The Groupings of Faeries

Other decks have suits but the Faery Oracle is divided into groupings. I just wondered whether we could talk about how the faeries within the groups help each other and what it is that binds them together. Its fairly obvious with the Singers of the Realms but some of the other groups are a little more confusing. Like why exactly is the UnDressing of a Salad part of the Faery Guides and Guardians? Did you try the exercise of grouping them together as it seemed to you? How did you group them? Anyway, I thought I might suggest the groups as a topic for discussion. What do you all think?
FGM

I think this is a good idea, I'm just not ready to have an intelligent discussion about the groupings at this point. I can tell you the groups I came up with when I did the exercise: Wings, Star Crowns, Horns, Moons, Other. Obviously some faeries have more than one of the traits, and then I just went with my gut when I decided which category to put them in. In fact some that did have one of the traits I put in Other anyway just because I felt like. If I was to do the exercise again, I'm sure I would come up with something completely different even if I kept the catergories the same, which I probably wouldn't. Okay, yeah, I'm gonna need more time on this.

Note to self: Pay attention to which group they belong to when you do your not-exactly-daily draws.

Nice topic.
I will have to think about this, and look at my notes on what I did when I did this exercise.
cSpaceDiva, your on the right track by offering us a peek at what you did. And I love the names you gave for your groups, that is pretty ingenious actually. so obvious too!

Actually, the groupings unsettled me a bit at first.
But I understand that Fey would have some way of identifying themselves...but of course, it may defy human reckoning.
I was unsettled by the thought of classes or levels of Fey society. There is a deeper conversation here. One I for one am not ready to tackle. Suffice it to say that it bears more discussion to look at the places where the Fey are mixed and harder to group...I like that, those cards.

Why are they in the groups they are in?
What do those cards with multiples say about the society?

I don't know, is this what you thought of FGM? Or am I taking things way away from your intent???

If I have not played with the Faeries for a while, one of my favorite reintroduction exercises with the cards is to regroup them.

Actually, I developed this exercise for a different oracle deck originally (that would be the Madame Endora!) But I find that especially with the Faeries, this is a really great way to open up conversations again!

But I only do it with about half the deck at a time.
I find that if I do it with the complete deck, I find myself regrouping in a similar way to how they are already grouped within the book!

But using only 11 or 13 cards at a time...(I like to use odd numbers...and the fae do as well!) then I can make as few or as many groups as I want.

Although the last time I tried 11 card regrouping...all 11 of them decided they wanted to be in thier own lone group!

That actually revealed a lot about how I was reacting to my surroundings at the time!

When I did my groupings, oh so long ago, I remember only some of them. I know I did girl adult, boy adult, young girl, young boy. I would use the main faerie of the card, or for the fae such as topsie turvets, i went with the over all feeling of it.

I did Antlers, flowers, crowns, and nothing (I remember death was in nothing).

I did happy, sad, angry, mischivieous, and indifferent (Death was in, indifferent, soul shrinker was in sad, dark lady was in mischievious).

I also did something like fae with friends, vs alone fae...almost none of them were alone due to most of them have at least odd heads in them, like The Laume, and The Journeyman. (Death was in Alone, as was solus and the singers)

I did "energy fae" vs "manifested" fae. (Singers vs the others)

I think I did seasonal fae too, summer, fall, winter and spring fae. (Death and the dark lady was in winter, so was The Alchemist, GHogbash was in fall, so was Luthas the wild and Lady of Harvest, faery who was kissed by the pixies was summer. The Journeyman was spring, etc)

I'm not listing all of the who was in what list, i'm just typing up what I can recall from memory as I never did really write this down. It was fun anyways, I never have repeated that excercise, but I do repeat the favorite, least favorite and universe message once every 6 months or so.

Sagittarian

cSpaceDiva I very much doubt I could hold an intelligent discussion on anything but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Sounds to me like you did the grouping exercise just fine. It was a long time ago when I did it too, and for the life of me I acn't remember where i put anyone.

elf, I'm up for talking about anything at all concerning the groupings. That was my sole intent, to get any sort of discussion going about them. For instance, in Tarot there are suits, so do you ever feel as if certain faeries belong to certain elements? The question about mulitple faeries and society is very interesting. I must say I never thought of it. It is curious how the faeries seem to work much better in groups than people do. maybe we could learn something about them from that. I notice that some faery cards have a definte "leader" or main faery while others are very much equal, still others have will seem to change who the "lead" faery actually is. Hmmmm... very interesting. As for why they are in the groups they are in, I confess I'd like to know the answer to that too.

Chronata, I love your reintroduction method. I am so going to have to try that. I'll let you know what I come up with. It does sound like an interesting way to get a reading too. Very medative.

sagitarian, Oh my lord! You came up with groupings that make so much sense and I never thought of any of them!!!

Having read through all your responses, one thing comes strongly to my mind... how do the faeries messages change depending on the groupings? Could we hear more about timings from sagitarian's season groupings? What messages are they trying to say if several Star Crowns come up in a reading? Do we hear that we need the help of others if all the faeries drawn in a reading are group faeries? I could go on, but I think I should stop waffling now...

FGM

This is a great topic because if we don't stop to think at least a little about some of this we are missing a big opportunity to learn the cards in a very personal way.

In Tarot, there has been so much written about it, so much structure and meaning imposed upon it, that it is almost stuffy and lacking excitement and energy. Oh geez I'm gonna get in trouble for that one....but really, there is so much said about Tarot there is so much arguement about it, so much that is divisive that to have a deck like this one and like Soul Cards1and2 that really avoids hard and fast meanings it is refreshing.

Because in my case, I have some artistic ability, not drawing, but in terms fo taste etc., so that I may never paint a deck. But here, I can impose meaning and learn meaning from the Fae.

As for the groupings, when working with this deck one thing stands out for me quite a bit....

-like is that a topsie turvet on the top of card 31 Undressing of a Salad? Whyis her there?
-The cute little Hedgie Fae shows up quite a bit on cards of community, why? see him on card 39 under the mushroom as well as above Losgunna and on 31 above the crook of the blue fae's elbow..and again on card 21...his type of fae appears many times...And of course he is lovely on card 46, the friends
-there is a Glanconer(62) looking fellow on 34-are they related or is that the Glanconer???

Does it matter??? I dunno, but I've often wondered about that....

-Also, can a particular personality on a card evolve up to another level, like to me, the Glanconer looks like the Faun or the Cruach (5) but on a different level of spiritual development.

This concept is so heartwarming to me because I can then look at my development and say, Ok, afew years back I was more of an Indi 63...but now maybe I'm the Maiden 14 with my own wisdom, but still young on the path and open to learning...

Why do I feel off topic?
What is the topic again...groupings?

huh. That is so intriguing!
Sagitarian....I never really thought about grouping them that way before...(based on the illustrations!) although sometimes I think that happens anyway...on a sub conscious level.
And really...I don't feel like I am the one setting the groups...
They sorta do it themselves...telling me who they want to hang with.

And then I look at the groups they have formed and ask them why they settled into those particular patterns...and what that has to teach me....

The best recent group in memory was when Sylvanius, the Singer of Connection, THAT Gnome, the Piper, Penelope Dreamweaver, Taitin the Sylph, Ta'Om the Poet, The Green Woman and the Fee Lion all joined a single group.

When I asked why that had joined together...they said "shhhh...we are all telling stories! Stories and legends and things we have done...and some of them ACTUALLY even happened!"

So of course, I had to shut up and listen to the tales....

This is so weird.
I just found my list, and I just put these long lists of numbers down, no titles.
Well the first list makes no sense at all to me now. None.

So I'm off to do this again tonight, and I will post some of my results. Of course I'm going to try not to be influenced by our talk here...I'll listen to the Fae and see what I get.

Thanks!
Anyone else game to do the ordering exercise and post here some of your results?

Grouped By Healing

I wasn't feeling very well this week as I've had a bit of a head cold, so i asked the faeries to help me group them by healing. (please don't ask me what I meant by that- i don't know). Here's what i came up with:

They laid themselves out into a big grid. Thats just what felt right. So I ended up with 13 groups of five and 5 groups of 13.

I only wrote down the 13 groups of 5 but you can work out what the 5 groups of 13 were by taking the first in each group of 5 as one group, the second in each group of 5 as another group etc. (Though I think trying to work out the 13 groups of 5 is plenty for now)

1/ Singer of Initiation; Unity; Nelys the Alchemist; She of the Cruach; G. Hobyah.
2/ The Pook; Death; Fee Lion; He of the Fiery Sword; Sylvanius.
3/ Penelope Dreamweaver; The Bright Mother; Geeeoooo the Slooow; Myk the Myomancer; the Green Woman.
4/ The Sage; Soul Shrinker; Mikle a Muckle; O That Gnome; The Glanconer.
5/ Singer of the Chalice; The Master Maker; Losgunna; Solus; The Singer of Transfiguration.
6/ The Dark Lady; The Singer of Healing; The Singer of Courage; Epona's wild Daughter; Faery Godmother.
7/ The Laume; Singer of Intuition; Tobaira of the Waters; Topsie Turvets; Undressing of a Salad.
8/ The Maiden; The Rarr; Collective of Pixies; the Bodacious Bodach; the Journeyman.
9/ Spirit Dancer; Honesty; The Faery Who Was Kissed By The Pixies; Luathas the Wild; Indi.
10/ Lys of the Shadows; Taitin the Slyph; Iris of the Rainbows;the Friends; Ilbe the Retriever.
11/ Ffaff the Ffooter; the Oak Men; the Lady of the Harvest; the faeries of the Future; Arval Parrot.
12/ Himself; Gawtcha; Laiste; Ta'om the Poet; the Piper.
13/ Ekstasis; the Faun; the Singer of Connection; the Guardian at the Gate; Gloominus Doom.

Now I admit that I truly don't know the reasons for a lot of these groupings. In my headcoldy state only one group immediately made any sense to me and that was group 5. They seemed to me about heat, fire and being warm and burning through all my mucous. (yes i know it sounds disgusting, my apologies for those with sensitive stomachs. ) I got the feeling though that it wasn't a 'healing of head colds group', it was a burning away of blockages group. Does that make sense?

Another group that I think I understood was group 9. They all seemed to be about healing of the heart in an emotional context.

And the last that I'm pretty sure about is group 13 (and this has only been as I was typing all this out). That seems to be about healing of the mind or spirit when it gets locked in its own little interior world. Sort of like a mental health group.

As for the rest i'm going to have to really think about them and come back later to them. If anyone else can see any connections in terms of healing then please feel free to tell me what you think. I'm pretty sure theres something valuable here, I just think it's going to take me a while to see it.

FGM

p.s I just read through this again before posting and had the thought that group 1 could be concerned with pregnacy? Thoughts?