Faeries Oracle

Card 41 - Ilbe the Retriever

Office of Unclaimed Property, Hopes, and Wishes. Loyalty.

While writing this, I was having a little trouble with Ilbe - not for the first time. I couldn't find my keys anywhere. He thinks it would be greatly to my benefit to be more organized and tidy, so he smears not-quite-visible juice on things that are out of place. Or he encourages the resident cats to hide things. (Cats seem remarkably willing to cooperate with these little bits of faery helpfulness.) Then I have to hunt and hunt for them, and Ilbe hopes I shall be more organized the next time. You may have encountered him in this guise. When he has done something like this, my son observes, he just looks at us with that "Who? Me?" look. My son also advises, "Keep your eye on him and whatever isn't nailed down. And if you scold or contradict him, he just gets huffy and insists on having his own way."

This sort of busybody helpfulness is just one of Ilbe's tasks, however. He also has more important things to do.

Ilbe is a protector. He retrieves and safeguards our lost hopes, forgotten dreams, and mislaid keys. (My keys were under a stack of papers, stuck to the floor with peach juice - not a place that I'd put them myself, but certainly safe from most key thieves.) He holds these seeds of our potential futures carefully and delicately until we are ready for their return.

Sometimes we don't think we are ready for them or we have given up hope altogether, and then he may arrange reminders for us - events or people in our lives that bring back memories of our past hopes and dreams. When that happens, we need to look at them again and consider how we might manifest them in reality.

Starter Reading

Ilbe is trying to remind you of something you've lost - a hope, perhaps, or a dream. You may have thought it gone forever, but he is holding it out to you for reconsideration. He thinks you can do something with it now. The way may not be obvious, but his clever nose has scented a path, a potential opening for bringing this into your life. Sometimes, Ilbe may be saying that a long-awaited dream is at last arriving on the scene and there is nothing we need to do but open our hearts and minds to it. However, we usually have to work for it.

Another attribute of Ilbe is loyalty.

Reverse

Is it time to stop saying "I can't" and take a look at "I can" instead? Perhaps something important in your life is being held back by negative attitudes, but we have choices about our attitudes and can change them when they are not helping us.

Alternatively, Ilbe may be saying that this is not yet the time for the germination of this seed. It may be that other things need to be dealt with first. What might you need to clear out or finish up before being able to properly plant and nurture this seed? Are the things in the way weeds, which should simply be pulled, or valued growing things that we would wish to care for before planting something new in that space in our lives?

The Help-Line Troupe