Sacred Doubt

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Francesca

May I not let doubts drive me into fear-based decisions.

Recently, I was feeling shaky about my decisions in a couple of life’s arenas: I had doubts about how I approach relationship with my Gods. I was also doubting one of my financial decisions.

The doubts popped up during ritual. At first, I thought these distractions during rituals lessened the rites’ power. But I’m realizing that doubt is part of the spiritual process. Sometimes, it’s good to doubt. Sometimes, doubt adds to a ritual. (Yes, doubt during a rite can lessen its power. But I’m talking about something different here.)

I started thinking about the benefits of doubt. Doubt can lead us to change our minds for the better.

Doubt can also lead us through a process that, in the end, helps affirm our decisions and cleave to them better than ever.

Moving all the way across the country sometime soon, to return to California, is a huge decision and risk. For example, I’m giving up ownership of a three-bedroom rural home on 7/10 of an acre, with a $700 monthly mortgage payment (!) to rent at a much higher monthly cost. Eek! So I wrote a prayer about doubt. The prayer could also be used as an affirmation. I share it here in case you find it relevant to your own personal life.

If you use this prayer/affirmation, please tell me how it goes. I’d love to hear your experience, because it will be unique to you.

Sacred Doubt

May I accept my doubts.
May I recognize doubts as part of life.
May I understand doubts as sometimes part of a self empowerment process.

May I not run from doubts in myself.
May I not run from doubts in other people.

May I not let my doubts drive me into fear-based decisions.
May I not let other people’s doubts drive me into fear-based decisions.

Instead, may I remember that my doubts are a part of me
that might be need healing or empowerment.
May I give that part of myself love.
May I give that part of myself respect.
May self love and respect heal my doubts, if they need healing.*

May I allow my doubts to bless me,
with power or other gifts.

Though there are times it’s good to validate,
invalidate, or analyze my doubts,
may I take time for simple gentle awareness of them.

May this simple, relaxed observance
allow my cells’ innate wisdom
to guide my whole being, both body and spirit.

Note 1: I added the phrase “if they need healing,” because sometimes a doubt does not need healing. For example, a doubt can be a partial recognition of a truth we haven’t grasped yet. When we honor doubt, instead of trying to “heal” it, we allow space in our consciousness for the partially hidden truth to fully emerge.

Note 2: Here are instructions for the above-mentioned simple gentle awareness. Instead of watching your doubts with a sharp effortful focus that is a tiring strain, rest your attention on your doubts gently, the way your head rests on the pillow at night.

Use the comment field below to tell me your own thoughts about doubts. We all have different experiences. Perhaps yours are so different from mine that they will enlighten me. Or perhaps yours are fairly similar to mine, which would be helpful affirmation for me.

Blessed be, Francesca

On your life journey, you deserve the best tools. Click here to learn about the Faerie Ritual Set: http://www.outlawbunny.com/2014/06/11/frs/

Pagan Santa’s Elf

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Francesca

Being a Yule elf is part of my personal mythology. Do you have a personal myth this time of year? Please share it. When we share our imaginative lives, we make an even larger mythology spontaneously emerge, to enlarge all our joy, power, and creativity.

Besides, being one of Santa’s elves makes me so happy that I’m bursting at the seams! I have to share about it, or I’ll pop, like a balloon. Here goes:

Santa put me in a managerial position this year. I wasn’t sure what to think about that, at first. I mean, I was honored, but it’s not what I expected, and I did not like totally the idea.

But I’ve learned that, when Santa wants me to do something, there’s no point in resisting, because he always knows what I want, better than I might know it myself. So I knew the job would be good for me, in the long run.
Besides, I’ve worked as middle-management for chaos gods for years. I have the perfect skill set for managing wild elves and the crazy goings-on at the North Pole. Plus, I am not the only manager, the jobs are divvied up.

My particular job involves a lot of organization. I’ve been organizing the elf games (but not the reindeer games). This requires coming up with fun activities.

My elf friend Kathi Somers helped out. Her Yule gift to me this year was the Ravensberger game Funny Bunny. Yeah, it’s for ages four and up, but I’m not too proud to enjoy a silly preschoolers’ game. As the song says, “It’s a gift to be simple.” Simple things in life can be the best. And foolishness wakes up life’s magic.

My work is not just managerial, but also creative. I like that. Part of organizing the festivities has been coming up with holiday menus. Last year, I created a chocolate recipe I really liked. So I used it again this year. My personal formula for keeping spirits up during the Yule season: Chocolate lumps, not lumps of coal. Gluten and sugar-free.

I’ve also been responsible for decorating the Elfin communal spaces, to ensure the areas are cheerful, peaceful, and conducive to a happy winter. For example, the photo below:

And I painted one of my brother elves, then made the painting into a Yule ornament:

Oh, another thing: I get to be in charge of the Make-A-Wish-to-Pagan-Santa page again this year! I experience such joy doing it, because the wishes people make to Santa are beautiful! I am so lucky to convey them to Santa! Click here to make your wishes.

Share your imaginary life. Quite honestly, imaginary doesn’t mean that it’s not true. Happy holidays!

Fey Jungle Gym

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Francesca

Faerie Geometry is a Jungle Gym
There is fun and a beauty in our cells and past earth’s atmosphere. There is fun and a beauty situated between the two.

Outer space is a Fey playground. Mine. Yours.
Emptiness is a jungle gym.
We can sow our magic in the rich loam
of stardrenched darkness.
Travel past the sky
to revel with stellar ancestors.

That same infinite amusement park resides in
every atom of my being
—and of your being.
Exact same infinite landscape.
I love Disneyland.
It is advertised as “the happiest place on earth.”
I suspect that’s because it was built to reflect
the other happiest place on earth: each atom of ourselves.
Go inside, play!

There is fun and a beauty in our days.
There is fun and a beauty in our cells and past earth’s atmosphere.
There is fun and a beauty situated between the two:
it is in our immediate environment, if we only look for it.
Walk through your home; look for stuff to do and enjoy.

Micro Macro

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Francesca

Micro/Macro: A Prayer and Contemplation

l see many of a situation’s details.
Fact is, I see atoms.

I see the entire cosmos,
simultaneously noting every one of its atoms.

I see how a situation’s details
add up to a larger picture.

I see the entire cosmos
is You—God, the World Tree.

I love details—they hold You, God.
They are You, God.
I try to take care of details,
so that I serve You well.

But when I get lost in minutiae,
and I become frenzied,
show me how to serve the largest reality,
the construct that all details combined add up to
—You, God—
so that I’m aligned in beauty
with micro and macro again,
and serve both in joy.
That allows both to take care of me.
Cosmos and atoms—my God—thank you.

Wisdom and Fellowship

Posted on June 18, 2014 by Francesca

Wisdom and Fellowship

Many spiritual teachers *always* respond to a student’s question by giving them information. That can be disempowering.

Mind you, sometimes, my job as a teacher is to give you information you don’t have. But, just as often, you already have the answer to your question, and you either do not see it or do not trust it. Then my job as a teacher is to be a guide, who helps you find and honor that inner answer.

We are both wise.

I find no need to choose between honoring my inner wisdom and respecting someone else’s. I celebrate wise fellowship in which we can draw on each other’s wisdom and take turns being guides.

Diana Lucifera

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Francesca

Diana Lucifera
Love, Beauty, Blessings, and Occult Danger

Diana, the Light Bearer.
Magna Mater.
Goddess of Stregas.
You are all power, love, and beauty.
You are bliss.
You are eternity in which I reside each moment.
You are every moment.

This blog is not about the wonderful Diana that many American Pagans know—virgin huntress and patron of Dianic Wicca, a women-only witchcraft tradition.

This blog is about the equally wonderful Diana, known more in Europe. She is the Great Mother. I painted the above portrait to honor Her.

I discovered amazing love from Her and for Her. After I’ve given my students rituals to experience the same, the majority of the men chose Her as their Patron.

Pray—not just read—the following prayer, to experience an example of Her heart. It can only be understood experientially.

Prayer for Solace and to Be Filled with Her Spirit

Diana, enfold me in your embrace. Comfort me. In the wailing of my heart and the sorrow that wracks my back and chest, let yourself shine down upon me, your moon self. Hold me. Be with me. Let me feel your loving presence. Send the Bird of Heaven to me, to enter my heart and fill me with your spirit.

You know, I think I published this prayer/poem in a 1980s SageWoman magazine. … Yup, except there I’d called it “Invocation to Diana.” I called Anne NN, who gave me this link to the issue.

Running with Psychic Scissors

A blessing can become a bane. The bigger the blessing, the more it can sour. Diana bestows immense blessings, so let’s discuss how a blessing can turn against one. Much of what I will say can be adapted to apply to many other blessings and occult explorations.

She loves each of us completely, knowing every cranny of our psyche. This makes us feel special, as we should. However, specialness can cause us to doubt She can love anyone else so purely. That is arrogance.

Arrogance can ruin any blessing, in ways that harm you and people around you.

Whether a relationship with Her is new or decades old, we can stay humble, by knowing 1) its amazing love is unique yet not unique and 2) it will always be only a beginning of the love and power She can give. Thus we walk in grace and fulfillment of our life goals.

She bestows great love and great power, both beautiful beyond description. When you think you have a monopoly on a pure beauty, you’re in trouble.

I try to help my students navigate amazing gifts they receive, not just those from Diana. The occult world is dangerous if navigated alone. Without input from a teacher and other friends, any of us can badly harm self and others, despite good intentions.

For one thing, when you receive a blessing of immense power, negative spirits might try to trick you into using it for evil. They might masquerade as your Patron Deity, feeding your ego (arrogance) with “spiritual” nana.

They also might give you untrue information about your allies, making you mistreat and forsake them, so that you have no input to counter the negative spirits’.

Plus, we do not hear everything from our actual Patron correctly. We listen with flawed perceptions. Other people’s input is important.

After watching a fair number of people whose amazing, illuminating visions preceded those people’s descent down the tubes, I’m grateful for teachers who saved me from my own arrogance by consistently giving me input.

Anyone, newbie or adept, can profit from simply praying, “Diana, please shine your light on my heart, so that I stay humble in your love.”

Diana’s Secrets

Diana offers moonlit secrets. Meditate on this painting to receive a secret blessing from Diana. (You may have seen my former renditions of this decades ago. Now that I paint digitally, I can offer Her a better version.)

Paradoxes: Her secret wisdoms, being so perfect, are only for you. Keep the secrets, but do not think they make you more deserving than other people.

Closing

With humility, your power and bounty never cease.

Serve according to Her will, then your heart and cup forever fill.

She accepts our flaws.

Diana’s decades-long flawed servant, my blessings only increase.

Celebrating Our Familiars

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Francesca

Once a kitten, cute and shy, but she changed: The familiar comes of age.

I painted the above piece last fall, joyful at my little kitten growing up and coming of age as a familiar.

I also wanted to share that immense happiness about my kitty with you, in the spirit of celebrating all our familiars. Creating a painting seemed a way to do that (but I had no chance to post it til now, LOL).

Animals are far more multifaceted than some people understand, but we who live with familiars know better. Let me share a story about that.

After I painted the piece, I wanted to make a Merry Yule greeting with my kitty in it, just for my personal use. (You might have seen my post of it to wish you Happy Yule 2013.) I thought I’d try to adapt the above already-finished picture. The result surprised me and was interesting: Though the adaptation changed only the cat’s environment and the text, and left the cat itself exactly as is, a completely different facet of her became obvious.

In the original, I see her depth, nobility, and new maturity. But put her in a different surrounding with different text? Check it out below.

What a mischievous no-good girl! Such a naughty look in her eyes! None of that was apparent in the original version.

I’m not sharing the story to credit myself as an artist. My point is to credit the complexity of animals, and how you and I both see it in these two pictures, when a lot of people would not.

Here’s to our familiars, the wonderfully complex and mystical beings that are our companions, teachers, co-conspirators, comfort, partners in magic, and all around friends. I honestly do not know what I’d do without them. They play so many important roles for me. I am grateful to recognize their many facets.

Divine Embrace

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Francesca

Divine Embrace

Worship. It’s become a “bad” word. Years of oppression have turned the sweetness of worship into bitter chains. Centuries of censure replaced the ecstasy of divine embrace with a dogma of sadness. But I worship you, who reads this now.

I worship the trees. I worship snow as it falls on my face. I lift my face to the sky to worship it.

And I will not relinquish the joy of lifting my face and heart to worship my Gods.

I rededicate the word “worship.” I free it for anyone who should want it. No one gets to exclusively own it. I free it to be whatever each individual wants it to be. I free it for anyone who wants to give and receive the love and power that can occur in worship.

So mote it be.
————
Extraordinary people need extraordinary spiritual guides. Extraordinary people do not hesitate when they find a guide. http://www.outlawbunny.com/pastoral-counseling

Coven of the Dead

Posted on March 26, 2014 by Francesca

November 2013

These past two years, the need to grieve
a passing on has come three times.
And, though each passing wrenched my soul,
and I sore miss my precious friends,
in other ways they are here still,
beside me in a way that’s real.

I have a coven of the dead.
We circle still, inside my head.
Lady Jane is there with pride.
Her generous love is clear and bright.
The grin of Trickster Dawn is wide,
his loyal soul stands by my side.
And when Olivia knows it right,
she too attends e’re day or night.

We circle round inside my head,
in morning rites and before bed.
Death robs all beings, it won’t stop.
But love and light remain throughout.

The veil is thin and visits come,
the wheel of life is never done.
And when my dead have need for friends,
my love remains, again, again.

When last I leave the narrow world
from which most people never stray,
until they leave it at the end,
my friends will walk me through the veil,
and we will circle—still, still,
a coven of the dead.

I do not know why my language became archaic in this poem, nor why I chose to singsong. But it felt right. Perhaps, it distanced me enough from my pain to, paradoxically, write about it honestly. In any case, admitting my heartache opened a great joy in that aching heart, as you can see. On another note: Special thanks to VZR and KT for their support to post such a personal piece.

Ostara Art Eggs

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Francesca

Ostara Art Eggs
My Spring Equinox Altar

What is going to be on your Ostara altar? Sharing our altar journeys with each other unites our spirits—it is a way we can celebrate Sabbats together long-distance.

In my case, preparing an Ostara altar this year involved art work.

Let’s start with the Ostara pendant I made, to the right. … Um, okay, it is jewelry, not an altar piece. … But I myself can be an Ostara altar!

I love ornamented eggs, but didn’t think I’d have time to make Ostara eggs this year.

Then, I couldn’t resist when I found tiny egg-shaped unfinished wood beads. I’d been looking for them forever. These are 7/8.” See photo to the right.

They are tiny—I love tiny.

I painted one green and the other purple.

Then I ornamented them with various Jones Tones foils.

Next, I coated them with a protective clear finish.

I made each into a pendant by putting it on a jewelry pin, along with other with beautiful little beads. Joking aside about being an altar, I adorn myself in praise of my Gods.

I think some of the wee beads are Swarovski crystals but am not sure because I upcycle a lot, so do not always know what I am using.

Whatever they are, they sparkle, and this faerie loves sparkly things.

Below is another piece that will be on my altar:

Ostara Egg Cosmic Egg—Abundance and Chaos Meditation. If you would like this on your altar, click on it to go to my shop.

When I thought to myself that I’d have no time to decorate eggs, I’d forgotten that I’d already painted the above Celtic knot work talisman, probably in January. Do you ever get so caught up in creating that you forget what you have created? Let me know, please. I made this during a painting binge. Later I channeled material about it, which you can read at http://etsy.me/1pyFsvf

Traditional lore tells us that the cosmic egg explodes into chaos at spring equinox, creating the cosmos.

More knotwork: I painted this Birthing Goddess in 2013, probably during the winter. So this is the first spring equinox I can have Her on my altar.

If you would like this Goddess image on your altar, click on it to go to my shop. There, you will also find an essay I wrote, because painting Her brought up a lot for me.

She has the cosmic egg in Her belly.

My altar will also hold other pieces of my art, plus ritual objects I’ve acquired over the years—including other people’s art, such as a beautifully crafted wand, and a well-made blade. Art takes many forms.

I only speak for myself when I say that placing my and other people’s art on an altar feeds my pagan heart and imbues my Sabbats celebrations with power.

What is going to be on your altar? Is there a story about creating or acquiring those pieces? Sharing our altar plans and altar stories can be an actual joint celebration of the rituals done at our respective altars.

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