Category Archives: Musings, Ventings, & Other Personal Posts. AKA Articles

Snow Faerie Snowflakes

Posted on by
7

Updated 2021.

This post was written in the mythopoetic realm that I’m always building, that I might continue to inhabit it happily. It’s a lighthearted post overall, in hopes it helps keep our spirits bright during wintry days. Included are some more serious thoughts—which I believe also can keep life bright. Let me know what you think.

Isn’t it amazing how someone can spot a wonderful part of you that you’ve overlooked? William Dreamdancer, an online friend who is an astute fellow, noticed that I’m a snow faerie.

Here I am, one of Santa’s Yule elves, but I never noticed I was a snow faerie. How could I have missed that? . . . I mean, you don’t have to be a snow faerie to be a Yule elf. Santa gives different jobs to different elves. But still …

Informed of William’s insight, Santa made me one of his official Snow Fairies this year. That is the job title for elves who tend the snow. (If you wonder why I’ve spelled it Faeries earlier in the post, and now I’m spelling it Fairies, check out this post:
https://stardrenched.com/2020/09/08/fairy-faerie-faery-fey-fay/)

My job as a Snow Fairy is creating snowflakes. I’ve gotten to make a lot of them. Making them makes me very happy.

Some Snow Fairies fashion snowflakes, and other Snow Fairies tend the snow in different ways, e.g., ensuring snowflakes don’t melt before they have a chance to fall from the sky. (I love making up the facts of my mythopoetic realm. And once I make them up, they’re true.)

On the mundane plane: I did a series of paintings that involved my drawing approximately one-hundred unique snowflakes. This post has three of those paintings.

A single snowfall uses up a lot of snowflakes. However, as I said, I’m not the only one of Santa’s elves who creates snowflakes.

In fact, every time you create paper cuttings of snowflakes to adorn a Yule tree, tape to a window, or otherwise decorate your home, you’re automatically one of the Yule elves helping make snow. Ditto your children when they start cutting the paper.

During a snowfall, I love watching Wind Fairies blow my snowflakes hither and thither.

Wind Fairies also make snowflakes drift lazily down. When they fall on you, look carefully and remember that Snow Fairies make each snowflake unique, especially for you.

Drawing snowflakes is a meditation that centers me into sanity and sacredness, which keeps me from going down the rabbit hole of dysfunction aka America’s holiday craziness. One of many perks of working for Santa is getting to do jobs that maintain joy, not only mine but that of others.

Popular culture, which as a whole considers magic nonsense, embraces it this time of year.

For one thing, during winter, many people who would humbug magic the rest of the year become open to miracle transforming their lives.

Also, the population as a whole becomes more open to extravagant decor. They forsake bourgeois restraint and the bland decor that results, replacing it with sparkling lights, bright red clothing, and gaudy displays. Typical holiday decor, with its exuberant fun, fills the air with magic. (Christmas decor is Pagan at heart and often has Pagan roots historically.)

Plus every year, folks everywhere are excited about a jolly elf who flies through the air, mysteriously managing to give gifts all over the world in a single night. If he isn’t wondrous and magical, nothing is, and I love seeing people suspend their disbelief (even if it’s only long enough to watch a Santa Claus movie).

Popular culture’s indulgence in magic this time of year is such happy, satisfying fun for me.

Want rituals that foster happiness and sheer joy in you?

Please join me in my free upcoming winter rituals.

There will be two rites. Attend one or both. One ceremony will meet in person in the San Francisco Bay Area. The other will meet worldwide via teleseminar aka group phone call.

We’ll drink in the season’s wonders, enchantments, and joys that they may lift our spirits and transform our lives. This will include an imaginary visit with Santa, to foster our happiness, joyfulness, and transformation even further.

Full details will be in my newsletter. Click the banner below to subscribe.

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

Turning the Wheel

Posted on by
5

Turning the Wheel through Personal Myth
Santa, Squirrels, and More

Backstory: I live in faerie tales. This lifetime, I’ve never heard of turning the year wheel with one’s personal myth (in this context, I mean a myth of one’s own making or a myth not generally perceived as related to the year wheel). I remember it from past lives.

Below, you will not find a theoretical exposition on turning the year wheel with one’s personal myth. I prefer to live in my faerie tales, not in my (albeit fabulous) theories. So, I share a little piece of my myth here. You mystics are smart—you don’t need someone lecturing theory at you from on high; mystics usually learn more watching—and feeling—how people actually embody their theories. Equally important, when I talk about my adventures, some people join me in them—I long for shared escapades.

Telling my own myth is no suggestion that it is the best one for you, or the right way for you to turn the wheel. End of backstory.

I blog about Yule starting in September. It is not the crass commercialism of stores that promote Christmas items way too early. It’s actually the opposite; it rescues me from holiday madness.

In Autumn, squirrels gather nuts to store for the winter. In the same vein, I plan my dark months in Sept or Oct. (I have been planning my dark months in the autumn for decades, so cannot remember whether I made the practice up or was taught it.)

According to Chinese philosophy, unresolved issues are more likely to bubble up from the subconscious in the winter. Experience has taught me that, if I do not plan my dark months before they start, I lose my mooring, and easily sink into holiday frenzy, codependent gift-giving, etc.

Every September or October, I get in touch with what I truly want for the fall and winter this year. Eg, Do I need to focus on a major inner healing? If so, is there a theme I can use for the healing rituals? Do I want to decorate the house for the holidays? If so, a little or a lot? Which holidays do I want to celebrate? Do I have the time to cook for the holidays? And so on.

It’s not that I stick to these plans rigidly. But when I lose my center, the plans helps me regain it. Then I can make sane decisions.

An additional piece of my process is relevant to why I blog about Yule so early. As I said, I live in Faerie tales. They are often myths of my own creation. One is that I am a Yule elf. Come autumn, Santa’s elves are very busy planning what’s going to happen over the next few months.

This planning, including what I’ll craft the next few months to put in Santa’s bag, aka my Etsy shop, is part of my turning the wheel of my personal year. I am an artisan, not a manufacturer, so fall—at latest!—is when I need to start planning and making the handful of items I will add to my shop before Yule.

I blog from the heart. I start blogging and posting from the North Pole as early as September. I want to share my real life—the day-to-day of my myths.

I am also spared holiday madness because, being one of Santa’s elf, I instead can spend the dark time focusing on service: I focus on the joy of crafting goods in the North Pole’s elven workshop, high quality craftsmanship, purposeful creativity, and Yule elf tweets/blogs/posts that help people smile during holiday grumpiness. I also get true holiday joy from my absurdly happy Yule elf meditations and costumes. I am turning my personal year wheel, connecting with the season of Mama Earth.

(I mentioned being a Yule elf as a myth of my own creation. I do not have space in this post to thoroughly portray what I’ve created about Yule elves. Nor could a library of printed word hold it because 1) some things can only be conveyed in oral tradition and 2) some things are so integrated into one’s life that they become too extensive to thoroughly share in words alone. But a lot of what I created plays out in my meditations, which feels important to say because, when we take time to really sink into our mythic stories meditatively, we can live them the rest of the day.)

More of how my myth turns the wheel:

Most of the year, I am in my tinker’s wagon, traveling between the worlds. I am a shut-in but my wheelchair has wings, and so do I. Astrally-traveling shamanic guide and fey artisan.

When weather gets cold, I retreat to Santa’s warm, cozy workshop. I still counsel and teach, from my snug Arctic home.

Claus is in my pantheon. So I pray to him any month. One way I turn the wheel through myth is, the past few years, I’ve made my winter plans by writing a letter to Santa in September about what I want for the dark months.

Every year, I have new elven adventures. And my other myths grow a bit. All my faerie tales are more extensive than this post. And are deeply personal. But I risk posting bits online for two reasons.

Telling my myth is a fun way for this shut-in to share her wanderings.

I am dedicating to helping my students find and/or further evolve personal myths, and live them fully to connect with Mama Earth and Divinity. I posted today in hopes I might do that a bit for my dear site visitors. For one thing, I believe that speaking my life supports starry-eyed seekers to trust their own unique mythic being.

EtsyBotmBnrYule

The Faerie Queen’s Innocence

Posted on by
9

The Unseelie Queen and her pawns would have us give our anger supremacy: They would have us fuel our anger with pseudo-morality, the same angry false righteousness that makes pseudo-Christians betray Christ’s message of love.

imageAnger has its place. It should not be suppressed. Nor should its good power be ignored.

But it too often permeates, perhaps subconsciously, many a pagan’s being, many a pagan tradition. It corrodes their magic, until there is none left—none—and they are left only with the pretense of it and childish boasts of power.

I train my students rigorously in magical technique, but it is not enough in itself. I received impeccable magical training, but my magic could not withstand my anger if it were made supreme.

But we have a choice. We can acknowledge and honor our anger, then let it go. Because when we do, we become sure in our guts that we deserve a place with the Faerie Queen and Seelie Court. It cannot be an intellectual exercise—you have to experience letting go of anger to have gut knowledge of the following:

Anger made supreme is a trap the Unseelie set us. When we release anger, to make love supreme, supreme in our cells, the Faerie Queen’s magic and innocence and love flood us. All our green fantasies, and wishes to see the unseen, come true. We feel, feel, note the word “feel,” we will feel the magic that most people can only imagine as part of a dream. Feel it in our waking hours. We will walk the path through enchanted woods. We will feel the World Tree as our safe home.

In other words, we will be magic. That is what happens when a pagan soul relinquishes anger and owns the love in their heart.

Footnote: This material came to me, right before bedtime, day #1 of the Hundred People direct spiritual transmission. But “material” is an insufficient word because, along with insight, was a breathtaking breakthrough experience, more transformative than any realization.

Giving the weeklong transmission caused me many beautiful learning experiences. Posting about only one of them might make that one incorrectly seem more pivotal than the others. But this is the only one I felt guided by my Gods to discuss at length online, thus far.

Have you had a magical Fey experience that substantiates mine or is otherwise relevant? Please post it below. I’d love to read it. And it will support other site visitors.

CnslingBotmBnr2

Are You Baba Yaga?

Posted on by
Reply

RUBabaYaga

Are You Baba Yaga?

I want a Faerie cottage on wheels,
in which to travel the country.
Traversing wide plains, in my magic hut,
I’ll settle down each night by its cozy hearth,
cat curled up alongside.
I will drink mint tea all day,
munch crisp apples by the side of the road,
and study rain.
I will park my home by lakes,
under oak trees,
on beaches,
in friends’ driveways,
next to waterfalls,
at festivals, at concerts,
and by farmers’ markets.
No one will see, except a few blessed like me,
that my home is not wheeled, but walking on giant legs.
Or giant wings?
I’m not Baba Yaga or, rather, not who she seems.
Because she roamed wild, wandered free,
they called her a demon hag.
They had to explain away an old woman traveling solitary.
But she was a Fey Witch. Like me. A shaman. A priestess.
We journey in our myths, serving our Gods
by ministering to those we meet along the path
and by our joy and play.
I don’t need a man, all I need are Gods and a cat.
I am a happy old woman alone. I am on an adventure.
A shut-in due to illness, every morning I hit the roads of Faerie.
Are you Baba Yaga too?

BYABar4

ClassesBotmBnr

Lady Olivia Robertson

Posted on by
Reply

Interviewed by Francesca De Grandis

Lady Olivia Robertson is one of the pagan leaders I’ve most admired (discussed in my blog Meeting Lady Olivia Robertson: https://stardrenched.com/2013/04/17/meeting-lady-olivia-robertson/ )

My deep love for Olivia led me to interview her, to help share her wonderful message. The event was recorded in my home in the early nineties. However, life intervened; the tape languished for two decades. I’m finally able to share it.

Technical Notes: If anything Olivia says in this post offends you—e.g., it is inaccurate—blame me. Maybe I transcribed the interview incorrectly. I have not finished transcribing the entire recording—thus far, it is 3500 words, even edited. I am posting it in parts as I get them transcribed and edited. There are a few more bits I should have cut, for clarity’s sake or the like, but if I delay posting until I have time for more cutting, there might be another decade’s delay. A fact check is in progress re spelling of names that I could not fact check myself.

Some of the interview is a lovely retrospective and awesome history.
—————————————————————-

Part One

Francesca De Grandis: Tell me about your recent travels. You’ve been to several places in the US, to Japan, where else?

Lady Olivia Robertson: Well, it’s very exciting. Now Fellowship of Isis is getting on for 15,000 members in 90 countries, and these people correspond, we have postal courses and, in the end, they want to meet each other. So we have conventions and conferences, and the first one I did in Ireland, naturally, I had our own ceremony in September. And after that, I went to London, where we had a marvelous convention in one of the most beautiful Jacobean houses in England, called Charlton House after Charles I. It was built for Henry, the Prince of Wales, who must have been Pagan, because they have nothing but carvings of nymphs and satyrs…

FDG: Oh, I’ve been there! It’s in London?

LOR: Yes.

FDG: : Oh, it’s beautiful! Even the banisters and along the stairs, aren’t there wonderful carvings?

LOR: And the fireplaces and everywhere, yes! So our convention, which was about our seventh, was held in the library on a sunny day, so we could lie out under the trees in this beautiful garden. Then I took a Virgin Atlantic flight (which I liked very much) and floated over to New Orleans. There we had a very dignified venue at the campus of the University of New Orleans.

I want to emphasize that we have some witches, some Catholics, some Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus—you name the religion, and we have it. We actually had two Catholic priests, one who gives his name and the other doesn’t. But the point is that we accept all religions as feminine. In New Orleans, there was a more cultural and artistic line, but they had some jolly witches who gave us a party afterward.

Olivia in her drawing room. Click to see more clearly. I cannot give photo credit. She sent me this snapshot about six years ago, with a note in its back, "The drawing room, remember?," which was her usual very sweet self.

Olivia in her drawing room. Click to see more clearly. I cannot give photo credit. She sent me this snapshot about six years ago, with a note in its back, “The drawing room, remember?,” which was her usual very sweet self.

Then, I went back to this wonderful Isis Oasis. Now, Isis Oasis is interesting because we’re now a legal religion in the United States through this Temple of Isis. We’re not pretending to call ourselves the “Church of something-or-other” because Isis is 6,000 years old, and Christianity is only 2,000. So I don’t see why we should have to pretend to be a church. And this is a Temple of Isis, where we don’t have “women priests,” we have “priestesses.” We have about 600 priestesses. We have priests as well, of Isis or whatever aspect of the Divine Feminine they wish to represent.

FDG: 600 priestesses, and how many priests?

LOR: I’m not sure, really: I have my figures at home, but the 600 includes priests. We have about 650 ordained people now in the priesthood. I ordained some in New Orleans while I was there—it was lovely—both priests and priestesses. Then I did the same at Isis Oasis. Now, that has been very generously donated by the Reverend Loreon Vigne, Priestess Hierophant of the College of Isis, to her Temple of Isis. So, really, it’s the first Isis land in America. You know, you have all these other religions having land. This 10 acres of land includes a temple, which is small, and a wonderful theater with full colored lights for ritual, which holds about 100 people. She can put up about 60 to 100 people there. There is a wildlife sanctuary for endangered species—lovely ocelots.

FDG: Her sanctuary for endangered species is special to me because, amidst all those animals, are peacocks. They are sacred to me. Loreon lets me make friends with her peacocks.

LOR: Yes, you can. And her sanctuary’s a good thing now, because some animals are dieing out, but she sells them, and some are re-introduced into the wild, whatever is necessary that can be done for them. And it’s a very, very happy retreat center: There are all these places—you can sleep in a pyramid, or sleep here, there, and everywhere. It’s a wonderful place for a convention. We had the famous Luisah Teish, who came, and Mary Greer, who wrote Women of the Golden Dawn. I’m so old —I’m 80 now—that I knew W.B. Yeats and AE and all. When you’re 80, you don’t mind saying it. I can dance and travel, and just do anything I like. I don’t feel any different from when I was young, which is very nice. When I lived in Dublin, we had a house there and we knew Yeats and that whole lot.

In Part Two, Olivia discusses visits with William Butler Yeats.

CnslingBotmBnr2

Mysticism and Non-Academic Scholarship

Posted on by
1

A mystic needn’t be an academic to be a scholar. Why is this idea important? Some people create a magical, fulfilling life based in a non-academically-shaped worldview. We also might want to teach from such an orientation. Our cosmology can be as carefully constructed and extensively developed as any scientific understanding, but many would crush our power by insisting there is only one intelligent way to see, to learn, to study.

Trust your observances made through mystical states, e.g., trance. Trust your non-ordinary modes of perception, like intuition.

I’m not suggesting you blindly believe and act on everything you think you’ve observed. For example, when you have an intuition or receive guidance from spirits, run it by a down-to-earth person who exists on the mundane plane. Non-academic perspectives are as subject to fault as academic insights.

But, luckily, I did not wait until a university validated each step of the many I needed to travel along my shamanic path. I’d have taken fewer steps, losing great joy and fulfillment, not only in my personal life but also because I would have taught less.

Academic validation does happen to me lots, and it feels nice. But relying on it as a way to tell myself or anyone else, “See, I know what I am doing” would undermine my belief in my style of scholarship. An example: Pics of subatomic particle tracks validated what I’d seen in trance for decades. But I’d validated it for myself already. Hence the painting below:ShamanicPhysics 2012-03

Training can be crucial. Just as a scientist studies his “craft,” so have I. I also spent years in trance, 24-7, researching as diligently as any scientist in a lab.

I’m not suggesting you trust yourself only if you do the full-time training or research I did. Mine was needed because of goals I had as a teacher and mystic. Otherworldly reality is innate in us all. Just as many linear-minded non-scientists trust their personal worldview, so should many mystics observe and assess their environments, drawing our own conclusions, instead of docilely following “experts.” I mention my full time commitment only to reinforce the extensive possibilities of mystical wisdom.

Insights I gain through altered states are building blocks of trainings I create. But I don’t carelessly throw something together in the name of Divine inspiration. I spend years developing a curriculum before teaching it.

My fastidiousness does not naysay the observations of someone without training. The psychic realm is as much a part of human heritage as ordinary daylight; we all have insights about it; and they are important contributions to community dialog. In fact, one of my goals as a teacher is to create tools that help people trust their insights and recover their innate mystical awareness, which has often been squelched.

Being a mystic does not deny your intellect. (And too many beautiful, astute, linear minds are used to invalidate somebody’s heartfelt, lyrical worldview.) I know amazingly left-right-brain integrated mystics.

It’s like being a musician. In my last year of college, I supposedly needed more units of logic-based classes to get my degree. But the college president felt that my thirty hours of music theory, which is mathematically based, obviated the need for further logic classes.

When I write a song, channel liturgy, or travel faerie realms for info, my intellect needn’t suppress my efforts. It can weave in and out of my emotive fanciful state, improving my effort. I also might go over what I have created to rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, until I’m satisfied.

In various mystical states, there’s a dance between the two sides of the brain and the heart and soul. Each aspect of you comes forward, adding what it can. All of you weaves constantly, in such rapid-fire succession of ever-changing intertwinings that you might be totally unaware of this complex inner interaction.

At such times, we learn truths that others may deny. We plug into immense powers to control our own destiny. We become part of miracle. Even other pagans may try to invalidate these gains, Goddess bless them, instead of realizing that their approaches and ours can be different without either of us being wrong.

But the things we learn in such states set us free.

This has been a limited view on mystical scholarship. But the crux is: Let yourself be free.

Teenie, Rest in Peace

Posted on by
6

Dec2012MoneyShotMy feline familiar of 18 years, Teenie Bear, passed away today.

She was camera-shy, so I am grateful she allowed the beautiful Dec 2012 photograph above. Her posing was such a rare and special occurrence that I called the photo The Money Shot.

Faerie art, Francesca De GrandisShe was my best friend.

She chose me as her #1 love.

She was Buddha.

No one could have been more kind or sacrificing.

Teenie Bear, my Faerie kitty, rest in peace.

Connectivity, Ecstasy, Service

Posted on by
2

If we believe in the pantheist or Taoist principle of all things being connected, we walk our talk by serving all things. As an ecstatic, I find heart-rendering joy through service.

We are part of a great weave. Call it the World tree, the dance of life, the Tao—call it Fred. We can be codependent in this weave, or we can have boundaries but still be within it. We can fight it, or we can be fed by. And we can surrender to it.

Surrender can be just a fancy pompous word unless we are of service. There are other ways one must follow through on the notion of surrender for it to actually be surrender, but for now let’s focus on service.

But before we do, I need to add an aside: I am not suggesting we must perfectly attain any of the ideals I set forth here. I would be a hypocrite to suggest I have anywhere near attained these ideals myself. I do cleave to these ideals, and do my best to achieve them (though my best is often poor), and this is all my Gods ask of me.

Okay, back to service. We can serve the weave. My belief and experience is that, if we believe the Taoist or pantheist principle of all things being connected, we walk our talk by serving all things. Serving community, serving Gaia, serving all of life, serving family, serving one’s spiritual tradition(s) and spiritual teacher(s) and spiritual student(s), serving one’s Gods.

We must also serve self, self is part of the weave. Sometimes, we best serve by serving self alone. For example, when we are ill or need to build courage to serve others. Or when we simply need time alone to enjoy ourselves.

Ultimately, to be part of the weave, we serve in surrender. I often forget that. In other words, when my Gods ask me to do something, I often try to set about doing it my way instead of Theirs. But to really do that which my Gods ask me, I must also implement it the way They ask. (Oh, my, in this essay, surrender becomes service becomes surrender.)

When we serve, we align ourselves within the weave, we start flowing with it. We start being fed by it in ways that we cannot otherwise. There is healing and empowerment not otherwise available.

What’s more, we experience connectivity so sublime that it is orgasmic. Literally orgasmic. I have great orgasms because I am of service.

I painted this blessing banner quite a while ago, but post it here bc it is in the spirit of my prayer.

I painted this blessing banner quite a while ago, but post it here bc it is in the spirit of my prayer.

Being of service is truly pagan, it’s not a wimpy trait, it is part of ecstasy. Not only ecstasy between the sheets but also an ecstatic way of life—being joyfully within the weave whether it’s with your family, your coworkers, a beautiful summer day, or the stars in the sky.

I am blessed to feel connected to every star in the universe and know the thrill of all starlight radiating around me, with me, through me. I know this weave because I am blessed to be of service.

My prayer: Gods, I know that serving is a blessing to me, because all things come from you—my breath, my ability to rise in the morning, my joy, my serving. Everything of me is from you. So do not let me think that my service to others makes me superior. Getting the chance to serve others makes me very very lucky! It is to you I must turn if I want to serve: I pray, please bless me with the power to serve—including the willingness to serve. And bless me with the humility to serve in surrender—when You set me a task, help me implement it the way You ask.

CnslingBotmBnr

The Next Lesson

Posted on by
2

The Next Lesson
Feb, 2012
I needed to inject some humor into a rough day, so it seemed a good time to share this allegory I wrote last year . . . Me, a trickster? Naw! 🙂

A spiritual teacher had three students she taught for many years. After they finished this vigorous training, one went to a dance class. He found enlightenment in that first dance class, and thought, “Ah, this is much better than what I received from my spiritual teacher, this is the real thing.” Another of the three students started a garden. In that greenery she found God, within only a few days. She thought, “Wow, look how quickly Nature brought me to God. All those years with my spiritual teacher could not do that.” The third of the three seekers became a wealthy banker, and donated millions of dollars to alleviate homelessness. Years of serving this way was his path to enlightenment, because when we do service, God enters us to live within.

The teacher, upon hearing about her students, thought, “Yes, good, my lessons worked.”

FDG2013JCrop

Francesca, 2013

Then she did what she had done every day she had trained the three of them, though they had not known it: She walked out into her garden and danced with God, who lived there, in her garden, as well as in her spirit and heart and hearth. As always when they danced, trees in her garden grew money. People threatened by homelessness, or who already suffered from it, came from miles around, because they could pick that money at will, to pay for shelter and whatever else was needed to escape tragedy.

After the dance, the teacher said to God, “Now, I hope those three students are smart enough to come back to me for the next lesson.”

Pantheism and Mosquitos

Posted on by
4

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?