"All Things End" - Goodbye From The Fantasy Faire

It is time to let the Fairelands return to the Mysts. We send them off with love and with the knowledge they will return to us next April.

Each year they come, welcoming us home. For a brief window they are with us and we are rejuvenated. Our love makes them manifest and their magic prepares us to return to a world without them. The Fairelands may have their secret place, but they always live in our hearts, through our memories and the friendships we have made.

We are sad, as we always are, to see them go, yet even in that sadness there is the seed of hope, knowing that next April they will return to us once more.

For those of you that may be experiencing this passing for the first time, you may wonder when the feelings of sadness for what has passed will turn to feelings of anticipation for what is to come. The answer is different for everyone, but for myself knowing that even though the Fairelands themselves have faded, the Fairelands community remains is a great comfort. Sadness that is shared cannot last so long. The Fairelands are not only a place, they are a family, and we choose now whether we stay together or not.

Together, we raised an astonishing amount of money. Almost 24 Million Lindens, or over $95,000 US Dollars for Relay For Life. To me that is still unfathomable really. I find myself looking for some quantifiable answer as to how we did that. I realize that the answer is a single word. Fairelanders.

Together, we watched dance performances and we danced ourselves. We saw and heard wonderful stories, and we found ourselves playing parts in wonderful stories. We learned about heroic quests, and we answered the call to be heroes in an epic Quest. The Faire is what we see and do, and it is about what we find the chance to ourselves become.

The Faire is what you discover, and the Faire is what you bring to it. Both of these are essential to making it the magical experience that it is each year. Both are part of the magic that brings it back.

All things end; however, life is cyclical and even as things go, so they come back again. For now we say good bye to the Fairelands, but Junction will call them back again next April. they will be different, but they will still be home. Until then, keep the light of the Fairelands alive in your heart.

From the Fantasy Faire blog, by Elizabeth Tinsley