Chaos, Dragons, and the Magna Mater

Chaos, Dragons, and the Magna Mater
Fey Mysteries

stregarose2Chaos has been vilified throughout human history. Yet it is from chaos that all creation comes.

The Bible lied when it said God spoke into the chaos—the darkness—to create the cosmos. No mere word created us or anything else. The chaos, which is often called darkness, is both darkness and light, and is the Great Mother Goddess—the Magna Mater. She, with Her fertile chaos body, gave birth to all existence.

Note my last sentence: She, with Her fertile chaos body, gave birth to all existence. Usually creation myths refer to the darkness and chaos as passive, not active participants in creation. I worded my sentence carefully. She, with Her fertile chaos body, gave birth to all existence. How different that is from the myth of Tiamat as the supposedly demonic dragon who was primordial chaos and killed by Marduk, who then divided her body to create the universe, part of her body making the heavens and part of her body making the earth.

The implications of that myth have led to one nightmare after another for humankind.

stregamoonAffirmation: I will not be cleaved in two. I remain whole. I recognize the loving chaos and loving darkness within me. I refuse to bow to misrepresentations of them. I see within myself both my loving darkness and loving light. Each day, I know in myself the Dragon, Great Mother Goddess, the Magna Mater, Who loves all of existence and all humankind. I serve Her throughout my day by doing what I love and by lovingly serving all I encounter. With my fertile chaos dragon body, I can birth all existence; I have the power to manifest my heart’s desires.

stregaroseThe implications of the Biblical myth that God spoke into the chaos—the darkness—to create the cosmos have led to one nightmare after another for humankind.

No, no mere word created us. That was a lie so that we’d succumb to oppressors’ words and fear Her Divine chaos. The oppressors’ priests wanted to rip us from our own fertility and the magic to create our own worlds.

If there was a word, it was a poem, a chant, a magical spell, a cry of exultation, a cry of purest joy, a cry of purest love, from the Goddess and God, as They made love in the process of existence coming into being. No almighty God condescendingly divided light from darkness. No no no. The Magna Mater drew the light from Her own body. That light is Her Son Whom She loves. Unlike the God of the Bible, She does not distain Her other half.

stregamoonChaos still reigns today, beneficent, though we divide it into hours and moments, schedules and goals, as if the weave of life was like a weaving on a human’s loom—line after parallel line laid out precisely, everything organized in a linear manner like a grid. No, chaos—Goddess—weaves every which way, and yet the garment She weaves is a life that fits us more perfectly than the most carefully woven garment we ourselves could make, a life more beautiful than any we ourselves could weave.

Through generations and lifetimes, society’s weaving of lies and suppression have robbed witches of their immersion in and trust of chaos. From chaos, that dark matter where there is also light, comes our magic.

stregamoonMy worldview—the world I just spelled out—underlies my teachings.

Dragons are descendants of the original chaos. My worldview helps reveal the hidden underpinnings of draconian magic.

stregamoon

An attribution regarding my remark “The Magna Mater drew the light from Her own body. That light is Her Son Whom She loves.” In the book, Aradia, Gospel of the Witches, the Goddess draws the light from Herself and sees it as Her brother, with whom She falls in love. It is a beautiful myth that you might want to read. I also need to give another reference: in that myth, the Goddess and God make love to create the cosmos, and it is a magical spell.

Dear reader, my above essay is excerpted from a course I teach called Dragon Magic. Unless something changes radically, the essay is also in the companion booklet for a divination deck I created. The deck has not been released yet. To be kept abreast of upcoming classes, Fey freebies, and other offerings, click the banner below:
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Upcoming Class

How to Read Tea-Leaves … and How to Read Most Everything Else, Too!
Lessons in Old-Fashioned Divination
A Seven-Week Teleseminar (Lessons via Group PhoneCalls)

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It was once a common practice to steep tea leaves in the cup from which the tea would be drunk. Did you know “reading” the tea leaves left in a cup after the tea was drunk is a traditional form of divination?

Learn prognostication in a cup—divination about finance, romance, life path, and almost anything else.

Divination gives you the witchy advantage of knowing more of what’s going on in and around you. Then you can make better choices and be more successful in your personal and work life. I use divination about everything from family issues to shamanic journeys to marketing plans to creative self-expression.

Look into a teacup to see the present, past, and future. Read for yourself and for others.

And we won’t stop there. I’ll show you how my methods for reading tea leaves can be applied to reading almost anything else, e.g., Tarot cards, cars passing you on the street, the weather.

You’ll also experience divination as not only fortune-telling but also as guidance from the Divine about worldly and spiritual affairs.

Anyone can do my approach to reading, and you don’t have to learn traditional symbols or standard interpretations. Many individuals have learned my approach, and they got the knack of it quickly. You’re actually doing divination within a lesson or two. No experience needed. Divination is part of our human heritage, so you have the ability to do it whether you realize that or not.

Reading tea leaves is an easy, fun, and fast way to start learning my divination methods, so makes a great jumping off point for you to comfortably learn how apply those methods to reading Tarot cards, a bird that flies overhead, a feather fallen to the ground, or most anything else in your environment.

Lessons are held via teleseminar (a group phone call). Just dial your phone to participate.

We meet seven Thursdays, 6:00 to 7:00 pm EST, starting October 18. The meetings occur consecutive weeks, except we’ll skip November 22 for those with familial Thanksgiving obligations. Please reserve Thurs Dec 13, same time, for a makeup class, in case I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions.

Tuition is $250. Your service provider might charge you for the call. No refunds.

Click here to enroll securely using PayPal: http://www.outlawbunny.com/special-events-registration/

A few days before the event, you receive event details by email.

If you need more info, or want to discuss payment plan, scholarship, or trade, call me: 814-337-2490.

This course is in honor of and in gratitude to Antoinette Marie, my mom. She’s in photograph below. She read tea leaves and playing cards, and was an amazing psychic. Toni, all blessings.

Lenormand Giveaway

Updated August 10, 2023.

My newsletter subscribers have two chances to win this month’s raffle because I’m giving away two Lenormand decks.

If you’re not a subscriber, click here so you can participate in the next giveaway.

An aside: Thirty years as a spiritual counselor led me to acquire and use a wide variety of divination decks—Tarot, Lenormand, Oracle, and oddities. This includes a huge collection of divination decks that a friend gifted me. Now I am paring down to the ten decks that I am likely to use. When I cling to what I don’t use, the flow of abundance to me closes. When I give away freely, I invoke abundance.

Here are the decks’ details:

I’m not a Lenormand historian, so I’ll include a few details to help you research the history if you want.

The decks have similar but not identical packaging.

Deck 1) Its box’s front has an owl and the words Lenormand and Urania. The back has a peacock and JMC. The box is pale orange, with a flap that says Rote eule.

Its booklet says 2008 copyright and seems to be in German. The cards seem to be in German also. There are 36 consecutively numbered cards. The art’s muted tones evoke past eras.

Here are photos of this deck. Please forgive me, the photos do not do the decks justice.

Deck 2) Its box is similar to the other deck’s, but is smaller, blue, has Mlle before Lenormand, and identical graphics except perhaps printed better. Instead of Urania at the bottom, it says AGM Agmuller, with the logo of a heart inside of a spade.

Booklet is English and says special edition for Time-Life books, copyright 1970.

Card graphics are beautiful colors, with English divinatory text on each. Maybe the color is brighter than the other deck’s, or perhaps the lines more sharply defined. There are 36 consecutively numbered cards.

It’s reasonable to assume that 36 is the complete number of cards for each deck because both instructional booklets end with card #36.

An aside: I’m happy to read with an incomplete set, because it makes the deck unique. I imagine that divination was originally a matter of someone looking at what was around them and recognizing that environment as signs of things to come, signs of things from the past, signs of the hidden present. If my environment includes a deck with some cards missing, I figure that deck has very special and powerful guidance for me.

Both decks are in such good condition that I suspect the person who gifted them to me never used them. I never had the chance either, because I had so many decks.

If you are a subscriber and want this deck, the instructions to enter the raffle are in today’s newsletter. Yay!

If you are not a subscriber, click the banner below to subscribe to my free Fairy Witch newsletter for magical giveaways, unusual information, classes, and other magical events.

Click here to subscribe to my newsletter, for Fairy freebies, enchanted upcoming events, and stardust

Giveaway Blanket

Update on the post below: Someone has already claimed the Tarot deck. But I’ll lay out the blanket again soon with another Tarot, Lenormand, or other divination deck, and will keep doing it til all the decks are gone. So the next few months, stay tuned to both my sites’ blogs for the giveaways: this site’s new blogs always appear at https://stardrenched.com , and my other site’s blogs at http://www.outlawbunny.com/blog/

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Welcome to my giveaway blanket.

I was gifted a wonderful collection of Tarot, Lenormand, and other divination decks. Different people need different decks. So I’m passing on the handful of the decks that don’t suit for me.

You don’t even pay shipping. This is a plain old-fashion giveaway blanket.

The first deck on the blanket is the Llewellyn Tarot Deck. It is in mint condition, though unboxed and without an instruction booklet. I suspect it’s not been used, or used a few times.

I didn’t check whether all the cards are there, though I imagine they are. But then, I’m happy to read with an incomplete set, because it makes the deck unique.

The following photo shows a few cards and the cards’ back.

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Btw, if you do an image search on Google, using “llewellyn tarot deck” as the parameters, you’ll see a lot of its other cards, to better help you decide if this is a deck for you.

I want to spread the bounty by only giving one deck per person.

Do you want this deck? Here are the instructions:

1) In the comment field below, write the name of the deck: Llewellyn Tarot Deck
2) Email me a postal address (U. S. non-military address only) to which I can ship the deck.
3) Include your phone number in the email, in case I have trouble shipping. My email address is outlawbunny at outlawbunny.com
4) Put “Llewellyn Tarot Deck” in the subject field of the email.

Important: First person to do all four steps of the instructions receives the deck. If someone’s already written the name of the deck in a comment field, it’s not necessarily too late for you. Often, people will do part one of the instructions, then forget to do the rest.

I’ll update this post to let everyone know when the deck’s been claimed.

I’ll lay out the blanket again with more decks soon. So the next few months, stay tuned to both my sites’ blogs for the giveaways: this site’s new blogs always appear at https://stardrenched.com , and my other site’s blogs at http://www.outlawbunny.com/blog/

I love setting out giveaway blankets, because they free me. To reiterate what I said in another giveaway post: Giveaway expands me, out into the stars. Yeehaw!

Yule Ritual 2014

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Fellow elves, unicorns, goddesses, gods, and other wondrous beings,

Join me in a winter Solstice ritual, Thursday December 18, 2014, from 6 to 7:00 PM EST.

Let’s celebrate the winter Solstice together—operative word “celebrate.” We are magic. We’ll transform our lives and ourselves through pure fun.

The event is a group phone call. Free and open to all. (Your usual long-distance charges apply, and appear on your phone bill). No experience needed.

To participate, call 1-712-775-7000. When prompted, enter 1095248#. Dial a few minutes before 6:00; it can take a bit to connect, and latecomers are not allowed.

Celebrate your Pagan heart!

Love, Francesca De Grandis
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Seen the Faerie Ritual Set? For Spells, Divination, Soul Journeying, and More. Check it out here: http://www.outlawbunny.com/2014/06/11/frs/

Pantheism and Mosquitos

Pantheism and Mosquitos: Practice Vs Theory

I am theologically a theist but, practically speaking, often apply my belief system in a pantheist manner. For a couple of years, I’ve been trying to figure out how to work mosquitoes into my pantheist practice. Ok, I know it is funny (and I like being funny), but it is also true.

I’ve no theoretical problem with mosquitoes being the Goddess. It is practically speaking that I am stumped. And I don’t have much use for theory without practice.

I suffer from Skeeter Syndrome. For example, today, mosquito bites at my elbow caused a single swelling that is five inches across and quite high.

Francesca De Grandis, 2013

Francesca De Grandis, 2013

For me, being fed by the Divine requires being in the moment. God is now. When I try to escape the now, I might leave myself behind. When I look for solutions in some faraway place, well, as they say, there’s no place like home. The now is where I have to find metaphysical home.

As a pantheist, I believe all of self is a weave, all of existence is a weave.

I also think pantheism implies a divination system: Every particle of the universe, every moment and being in my day, can be read for guidance. Applying my pantheist theory sometimes requires 1) watching for that guidance 2) examining the weave of the moment for a weave of meaning 3) acting on what I discover.

I’m about to have oral surgery. There are a myriad of reasons that I am far more likely to have complications from a simple surgery than most folks are. I’m doing everything I can to prepare really well for surgery.

Looking at the swollen arm, it occurred to me: Mosquito is God. Oh my God (heh), mosquitoes are trying to help me with the surgery, perhaps.

I started wondering about the root cause of extreme allergic reactions to mosquito bites. What exactly about me makes me so allergic to the bites? Holistically speaking, this allergy might not be isolated. Perhaps there’s some deficiency in me as a whole that causes the allergy? Is it a deficiency that, taken care of, would make me do better with surgery?

I researched this question online, to no avail. Then I called an herbalist friend. She had no insights.

I called another friend, Susun Weed. Though rushing to cook dinner, she kindly gave me a quick ‘n’ dirty answer (adding that I could get a full answer through her radio show. Her answer was hurried, so I hope I understood it correctly; if you want to correct me, please do). Susun said I have an “inflammatory response,“ which is caused by eating foods that cause inflammation. She told me to stop eating pepper in all forms. She said I should cut down on stimulants like coffee and ginger, and to eat anti-inflammatory herbs, eg linden, comfrey leaf, and marshmallow root.

Web of Life, silk hand painted altar cloth, Francesca De Grandis

Detail from Web of Life, silk hand painted altar cloth, Francesca De Grandis

Ah, the weave! Her choice of examples was synchronistic. Though I do not drink coffee, I’d started using peppercorns and ginger again, last year, after a few decades of neither. Needless to say, they’re banished from my diet again.

A few days later, hoping for more lessons from Mosquito, I realized I often get bit at my joints. I thought, “Hmm, joints are points of connection…My joints also swell…Swelling is like blocked energy…How am I blocking my inner connection of all my aspects?…How am I blocking my connection to friends or community or cosmos or god?” I will not list the answers I came up with, bc this post is twice as long as I had hoped.

The next few days, I received other lessons from Mosquito. In other words, I’m one of those people who mosquitos adore. Despite my best efforts, I can walk out the door and have fifty bites within ten minutes. Take my allergic reaction into account, and it adds up to a lot of opportunities for learning.

I’m not the only person who tunes into the moment or life’s synchronicities to obtain Divine guidance. But this particular incident excited me because I had woven various aspects of my pantheist world view—god is in the now, all of self and life is a weave, the weave of the moment is divination, to name a few—with yet a second weave of practical application: analysis of the bug-induced swelling, a holistic view of my body, mindfulness about the surgery, research online, and so on.

The incident is not unusual for me. So why did I write all this? Do i think my accomplishment so superior to any of yours that i had to show it off? No.

Here’s the thing. The moment to moment down-to-earth acts of a truly (aka actually applied) integrative life are a rapid fire, complex weaving of all one’s aspects, woven yet again in rapid-fire complexity with the external environment. Sharing a single moment of it could take a month of writing.

The event about the mosquito is one such event, expect that, for a change, it can be shared fairly easily! I will have spent only eight hours ballpark writing this. Even though i am oversimplifying it, it still works well enough for my purposes:

1) I want to share my life. Writing this allows me to “shout” my excitement at finally seeing dang awful Mosquito as god, and about possibly doing better after a possibly dangerous surgery that has had me scared. I also want to share the accomplishment! I am proud of and delighted by my weaving of so many things, including following through on them so practically. (The weave is incomplete without practical follow through) 2) As a teacher, I stress the importance of application of pantheism principles, as opposed to just knowing the theory. Practical application of theory is often misunderstood as just creating more theory, or teaching the theory to others. I’ve learned that examples are often a great way to make one’s premises clear. My story gives examples, in one (albeit long) post. 3) I want to walk my talk; the pantheist principles mentioned above are all things I am teaching right now. My mosquito story affirmed to me that I do walk the walk. 4) When we tell our stories, its details might help others more than any theory. The details per se might not be solutions or otherwise useful info in themselves, but they imply massive amounts of info. Massive.

I hope you post a story of your own below.

Suggestion: Do you have a challenge or opportunity that you need guidance about? Observe the weave of events happening around you right this minute. Are they a mirror of you? Do they offer guidance? Imply suggestions? Act as role models?