Faeries Oracle

Card 34 - Sylvanius

Truth. Cutting through deception. Clarity.

Brian called this painting The Mask of Truth, True Dreaming. Sylvanius, who holds the Mask of Truth, is lord of the woodlands, his crown of antler branches signifying his authority. He presents the mask to us, supported by the Faery of Aspiration, as she welcomes us to our own potential. We wear the mask to look inward, seeing our true selves - not our false and fearful selves, but the beings of light that we truly are and what we have the potential to be. It becomes very difficult for us to make excuses and blame others for our failures and fears once we have seen what we could be if we were willing - what, in fact, we already are but are not quite living up to.

I thought it was very odd that there is a Mask of Truth. It seemed to me that we use masks to hide truth rather than to reveal it.

"Oh, no!" Sylvanius assured me. "First, you put the mask on and hide, and then you take it off to reveal the truth." Very faery.

"I see," I said, not certain I did; but not sure I wanted to either. "Besides," Sylvanius continued, "your face is not your Truth. Sometimes faces need to be hidden so Truth can be seen. Or sometimes you need to make a crack in consciousness - an aha! moment - in order to see a truth you have been blind to."

From before the time we were born, people have been projecting their ideas, hopes, fears, and confusions on us. As we grow up, we accept many of these untrue projections as our reality - our partly false, partly true picture of ourselves.

Brian wrote, "The faery, Kundrun, holds one of the many sacred swords of Faeryland. This one, forged long ago by mysterious dwarves, is laid across the cliff of the otherworld as a bridge to Faeryland. The two-edged sword symbolizes the union of the human world with the world of Faery, as well as the union of the outer world of nature with the inner world of the psyche. It is the sword of clear-cut understanding and sharp perception. But once we cross into Faery it becomes the sword of courage and noble service."

Starter Reading

At this time you are discovering new truths about yourself. They are essential for you to know in order to create relationships based on mutual respect, affection, and trust. These things can only work if we see ourselves and others as we are. Currently, both Faery and this world are functioning as a giant mirror in which we see ourselves in many surprising ways. People tend to dread this because we assume that we are worse than we think we are, but this is far from necessarily true. Now is a time for finding out the false and misleading beliefs you have accepted and discovering that you are a better person than you thought - and have the potential to accomplish more than you believed you could. If someone says you are better or simply different than you think you are, don't automatically reject this. Think it over carefully. You have more to give and more to enjoy than you have been giving yourself credit for.

Reverse

Sylvanius, Kundrun, and the Faery of Aspiration have ganged up on you. They are creating cracks in your ideas about yourself so that the light of truth may shine in. Mirrors jump out at us with unexpected reflections. The trick is learning to distinguish the distorted reflections of others' masks of untruth from the clear reflection of the Mask of Truth. Beware of the reflections that others cast upon you and look within for your own truth. Whenever someone says, 'Oh, you are so ...... stop and ask yourself if this is really true. It might just be their stuff, their projections, and have nothing to do with you at all.

Faery Guides and Guardians