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

A Pagan Mystic’s Venting

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BotmBevldNwslter

A Pagan Mystic’s Venting

Shhh, it is a secret. . . . I can yell it all I want.
Because most wrongly think they recognize what I shout.
But they only want to steal the fruits of my journey and
pretend a journey they do not take.
They’d never ride a dragon with me
into the cracks between realties.
(No, I did not intend to type “realities.”)
The few who do, I love them so.

Please forgive my bitterness about heart damage
caused me and mine.
I work to overcome sourness in my words and spirit.
I work to avoid being judgemental.
And I know most fakes lie to themselves,
becoming the ones who lose the most.
But some days . . .

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Phoenix Resurrection

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PhenxRsrctn
Phoenix Resurrection

I celebrate—here with community—my triumph over a long initiatory ordeal.

Hear my confident victory cry: 10+ years, flames tempered my steel and burned away dross. Til nothing remained except power, abundance, and beauty. Now, my story is victory and joy. I’m happier and more abundant than ever.

Humans are resilient. I overcame a 10+ year nightmare, one tragedy after another. Now, my story is victory and joy. On all fronts: Health, finances, delight, and more. For one thing—just one!—I should’ve died, but now have many good years ahead.

Here—hear—my victory cry: I did more than survive, I thrive again.

It has been quite some time, now, that I thrive again.

I thank my Gods, my community, and my stubbornness.

Victory: I was an excellent shamanic guide, but I used my extreme trials to become an even better guide, so that I can do the next works my Gods require. The foundation beneath my flight was firm, but now it is beyond strength—it is the Universe card, the Tao, the moment, the always.

A 10+ year initiatory bonfire, on which Gods stacked my old ways, til painful blaze reached sky, allowed Phoenix rebirth.

For a good long while now, that fire—transmuted—has been a nourishing Dragon fire within me, fueling my joy and Eagle flight. Some days, it quiets to a banked ember in my heart, warming my soul and loin.

Now my story is victory and joy. Doubt you can rise? You can fly! We humans can wrongly think we’ve lost ourselves. But Scorpio me was always Dragon, even when I couldn’t sense my fire.

I am Phoenix reborn. Flames laid waste the past, birthing warmth-driven foliage. Now, Phoenix relaxes—an easy flight in sacred meadow and passionate forest born from the Phoenix’s own rebirth.

I am Eagle soaring free, no longer pierced by arrow. I am Dragon holding up the sky.

Now, my story is victory and joy. I celebrate through gratefulness. Thank you.

Wyrd 2014

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My wyrd New Year’s resolution: Ecstasy and ease.

Sometimes, it is vital to do things the easy way. I work hard on my spirituality. That’s important. But we can get stuck in the idea that growth has to be all work, no play. The resulting experience sucks—I do not want to feel like God’s drone!—and does not always make for the most inner growth or power. So I constantly create fun modalities for inner change, for my students and myself.

Life and growth will not always be easy. When I’m counseling a trauma survivor, we may be in painful tears together. That is a good thing. Hard work, balanced by fun and ease, has been my ongoing approach.

Empowerment can be accomplished through joyful simplicities. Joy nurtures the spirit. For example, I receive commissions for fantasy portraits, which I paint in trance. They affirm the client’s wondrous essence, inner and outer beauty, and power. Below is one I did of myself. Scroll past it for the rest of the blog:

MddleManagment4ChaosGod2012WT

With the Divine, we can grow spiritually, and overcome obstacles, the easy way, sometimes. Heck, not just sometimes, but a lot of the time!

Recently, I asked one of my students to give me a spiritual challenge—whatever she felt I most needed to work on. Oddly enough, it was to do things the easy fun way. Huh? Me, who is already so good at that? I mean, I have a ball in my life. There is mega-laughter in the classes I teach. And my Gods have a great sense of humor, too—we have a blast together.

But you know what? My student was right. There’s always another level to reach toward. I’m forever wanting to achieve more for the community and in my private life. And I am not, right this second, referring to more fun and ease, but to what I want to accomplish overall.

After meditating on the assignment my student gave me, I realized that the progress I envisioned, for both my private life and what I want to accomplish as a community shaman, could only be achieved through a new devotion to fun and ease. Hah, what a great challenge—to have more fun than ever and go easier than ever!

2014 is my year of doing that.

With so many demands on our time and money, streamlining our lives and choosing pleasure may not seem possible. Nor may there seem time to get needed spiritual support. But here are three easy ways to do all that. There’s that word again—”easy!”

1) Ignore new year promotion-hype that sells you a lot of product, which is the same old stuff that never worked before. Stick with the tried-and-true. Sometimes, we blame the tools we have, instead of our use of them. If you’re not using a hammer, it’s not the hammer’s fault that the nail never gets driven in. Revisit one of your basic tools that has supported you in the past. Use it a little.

2) Ignore hyped up approaches that demand more time than any sane productive person has. Instead, take a moment. For example, keep your tarot deck or runes by your bed. When you wake up in the morning, pull one card or rune, as you’re scrambling out of bed to feed the kids. While you go about your morning routine, spend a few moments thinking about the card. I’m not suggesting you go into trance, sit in a lotus position, or have deep thoughts. I’m saying that, if you cannot do a lot, do not be discouraged and forsake all attempts—just do what you can. Giving a tarot card or rune some consideration, even for a few moments, can open us to Divine guidance, inner resolve, or peace, regarding the day ahead. It can really be a benefit.

3) When you finish reading this, keep heart open to fun, easy ways to: Grow, overcome life’s challenges, and have support for your life.

Here is a way to have all three. Enjoy a Spirit Portrait—it is a gentle, organic process of empowerment. And you give me a chance to fulfill my New Year’s resolution. I adore mirroring people’s wondrousness to them; it is truly some of the best fun. My spirit grows a bit with every painting. Together, we make a great 2014. . . . Wow, I love that idea! Providing joyful support, having a great time in the process, and our shared happiness? Yes! Info at http://www.outlawbunny.com/2012/03/16/fantasy-portrait/

May our fey-touched hearts enjoy 2014 to the max!

Bar1

Doing It Right?

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DoingItRightFinal

In the 80s, I had a roommate who was learning Buddhist meditation. His weekly class happened to be a night on which I always attended a lengthy Faerie ritual.

Every week, when we both returned home, I’d ask, “How was your meditation?”

He’d respond, “Difficult. How was yours?”

I’d answer, “Fun!”

As time passed, his meditations got harder and harder. Mine became more and more fun.

But, after a long time, my roommate’s meditations became fun, which told me that he’d been doing it right all along.

And mine became difficult, which told me I had been doing it right all along, too.

ClassesBotmBnr2

Snow Faerie Snowflakes

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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.

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Turning the Wheel

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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

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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?

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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

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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