’t hurt you to say a few thank-yous for their letting you have the flowers. The next time I saw my fairy I was reading my poetry booklet.

Mabel peered over the edge of my book and inquired in her usual telepathic way, What are you writing?

I am composing poetry, or at least I am trying to. Sometimes an idea comes to me and sometimes it doesn’t. I use a pencil because I do not have confidence that it will be good without revisions.

Can I hear some of the poems you have written?

Well, yes, I will read you one. I had never shown my work to anyone before, so why had I said yes to Mabel? Nevertheless, I read this poem aloud.

"Eric of the Bridge

Once upon a time I did chance to see

Erik, the protector of the bridge.

With fleeting glimpse, near shore, I saw him

and knew he did vigilantly patrol,

with horned helmet, spear and shield.

For trolls, we know, do live under bridges

to keep them safe; and seldom are they caught.

But I had seen him; I think he didn’t care.

I feared that he was lonely being

very far away from his northern home.

Then one day rain poured and the swollen

creek rose higher and higher in the storm.

The timber bridge we thought we build so firm

would rise and fall, then break from its moorings

and it catapulted away downstream.

I never saw Erik again, and now I wonder

did he float away on the creeks and rivers

to Hudson’s Bay and on ocean currents.

Now does he guard another bridge far away?"

Did you know this Eric troll? asked Mabel.

He was a figment of my imagination mostly. He was a plastic toy troll that I put under the bridge just for fun, and he did get washed away in a spring flooding of the creek. But he wasn’t real Mabel.

Where did you get the idea that trolls protect bridges?

I don’t know. Just read it in some mythological literature I guess. I think they are thought to live in Norway.

Well they do. And they are as real as I am to you, Mabel replied. They do protect bridges and creeks, and fish too.

But they are not pretty like you are. I had noticed since she was so close to me that she had the loveliest violet-blue eyes, which seemed to sparkle when she communicated with me.

Well we can’t all be beautiful can we? She was not about to express any humility about her beauty!

Sensing my thoughts Mabel replied, I can be beautiful if I want to be but I could show myself as ugly if I chose to, but I don’t like to do that. It doesn’t feel good at all.

Suddenly Mabel flew away and I was aware that Brent was now standing beside me. I thought I heard you talking just now, he said.

Well, I was, sort of. I am working on some poetry and was reading aloud to see how it would sound. Not so good I’m afraid. Brent did not yet know about Mabel.

"I’ve finished my chores around here so I think I will clean up and go to the post office for the mail