Faeries’ Oracle: Ilbe the Retriever

Ilbe the Retriever. (Photo credit: Brian Froud.)

I met an interesting Faery today. At first I thought that this Faery was a kind of light-hearted figure, one meant to make us laugh or scratch our heads in confusion. The unengaged would think that this Faery represents missing socks or misplaced wallets, a Faery that rules over the accidentally discarded. It’s only in moments of sheer frustration that we manage to find what we were looking for. Successfully getting our keys (and sanity) back after searching the same two or three areas a countless number of times as though we don’t actually want to find what we’re looking for and instead practice our best imitation of a crazy person.

I try not to let myself lose my cool if I misplaced something. Instead, I work my way back until I remember the most logical place that I put it. Of course, when I don’t find it in that spot then I begin to feel a little flustered. I’ve never lived in big, spacious homes and I have a very minimalist way of living so when I lose something I can’t, for the life of me, understand where it’s gone to. Still, I look calmly, doing my own imitation of a crazy person as I quietly check back to see if maybe my things put themselves back where I know I left them.

I think that no matter how you look for lost things, we all experience the same sense of misappropriation. That we would never close our eyes and blindly throw something across the room and then try to logically place where it went to as though we set things down like civilized people. We don’t just haphazardly discard our most important or useful items and then get mad for no reason. Most times, we just get busy. We have other things going on at the moment. We put things in one place because we tell ourselves that we don’t have the time to put it in its proper place. Maybe we’re carrying two armfuls of groceries and, in favor of not dropping our whole load, we let go of our keys or phone or wallet.

Now take that concept and apply it to our dreams and plans for the future and you have Ilbe the Retriever. Ilbe is a Faery who may seem responsible for us losing things, but really he’s the guide that reunites us with them. While, yes, keys and silly items like that are a minor part of his job, his main duty is helping us find our lost ambitions.

We get so caught up in life that we forget to put plans into action, to finish our life goals, to make relationships work. Ilbe the Retriever holds on to the things that we misplace in life until he feels that we’re ready to have them back.

What have you misplaced in life that could warrant a visit from Ilbe the Retriever?