All my life I felt that I should really have been born a faerie, and recently I decided to become one.
About four years ago, my city (Christchurch, New Zealand) had a huge earthquake and much of our city — especially our inner city — was destroyed. Even now there are huge gaps where buildings used to be.
Previously we were known for our beautiful old buildings (Victorian Gothic) and cathedral. Now we are known for disaster tourism which is not so fun. Understandably, this has a negative effect on people in our city. So we started the Christchurch Faerie Circle to bring love, light, and laughter to our city.
Luckily my city has a fine tradition of Magical People — we have the famous Wizard of New Zealand, for example. So it was fairly easy to show up to events, hang out with the Wizards, and start making the world a more magical place.
In the summer, we go out every Sunday and give out faerie wishes, magical sparkly hair clips (if you’re having a bad day, pop one in your hair and help it be better), and we have bubble guns for bubbles — which to a certain age of child is the best thing ever. We drop back to once a month during the winter and have a few more events that are faerie-focused.
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We have been running The Faerie Circle for about a year now, and while there have been challenges, it has definitely brightened up my life. Summer is the best time. The weather is great, and every weekend brings a new adventure: visiting public botanical gardens, going to festivals, and always hanging out with the other faeries afterwards to have some cider and plot our future adventures.
As a group we decided it was important that there was no money involved. People couldn’t pay us to be somewhere, and we couldn’t charge anyone for anything we were doing. This does involve us spending money on whatever we are giving out, from faerie glitter to hair clips to baking for a tea party, which does add up. But it’s entirely worth it.
We have done free faerie face painting at a school fair (think lots of glitter and gems), entertaining (and leading the conga line) at the children’s early countdown on New Year’s Eve and putting on faerie tea parties (where people can come and talk to us and have a cupcake or two).
It can be overwhelming at children’s events where you can be swarmed by wave after wave of small children wanting faerie wishes, to have a go with your bubble gun, and to wear your wings (strictly off limits as they cost a small fortune). But every time we go out it’s wonderful and leaves us with a great feeling.
This sounds amazing. Thanks for being so awesome!
This is awesome! Congratulations on finding such a unique way to bring happiness to your community! Apart from dispensing faerie wishes and happiness, I think it’s awesome to show kids that childhood doesn’t have to end when you grow up – if you want to grow up and be a faerie, you absolutely can!
My friends and I started a “coven” of our own after being inspired by AHS: Coven. About once a month, we all dress up in our gothic witchy finest and take on the town. We have picnics, movie nights, or just hit up our local pub. Whilst it’s not quite as altruistic as your faerie circle, we have found it to be incredibly empowering to unify as a circle of “magical” women, especially as for many of us, this has been the first time we have had a group of supportive female friends to call our own. Hooray for sisterhood!
I LOVE this. What a great way to love yourself and your community! Thank you for sharing.
I love this. You are amazing (as are all the other faeries)!
This is so freakin’ awesome on so many levels!
This post is pure joy–thank you!
Fantastic! I really love this. Good for you all for spreading happiness and fun! And yes, how can it ever be a bad day with sparkles?
Good for you! NZ is such a magical place, and I love the community-building concept of this. I also think it’s really smart you went totally money-free. I’ve seen similar good groups become non-profits, and in the end it tore apart their mission (too much obligation, or it set up for in-fighting and political maneuvering, or it put the burden on the shoulders of a minority, etc.)
If we end up in NZ for our honeymoon, we’re coming to Christchurch and getting some faerie blessings from you! 😀
Thank you everyone! I really appreciate it!
I love this so much!!!
This is fantastic!!! What a lovely idea!
This is totally awesome and inspiring. And I would love more details: did you know all the other faeries before you started your circle? Do you accept new faeries? Is there a process? (Don’t worry – I live in the US…although if I lived in NZ I’d so want to join you.) How do you split the costs you do incur? Do you each pick a color and then stay that color faerie for a while? I love that rainbow of faeries on a bridge photo at the top.
I have known all the ladies who have joined but some faeries have been friends of friends. Generally the person will be suggested to me, and when I get time I’ll make them a dress and some basic wings.
I try to fund the faeries as much as possible, but if as a faerie they have a project they want to do then the faerie will have to pay for it herself.
In the start faeries got to choose their colours, but as we got more and more faeries joined then it just became whatever was left over. Once they have a faerie colour they HAVE to stick with it as I custom make the faerie dresses.
It’s so popular that we constantly get people wanting to join but I think 12 is the perfect amount.
This is the most amazing thing <3
This is such a beautiful and inspiring thing to do. You guys rock.
I am so glad to see this movement being featured on the Empire! My husband and I were honeymooning in New Zealand this past Feburary and saw a poster for a “fairy ball'” while exploring Christchurch. Well, it was that evening, and we happened to be heading out that way anyways…
We felt weird walking up to a bar filled with so many well-dressed fairies in our travelling/camping clothes, but the folks we met were more than welcoming and happy to explain who you are and what you do to us jetlagged Canuks. We didn’t stay long (see: jetlagged) but it was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. Thanks for sharing and keep doing what you are doing! Everyone could use some more fairy magic in their life.
Awesome! I’ve always felt this way too. It’s too bad you girls live on the other side of the world. I would’ve loved to join your group!