The Green Fairy
The Green Fairy
Artist: Erin Thomson, Nelson, BC, Canada.
Flowing mint green fabric swirls around the transformed bedroom. Hands guiding movement. Fingers reaching out to touch invisible leaves on branches, stroke not-yet-bloomed flower petals, and admire the potential of new life. Berries of earthly delight are gathered into a basket, each plucked with a knowingness older than time. Swirling around the space, acknowledging the audience, acknowledging the presence of ethereal entities. Spinning green. Sugarplum curtsies. Clearing energy with the flick of fingers. Tickling generative life forces. Waking up the other kingdoms and queendoms after a long, cold winter of slumber, she gives offerings of spring.
The Green Fairy is an archetypal goddess who Erin Thomson, also known as Mz. Iris Wilde while performing, is intimately acquainted with. Her performance, inspired by this forest renewal energy and the once-taboo artisanal drink, 'Absinthe' (also called the Green Fairy), was a part of a fundraiser for her best friend's health journey. The theater was a long, attic-like bedroom, with half-height walls and a peaked ceiling. It was adorned with sheer white fabrics, lace, roses and candles. This bedroom took residence in a house that lived outside of our rural mountain town. It was the depths of winter, and the long dark nights and deep snow made Mz. Iris Wilde's performance even more lustful. Our eyes were thirsty for fresh greens, our skin shivered from the caress of satin. We could all see the spring that the Green Fairy was stimulating.
Feminine energies that align with the mood and characteristics of the seasons inspire Erin's work. A burlesque performer, Erin has been dancing, showcasing, and teaching the art form for over fifteen years. Erin is also a bodyworker, gardener, wild crafter, and creator of her own bath and beauty product line titled, Iris & Wilde Leaf. Each realm expresses her deep connection to the seasons and cycles of the natural world.
Born into a family of gardeners, and inheriting her grandmother's green thumb, she's at home amongst the consumers of sunlight and rain. They are her friends, and allies. Her skin care line celebrates this. It's made to act as plant medicine – to heal and nourish skin, to promote self-touch, and to soothe nerves through reassuring scents. Plants speak to Erin. Flowers call her attention in the garden. Cedar and fir whisper to her in the forests outside her home. Essential oils of orange and vetiver vie for her attention. Each season sees different medicinal properties emerge, and Erin is called to create tailored offerings for each. Changing from year to year, there's no stock formula. There's just a deep listening and intuitive knowing of both the plants, and the needs of the people in her community. Just as she knew we needed a visit from the Green Fairy on Winter Solstice, Erin intuits the scent assemblages that will be the best balm for each chapter of these times.
Experiencing the world primarily through her body, Erin knows the power of the sensual. She celebrates everything to do with the skin – tactility, touch, and nourishment. The scent profiles of her intention oils and bath salts are laden with rich and pleasing olfactory experiences. Body butters are silky to the touch. Her burlesque costumes explore a spectrum of colour and textures. Inspired by ancient archetypes, Mz. Iris Wilde has transformed herself into many characters including a harbinger of spring, a horned warrior goddess, and an autumnal specter. Sensationally ornate headdresses showcase beads, fruit, dried plants, and plastics. Earth receives it all, despite the human inclination to separate materials into “natural” and “man-made”. Her characters are playful in their investigation of eros too. Bold and mischievous, her skits activate all the senses. They're also intentional reminders of the turning of the seasons, and that we need to indulge in life while we're still lucky enough to be occupying these human skins.
Movement and meditation are daily practices for Erin. A woman with an abundance of both physical and mental energy, she employs dance, tai chi, and working out to calm her mind. Rinsing and wringing, pulsing and massaging, working out the energy until the air has cleared and stillness can be experienced. This practice creates a vessel for her electricity – a way to ground and focus the energies that she's constantly in communication with. Only from this stillness can creative energy be funneled into her myriad of creative outlets.
Sensual and somatic experiences are also a doorway into healing her ancestral wounds. Born into a family bound by the constraints of Catholicism, Erin has been on a journey of unraveling herself through deeper communion with her animalism. Working in the spa industry for fifteen years giving Intuitive Deep Tissue massage treatments and Neurosomatic bodywork, her hands search out ways to invite expansion into the body. Dancing for even longer, Erin's burlesque journey pushes up against her lineage of how one should “properly” express themselves. Physical pleasure, sensuality, and just letting your adult-self play, are the medicine for ancestral lesions that have festered by trying to compress the human body into too small and boring a box for so long.
Spinning green and sugarplum curtsies, Erin Thompson and Mz. Iris Wilde work diligently to remind us of our connection to our bodies and the earth. Thank you for all your fabulous expressions, Erin, I'm so grateful to know you.
Follow Mz. Iris Wilde on Instagram:
See her bath and self-care line on Instagram:
Images in the order they are posted:
The Green Fairy, 2021, Damos Photography
Warrior Gooddess, 2020, Josee Gulayets
Re-wilding of the Self, 2019, Erin Thomson
Dystopain's Muse, 2020, Erin Thomson
Artist in the forest, 2022, Josee Gulayets
If you enjoyed this article, and are interested in creating a deeper relationship with the cycles of the seasons and the plant world, check out Natalie Rousseau’s 13 Moons Circle. If you’re curious about learning more about Absinthe and its affect on arts and culture at the turn of the century, watch this documentary.
