Last Updated on June 2, 2026 by Ishilta
Also published in thedailyaah.substack.com
It has been a strange week for me, with two astrological transits unfolding simultaneously: Pluto square Mars and Pluto trine the Sun. The former brought tension, while the latter brought surprising revelations. In this post, I’ll share what Pluto (hidden things) trine the Sun (conscious awareness) revealed.
There were a couple of revelations worth noting, but perhaps the most fascinating concerns our unseen neighbors, also known as the faery folk. Locals call them Diwata or engkanto. In my shamanic practice, we refer to them as the Hidden Folk.
Last Tuesday, May 26, a delivery truck carrying construction materials stopped by to inquire about the whereabouts of a man named Perry Boy. The driver had been tasked with delivering the materials to a construction site, but couldn’t find either the recipient or the address. Since I’m not well-versed in the names of all my neighbors, I called one of my former helpers, who happened to be visiting that morning. She’s a local and knows everyone in the vicinity.
In small towns like ours, people know almost everyone unless you’re like me and didn’t grow up here. Yet even that name didn’t ring any bells for her. When we asked for more details, the delivery driver told us they didn’t have a surname or a mobile number, which seemed strange in this day and age.
They did, however, have a sketch map left by the person who had placed and paid for the order. So we followed the directions, and they led us to a vacant lot in front of my uncle’s house, just two blocks from mine. We asked my uncle if he was expecting such a delivery, and he said he wasn’t. He had no idea who ordered it or why the instructions were to leave it in front of his house. I jokingly remarked that perhaps the owner lived in a balete tree. Since they couldn’t find the owner, they eventually decided to head back home.
Little did I know there were three balete trees nearby and a small cave a little farther down the road. There’s also a huge acacia tree in my uncle’s backyard. My former helper also drew my attention to the mysterious name. Without the thick Bisaya accent, she said, it sounded more like “Faery Boy,” a male Diwata. It immediately sent chills down my spine.
It reminded me of a story told by one of my neighbors, who had an unforgettable encounter in 2013. She recalled an evening around 10 p.m. when she and her husband heard a truck unloading gravel and stones onto a vacant lot a couple of blocks from their home. The noise and flashing headlights were hard to miss. They assumed someone had purchased the property and was preparing to build on it. The following morning, they checked the lot and found no trace of the gravel, stones, or any indication that a delivery had taken place. More than a decade later, the lot remains undeveloped as I write this.
Another similar incident occurred when she and her husband lived in a nearby town in the same province. One day, a hearse arrived in the area carrying a casket for delivery. Out of curiosity, they asked the driver where he had delivered it and who had died. The driver told them he had delivered it to a large house nearby where an elderly woman had recently passed away. He gestured across the street toward the house. But when they looked, there was no house there—only a huge star apple tree and a mango tree. Apparently, only the driver could see the house.
Later that evening, her husband went outside to relieve himself in the middle of the night. Still half-asleep, he claimed to have seen bright lights and a large gathering of people that looked like a vigil. This must be the wake, he thought. The people looked human, but the language they spoke was unlike anything he had ever heard. After rubbing his eyes in disbelief, the scene vanished, and the lights were nowhere to be found.
A week later, someone from the electric company arrived to collect a staggering unpaid bill amounting to Php 18,000. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find the house. A few moments later, he received a call from the main office informing him that the bill had already been settled.
While it is easy to dismiss these claims as urban legends, it is different when you hear people’s actual experiences firsthand. When more than one person tells a similar story with remarkable consistency and attention to detail, it becomes a pattern that is difficult to ignore. It makes you wonder if there might be some truth to it.
My ties to the Hidden Folk go way back to my childhood. I used to leave offerings of fresh fruits and candies for them, only to discover later that they had lost their sweetness. In fact, my mother forbade me from offering our fruits because she knew they would come back tasting bland and lifeless.
I renewed my connection with these beings many moons ago during my training in shamanic journeying. One of the exercises we conducted was a journey to what shamans call the Middle World. It is a realm similar and parallel to our own, yet invisible to ordinary perception. Using the rhythmic beat of a drum to enter an altered state of consciousness, I journeyed to this realm and encountered the Hidden Folk.
I met several types of faery folk in my local area. I remember asking what I needed to do to establish and maintain a harmonious relationship with them. Telepathically, they told me to make libations of cow’s milk every full moon. Milk, it seems, holds a particular appeal for them.
Since then, I have never let a full moon pass without leaving an offering of milk beneath the huge gmelina tree in my backyard. The only exceptions have been the rare occasions when I was too ill to make the libation. For years, we have coexisted peacefully, and they have never seemed interested in drawing my attention.
But for some reason, I never had the opportunity to cultivate a deeper relationship with the Hidden Folk beyond making occasional offerings in the spirit of sacred reciprocity. Instead, I mainly worked with the helping spirits who first called me onto this path. There’s a saying in shamanism that we don’t choose the spirits we work with; the spirits choose us.
The strange incident last Tuesday reaffirmed something I had already known for years. I do not need convincing that the Hidden Folk exist. Yet moments like this bring their reality into sharper focus. They reignite my curiosity about them and the role they may play within my ever-evolving shamanic practice.
Yet they leave me with more questions than answers. Are they like us, but more advanced? Why would they need ordinary construction materials to build their homes? Where do they get their money? Can they take on physical form when they choose? Have I met one disguised as a human? Do they actually live in trees, or are the trees merely portals? Do some of them wish to live as humans? Could they be the same beings we call extraterrestrials?
And perhaps the most intriguing question of all:
Are they trying to get my attention by confirming their existence?
