The Fairy of Good Fortune
The Fairy of Good Fortune
Full credit to my friend Maureen for the title. This past Saturday, my husband Greg and I helped host the hundred and something-th Thetford Hill Fair. Every year the fair committee tosses around new ideas to try and draw more people to this very sweet and very quaint event. This is not quite a country fair—you know, oxen pull and 4-H. Neither is it an outsourced line-up of mini rollercoasters and tilt-a-whirls. The only Merry-Go-Round boasts painted (stationary) wooden horses that we yearly dig out of our barn and shore up with fresh paint (and sometimes, duct tape.) Instead, year after year we have a mammoth rummage sale, collectibles table, tea garden, fabulous plant sale, huge book sale, super soaker seat, etc. Every year, it’s a huge effort by a very few people to make this thing happen. The modest amount of money we do make keeps the Thetford Hill green (or, “common” ) and its trees healthy and well tended. When we met early this spring to begin to organize the fair, someone floated the idea of a fortune teller, and asked my friend and neighbor Maureen if she would run a fortune telling tent. Maureen, with gracious good nature agreed, but to make the title more in keeping with her own creative style and personality, called herself “The Fairy of Good Fortune.” She would don a fairy get up, put on sparkly makeup and good cheer, and sprinkle people with lovely, beaming, Maureen energy, complete with angel cards and a long white wig, wings, and painted stars on her cheeks. There is no one like Maureen, and I will freely admit that I for one could never pull this off. But seeing her there this past Saturday created a feeling of pure delight. I was reminded that when we are true to our very best selves, our nature, our spirit, our heart, we lift up the people around us. We cannot all be fairies of good fortune. Some of us are quieter, more introspective, even melancholy. But if we share that with love, if we offer who we are are, from the deepest well of self, we light up the people around us.
At the studio, we have some new faces beaming out their own particular shine and magic— Recent teacher training graduates generously offering up their skills to teach a free class, teachers new to the upper valley sharing their talents with us, new offerings, popular back-by-demand offerings…something for everyone! All of the teachers at UVY are fairies of good fortune, just waiting for you to walk through that door so they can sprinkle you and your mat with a little yogic fairy dust.
