A grove can be big or little. It doesn't actually have to be filled with trees. There are city groves with no trees at all. There are arctic groves, too. Only, I've never asked what kind of chores a fairy colony would do in a spot where it's so cold. Desert groves, ocean groves, and even manufacturing groves. Ecologists would talk about biomes or ecosystems, maybe. Fairies have a different way of thinking. A grove is big or little, depending on the amount of work needed. There's a central location where the queen lives. She focuses the work of a collection of females. I suspect they also shelter infants of both male and female fairies in the central spot, but that's hardly something they'd want to talk about with an outsider. The fairies are organized, given work in the support of whatever life forms exist in the grove.
In a grove, fairies make things abound. (See my last post. Abound is a pretty important fairy word.)
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| Here's my grove. Watch it abound. |
Really?
I know when I go home, I'll appreciate my toast so much more, knowing such things are possible. I'm sure it gives a fairy huge satisfaction to make toast abound.
The queen allots the chores by age and ability. She also watches out for the health of each individual, and the development of their skills. She's like the best mother anyone could want. At least, the queen in our grove reminds me of an excellent mother.
There are other positions with a standardized title, but they don't really make sense unless you see the fairy doing her job. For instance: the scrub, the plotz, and the wracker make up a team of fairies. The words for the job titles are standard from grove to grove. Humans would need a huge job description sheet if we applied to be scrub, plotz, or wracker. Fairies just know what these do. Scrub identifies blemishes to the surface of any living object (and doesn't actually scrub at these blemishes -- just points them out.) Plotz determines which action should be taken with regard to blemishes (and many times the choice of no action is the decision.) Wracker makes recommendations about work party allotments. It's kind of a like a quality control team.
Makes me wonder if during my teen years, the scrub was lax about locating my zits, or the plots just didn't think it was important to make them go away. Or, the wracker may have recommended a battalion of fairies visit me in my sleep, but the queen decided that the drooping houseplants were a more worthy need in the grove of my suburban neighborhood. Whatever was going on, I think the quality control team should have tried a little harder to get me the help I needed.
Those quality control ladies are only an example. The point, though, is that fairies know there's order in their universe. Their skills are used. They do their work happily. They know what they're doing is important.
I kind of wish my world made as much sense to me.
-- Sabrina
Reading what Sabrina wrote, I'm perplexed. She sounds sort of wistful. Is her problem that she doesn't have work in her human world? Or possibly that it's not a work of cooperation and growth? Does she feel as though her skills are not being developed? Perhaps that she can't see the end of her labors? Is being human really an isolated thing, of is that Sabrina only? So many questions I have, now. Maybe I'll have to be a human tourist sometime soon.
Sabrina should have chosen GRATITUDE for her "g" word. It's vital in fairy life. Maybe down the road, she'll find time to include the concept.
May your forsythia flourish.
-- Fresh
