tooth fairies, unicorns, and myths

Recently my son lost his first tooth (he actually lost another tooth prior to this due to an accident where his face met the corner of our bed, but that's another story), and that night he put his tooth under his pillow. He woke up the next morning and my husband and I reminded him to check under his pillow.

As a family we have decided not to do Santa, the Easter bunny, or anything of the like. I've told my son many times that these are pretend characters people make up for fun. He's a science based little nerd at the ripe old age of five, and so I was surprised when upon finding the treasures under his pillow he exclaimed, "Now I know fairies are REAL!" He went on to spend the rest of the morning explaining that the tooth fairy lives in the stems of our Monstera plant by our front window. He could not stop relishing in the beauty of a magical, mystical idea. My little boy who frequently recites facts about volcanoes, the layers of the earth, space (including obscure topics like exoplanets), and a myriad of other scientific and purely factual topics, was delighted by magic.

A couple of weeks ago I went into a new bookstore that just opened in our city, and I came across a picture book called Margaret's Unicorn. It held an essence of the film Song of the Sea which is a favorite of ours, so I picked it up for my kids. I wasn't sure if either of my boys would like it considering it is about a little girl who finds a lost baby unicorn in Scotland. I cannot tell you how many times they have begged me to read this book. Each time, my oldest son looks up at me a bit hopefully and says, "Are unicorns real?"

In my hands I hold two sides of myself, two presentations of the world. One is the self who used to look out the window of the car and imagine that there were fairies dancing in the fields (and I can guarantee you that took a great deal of imagination living the sweltering, flat abyss of cotton fields known as Albany, GA). The other is the self who subsists off of timeliness and efficiency and facts and reality.

I look at my son and choose the latter of the selves and say, "No, unicorns aren't real." His face falls, even if just a bit. He was hoping for a different answer. Honestly, so am I.

I personally picked up a book for myself about a month ago called Liturgies of the Wild. The author, Martin Shaw, writes about the human need for myth. How we are bereft of meaning and purpose because we are no longer tied to story and imagination, but only the constant drone of progress and success and, well, reality.

Shaw writes from a Christian perspective, but pulls myths from many different cultures and time periods, suggesting that all myths point to the great true myth (as C.S. Lewis penned it). He invites us to believe that humans thrive when they believe beyond what is seen, when they walk open handed into what cannot be fully known by the human mind, willing to receive what is there.

It is difficult to detach ourselves from a roaring culture of fact, one that denies anything that cannot be seen with our eyes, touched with our fingertips. And yet my five year old boy who constantly questions things, begging for facts and truth, danced for joy at the belief of a fairy. We are all drawn to a wild magic, a source of beauty and goodness. And while perhaps there aren't truly fairies and unicorns (although I invite you to believe in them, if even just a little bit), these creatures point us to a truth and light that has roots deeper than time. The beavers in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe said of this light, " 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good." And Rich Mullins described him as "a wild man."

We see his wildness and goodness, even in the myth of the tooth fairy in the Monstera.