Upcoming Teleseminar

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Update: This class has been rescheduled. I hope our starting it a few weeks later than intended, and moving it from Thursday to Friday, makes it possible for you to attend this extraordinary event, since it won’t occur again for three years.
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Sleep and Other Gods—Applied Pantheism; Life as a Fey-Druid

Nurture your ability to hear Nature’s music. Join its song to heal and empower self, Gaia, and the Tree of Life.

Safe and Powerful, digital painting, Francesca De Grandis. 2013

Safe and Powerful, digital painting, Francesca De Grandis. 2013

For decades, I’ve practiced what I’ve privately defined as Applied Pantheism or Faerie Taoism. I share these personal terms now, because I want to teach more of my Druidic material to fellow seekers.

My loving, protective Gods seem to arrange a flow whereby special people visit this site. So, though some people glibly choose pantheism to avoid inner growth or spiritual rigor, I think you’re like me—wanting the full pantheistic possibility. I created this curriculum for you.

The written word can’t describe oral tradition lessons. And the attempt makes the lessons sound shallow or easily gotten elsewhere. Or what you already know. Or it sounds like hype. Nevertheless, I’ll give a few examples of what we’ll address:
* Relaxed, easygoing interaction with plants, stones, and animals, for guidance, nurturance, company, and mutual aid
* Your innate—but possibly untapped or not completely used—ability to find soul nourishment in Fey realms
* The exact pantheist modalities you personally need for maximum inner transformation
* Courage to serve community joyfully (even when “haters gonna hate”).

This teleseminar is suitable to entry-level beginners and adepts.

Nuts and bolts:
* These are group meetings by phone. To participate, just dial the phone from anywhere.
* The class meets seven consecutive Fridays, noon to 1:00 E.S.T., starting Friday April 11.
* Reserve Friday, May 30, same time, for a makeup class in case I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions.
* Tuition is $250. Your usual long-distance charges apply, and appear on your phone bill. The event’s area code is a U.S. #.
* Register online at http://www.well.com/user/zthirdrd/specialevent.html
* Or pay by check or money order.
* Upon receipt of payment, I email you event phone number, etc.
* Scholarship and work trade available. Refunds unavailable.
* Call me—814-337-2490—for more info or to discuss scholarship, trade, or payment plan. Do not email me.
* Participants are personally responsible for the consequences of their voluntary participation.

Want to be immersed in the immense love available through applied pantheism? Register now.

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!

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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

Master Healing Class

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Update: Don’t wait til “later.” This is a special event. Not likely repeated. For decades, I’ve mentored working healers from diverse traditions. Usually in context of unusually lengthy training. Now, I’ll focus a seven-week intensive specifically on it. If you’ve studied my oral tradition, you know how much I can teach in amazingly little time. Grab the opportunity.

Master Healing Class:
A seven-week seminar
for practitioners of any mystically-based healing art

An opportunity for working healers—whether you are paid or work for free, help only a few friends or offer your services to a huge community, use your mystical ability to heal the physical body or to empower the spiritual body.

These lessons transcend any healing tradition or modality because they’re geared individually toward your unique healing approach. You’ll learn what you need right now to improve your effectiveness as a healer. Tailor-made tools and paradigms to improve your particular gift.

Ask for input about any part of your healing practice, including maximum self-care while healing others. I do mean any part.

Faerie art, Francesca De Grandis

Francesca De Grandis, self-portrait

If you’ve no questions about augmenting your healing approach, you still receive lessons tailored to you, at every meeting. I channel. Each class, I also give direct spiritual transmissions to enhance your particular healing abilities, as well as direct transmissions of lessons.

You transcend the healing tradition that you work in. Or you may not be in a tradition. And you may be self-trained. Or…? Whatever your background, ultimately each healer’s approach is unique.

For three decades, I’ve mentored healers from a large, diverse variety of traditions and healing modalities. It is not about me teaching in a way that limits you to learning set teachings or set energy patterns from me. I have my own approach and help my students foster theirs, all of us guided by Divinity.

The lessons will be suitable to spiritual healers of any kind—e.g., psychic healer, tarot reader, reiki practitioner (and for some of us, those categories overlap, but I was just giving examples).

Whether your work is energy healing, shamanic, or psychic, or …, it is all good.

Powerful even for very advanced healers. I’m experienced in holding space for my peers to empower themselves. The more we grow, the more we need to sharpen our tools and selves; and a shamanic teacher on the embodied plane can augment your process.

Faerie Ancestor who is a guardian to this site. Silk Painting, Outlaw Bunny

Faerie Ancestor who is a guardian to this site. Silk Painting, Outlaw Bunny

Nuts and bolts:
* We meet by group phone call. Just dial your phone.
* We meet seven consecutive Thursdays, from 6 to 7 PM EST, starting FEBRUARY 6. RESERVE March 27, same time, for a makeup class in case I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions.
* Tuition: $250. You might pay long-distance charges, depending on your long-distance plan. If so, they appear on your phone bill. The event is a U.S. area code.
* Register here.
* Or pay by check or money order.
* Upon receipt of payment, I email you event phone number, etc. No refunds.
* If you need more info, or want to discuss scholarship, trade, or payment plan, call me: 814.337.2490.
* Participants are personally responsible for the consequences of their voluntary participation.

Don’t worry about whether questions that others ask in class will be relevant to you. As unique as you are, you’ll receive more useful material than most folks could imagine. After all these years, I am well-practiced in creating a paradoxical sacred space in which wild souls come together for individually relevant, life-changing lessons.

I can hold you and your particular needs. Enrollment is limited, to foster authentic connectivity and in-depth attention for each participant.

Support to move into your next level as a healer: Click here to register.

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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.

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

Faerie Tea Party

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Faerie tale, mystic art, and bedtime story for Pagan children of all ages. Do you drink moon tea? I wanted star tea, so made up a recipe for it.

TeaPartyOBOnce upon a time, two people went on a picnic. After a yummy meal, they noticed: They were falling in love! Mooning into each other’s eyes, they wiled away the afternoon, talking about butterflies, truth, moonlight, the meaning of life, and other important topics.

When it started to get dark, they packed up the picnic. Captured by each other’s eyes, they overlooked a teacup and saucer.

Love enchants everything it touches. So the tea cup and saucer were now magic. Stars came down from the sky to dance in and around the forsaken china.

Faeries joined in, because they are the stars’ best friends—not to mention close relatives.

And that would end the story of a Faerie tea party, except all good fairy tales have a warning: Don’t ever boil stars in water to make star tea. You’ll hurt the stars. And make them angry. You don’t want to know what happens when stars get angry at you. Instead, here’s my personal recipe for star tea:

TeaPartyOBWhen it gets dark, I put room temperature water in a jar, outside if possible. Then I say, “Stars in the sky, please bless this tea tonight.” Then I let the water sit for at least an hour. The stars will happily fill the water with starlight for you. This makes very yummy tea that fills you with magic.

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Limited first edition prints of the painting in this story are available at https://www.etsy.com/listing/171580248/faerie-tea-party-limited-first-edition

Winter Solstice Ritual 2013

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Fellow Star-dusted Traveler,

Please join me for a Yule ritual on Thursday December 19, from noon to 1:00 EST.

We will celebrate the birth of the Sun King and our own rebirth with Him. We will celebrate the Winter Goddess’ rich and immense mother-love for us. Heck, we will just celebrate!

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 three to five minutes before noon; it can take a bit to connect, and latecomers are not allowed.

I hope you come, truly! We have a great time.

Francesca De Grandis

I can’t always post announcements for my free monthly rituals here. There is no one place I announce all my events bc I do a lot of projects and do not want to bombard anyone. But I announce a good many of my goings-on in my newsletter. I hope you sign up for it because I am all about sharing the journey with fellow star-dusted travelers. Yes!

Winter Joy: A Pagan Contemplation

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image

Want support for a joyful serene winter? Check out http://www.outlawbunny.com/2013/11/30/winter-joy/

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Text of the poem, in case you cannot view the graphic:

Sink into Winter’s quiet darkness,
to enjoy peace, healing, and luxurious days.
Revel in Winter’s light:
Snow flooded by moonlight on a crisp dark night;
or lights on a Yule tree
in a dark room smelling of woodfire and popcorn.
Or the bright thrills of raucous fellowship,
children’s laughter, and holiday songs.
And sparks of inspiration
that burst into flames of joy
when we allow ourselves
to relax and revel in winter quiet.

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