The Year’s Dark Months Are a Magic Cauldron

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The Year’s Dark Months Are a Magic Cauldron

A Fairy Yearwheel Ritual With Flowers

My paperwhite bulbs arrived a few weeks ago. The above photo shows some of them the day they arrived, after I nestled them into water, to start growing.

Growing paperwhites inside has become one of my Pagan holiday season rituals in recent years.

I developed a ritual that is the growing of paperwhites. It is one of my year wheel practices. Now I consider growing paperwhites to be among the Fairy Queen’s magic spells for the fall and winter months.

Over the dark months of the year, the ritual unfolds, giving me many blessings.

For example, the bulbs I started a few weeks ago will bloom in the dark of winter. The flowers’ bright star shapes and luxurious scent will lift my spirits from winter doldrums. Lovely flowers lift the spirits, but my paperwhites will do it all the more because I add ritual elements to growing them.

They’ll also remind me that the winter darkness is the Goddess’ womb. This understanding can be a bit of an antidote to depression caused by winter darkness. The ritual elements I add allow the paperwhites to help me experience myself as Her luscious, beloved child within that womb—that winter darkness. The experience is an effective antidote.

The blossoms also remind me that in the winter darkness, I am a bright star reborn every year.

Traditional European Witchcraft’s Power and Subtlety

Traditional European Witchcraft is not always overt. Instead of visible rituals, Witch Spirituality is often internal, an ongoing Shamanic journey through life. Visible manifestations might be, as an example, enjoying one’s day. Another visible manifestation might be attempts to make a positive difference in the world. In other words, visable manifestations might the rituals’ results on the mundane plane. They can be quite striking even though the rituals are not always so “impressive.”

Growing my paperwhites unfolds as subtle rituals throughout the dark time. The rituals include contemplations but they are more than thoughts in my head. These musings are enmeshed in magical spells, and thus shift my energy and the energy of my home, blessing it. The magic might help bring prosperity, wisdom about challenges I face, and just about any other blessing.

So not only do I remember that I am their child reborn. I experience the rebirth, in all its glory and power, as the paperwhites ritual develops over the later dark months.

I experience being held lovingly close by my Goddess, the Fairy queen, as well as by the Fairy king. I need this experience because I can get SADD during the winter. The paperwhite magic mitigates that.

Paperwhites rituals are hearth magic. Kitchen magic is often viewed as shallow and not very powerful. It can be one of the most powerful magics on the planet. I teach a Kitchen Magic course that goes deep deep deep.

We find Fairy secrets in many ways. We lose them if we become ego-ridden and think the only way we can claim them is to boast of them, shouting from the rooftops. We lose them unless we have the humility to hold them close in simple practices.

All my classes embody the Fairy secrets and include lessons about the various ways you can find Fairy secrets, as well as ways you can maintain them in your life. Several of my courses do this without any of their lessons including the term Fairy secrets.

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Fairy Witch, Francesca De Grandis, is the bestselling author of Be a Goddess!. She offers classes, psychic readings, and healings. Her Goddess spirituality embraces practical magic spells. Trained from birth in a Shamanic family tradition of Italian (La Vecchia Religione) and Celtic Witchcraft, her Witchcraft is an ancient Faerie Shamanism. An Italian Witch is also known as a Strega. Francesca equates Fairy Witchcraft with Faerie Shamanism.

Africa—The Origin of Fairies

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Africa—The Origin of Fairies

Contents of Africa—The Origin of Fairies

Who Were the Original Fairies (Faeries) of Ancient Lore?

The Appropriation of African Fairy Culture and Magic

Goddess Tiamat—The Babylonian Origin of Mermaids

“It’s Not True to the Original Vision” Is a Racist Remark

Every Culture Has Wondrous Fairy Lore and Myth

Faerie Magic Isn’t a Commodity for Oppressors to Appropriate

Faerie Secrets & Sacred Mysteries Thrive Only in Shamanic Cultures

Honoring African Faery Faith Ancestors

Diversity, the Fairy Witch, Magic How-To Books and Classes

Here’s one of the most frequently asked questions about Fairies and the ancient Faery Faith:

Who Were the Original Fairies (Faeries) of Ancient Lore?

The original Fairies (Faeries / Faery / Fey …) were an ancient African tribe near the Dahomey coast. They were people of tiny stature and migrated throughout the world, teaching their enchantments.

That history was taught to me orally decades back (by someone who needs to remain anonymous) and still makes sense to me. Africa has been the birthplace of so much of the world’s culture that it likely had to be an initial source of magical culture. (Later, this post touches on how magic is not separate from culture.) Plus almost every ancient society has lore about a small, dark, magical people. One example is the Menehune—the Fey Folk of Hawaii.

Lore about the origins of Fairies differs. Some, at least on an overt level, are more mystical than what I’ve provided here. But I find none of the versions incongruent with the others.

For example, it is said Faeries descended from human women who mated with Gods. Ancient stories of Gods falling in love with human women were worldwide. Whether such lore is taken literally or not, myths in which humans and Deities couple are part of many cultures. These myths have deep roots in humankind’s psyche and echo a Fey origin that is fairly consistent outside of colonizer culture, even if we never know the actual events that underpin the myths. Not speaking necessarily literally here but, perhaps the aforementioned migratory individuals of Africa were the first descendants of women who dared to be adored by a God.

(For other lore about Fey origins, click here: Fairy, Faerie, Faery, Fey, Fay, …)

Note: I tend to use the following words interchangeably: Fairy, Faerie, Faery, Fey, Fay, Fae, … If you want to know why, click the link in the previous paragraph.

The Appropriation of African Fairy Culture and Magic

White writers almost never cite the tale of migrating Fey Africans. This lack exemplifies Africans and people of the African Diaspora originating something that is then credited elsewhere. In this case, it is the insistence that Fairies are innately a European construct.

Also, racists consistently turn BIPOC away from the very things their cultures helped create. If drawn to European shamanism, they are often treated condescendingly or excluded. When they dress up as Fairies for cosplay, they are often harassed in cosplay groups.

And lack of representation of BIPOC in modern fantasy art, literature, and film has been rampant.

Goddess Tiamat—The Babylonian Origin of Mermaids

At the time of this writing, there is tremendous backlash against Disney for selecting Halle Bailey, a black woman, to play Ariel. Ariel, the lead character in Disney’s live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, is a mermaid.

This brings to mind another erasure: Tiamat, an ancient Babylonian Goddess, was the forerunner of all mermaids. No way was She Anglo.

After examining a goodly number of online debates and articles about Disney’s casting choice, I have not seen one mention of Tiamat. It hurts my heart that Her erasure has been thorough enough that I saw no one bring up Tiamat to counter arguments that a white woman was the only appropriate person to play Ariel.

I hope mentioning Tiamat here helps a little in healing wounds from the racist comments that Halle Bailey should not have been cast in the role.

“It’s Not True to the Original Vision” Is a Racist Remark

The lack of diverse representation in modern fantasy art, literature, and film is starting to shift. But it’s a bare beginning in the face of the overwhelming colonizer culture that portrays whiteness as the norm.

(One of the exceptions to white-only fantasy movies before recent shifts is Hong Kong Cinema’s decades-long fantasy genre. Check it out if you like fantasy because it includes the most visually-stunning, pulse-racing, wildly-imaginative movies I’ve ever seen.)

One argument against Halle Bailey playing Ariel is “It’s not true to the original vision.” That’s a racist remark. For one thing, the original vision was Babylonian.

At this point, a racist will want to interject, “I was referring to staying true to the Hans Christian Andersen version from which Disney adapted their script.”

Sorry, no go. Hans Christian Andersen contributed a lot to the world, but his work also upholds racism. Disney’s cast selection is helping remedy that.

Racists are insisting that casting BIPOC in the current Lord of the Rings series goes against Tolkien’s original vision. Going against his vision is a good thing. His vision was racist.

Supposedly erudite arguments that putting BIPOC in Fairytales is inconsistent with the original tales are erroneous. Often, white people’s Fairytales are Anglicized bastardizations of BIPOC’s lore or myth.

“Upholding tradition” often means maintaining the tradition of systemic oppression.

Well-meaning white people who say, “We need to change representations of Fey legends to be more inclusive” might want to examine that sentence. It defines “we” as innately white. The global majority is not white.

Much of that majority population never viewed Fey creatures as only Scandinavian, Welsh, French, German, etc. Fairy Folk are part of most native cultures.

Every people has wondrous Fairy lore. This prevalence of beauty and power is something to celebrate, not deny.

Every Culture Has Wondrous Fairy Lore and Myth

Whether Fairy lore is Polynesian, Chinese, European, or stems from another place, it shows humankind has always had a relationship with Fairy magic. It is a human heritage that left its marks in all societies and belongs to all people.

For example, Witches centuries back in my Italian family lineage and in many ancient Mediterranean villages viewed the Goddess Diana as the Queen of Fairies.

Faerie Magic Isn’t a Commodity for Oppressors to Appropriate

Magic is not a commodity for oppressors to steal for their greedy purposes. Lore throughout the world tells of Fairy magic spells that free us from oppression. The Goddess Diana was known as the champion of the oppressed.

Magic is not an object like gold in the earth that someone can cleave from rock for selfish ends. Magic is not an object to be owned. Magic is a heritage. Magic is not separate from its environment. When stolen, the Fairy Queen’s magic spells become impotent. Here’s why:

Faerie Secrets & Sacred Mysteries Thrive Only in Shamanic Cultures

For me, Witch spirituality includes living in the understanding that everything is connected.

Faerie secrets have context. Mysteries abide in Shamanic cultures. (For brevity’s sake, I am not defining Shamanic culture here. If you need a definition, imagine what it might be. You’ll probably be close enough to understand the rest of what I’m saying.) Faerie secrets are stripped of magic when they are stolen, their cultural context dismissed.

No wonder many dishonorable culture-thieves who divide all of life up into components insist that magic doesn’t work.

Another reason they can’t find magic’s power:

Magic is the living presence of the old Gods’ loving care of Their human children. Cultural thievery breaks the link to the Gods and hence to magic. In other words, ripping magic from its culture disintegrates connection to source, which ultimately is Deity.

Honoring African Faery Faith Ancestors

The British Isles’ ancient Faery Faith is not a rigidly-defined entity, divorced from the rest of the globe. African spirituality and the Faerie Faith were never separate. The Faerie Faith originated in Africa.

Another thing Witch Spirituality means for me is that the Old Gods are my ancestors. This is more than a belief. It is also my experience.

I believe in greatness because I experience the Old Gods’ powers in me.

But no one can honor or stay connected to the Old Gods unless they honor their human ancestors. That includes humans to whom they are not related but who helped create their culture.

And all humans are related, so there we are.

As to more immediate ancestors—both cultural and biological—I’ll use myself as an example. Traditional African-based spirituality is strikingly similar to the ancient European Shamanic family lineage in which I was raised. Africans are among my Faery Faith ancestors in more than one generation. Many Africans lived in the ancient Mediterranean, intermarrying and influencing its spiritual culture. The same is true of other parts of Europe, though colonizer history denies it.

Dishonoring human sources distances one from the Old Gods.

Part of addressing ancestral trauma is healing trauma from cultural thievery that ancestors suffered. I hope attributing origins in this essay helps that healing some.

Diversity, the Fairy Witch, Magic How-To Books and Classes

I teach Goddess spirituality and Witchcraft as tools for transforming one’s inner and outer realities.

No one should be turned away from magic’s miraculous powers and joys.

Anyone who wants can be a Fairy Witch. Meditations with the Fairy Queen and other Fey rituals belong to everyone. Magna Mater—Great Mother Goddess, Creator of All—is known as the Queen of Fairies, in culture after culture. She is a loving Mother who welcomes all Her children to the empowering magic of the Fey.

If you want fellow seekers who embody diversity, study with me. Click the newsletter banner below to receive notice of new classes:

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Francesca De Grandis, Fairy Witch and bestselling author of Be a Goddess!, offers long-distance classes, Shamanic counseling, and healings. Her Goddess spirituality embraces practical magic spells. Trained from birth in a Shamanic family tradition of Italian (La Vecchia Religione) and Celtic Witchcraft, she practices Witchcraft that is an ancient Faerie Shamanism. An Italian Witch is also called a Strega. Francesca equates Fairy Witchcraft with Faerie Shamanism. Nowadays, most people do not view European Witchcraft as a Shamanic practice, but traditionally it was for many practitioners.

Urban Hedge Witch

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Urban Hedge Witch: City Magic, Parking Lots as Mystic Thresholds, & Rose Mysteries

Urban Hedge Witch

City Magic, Parking Lots as Mystic Thresholds, & Rose Mysteries

Before I share what’s been going on lately, a few introductory thoughts:

What is a Hedge Witch?

In Britain, hedges between properties are considered liminal spaces—potent realms suited to magic spells. A Hedge Witch is a magical practitioner who takes advantage of such powerful spaces to do rites.

You can think of hedges not only as as thresholds between properties but also as thresholds between the mundane and mystic planes.

A Hedge Witch is a shaman who often walks between the worlds regardless of whether a physical hedge is nearby.

Liminal spaces also provide thresholds through which we can enter into a new life, such as a transition from poverty into financial well-being or from lack of self-esteem into self-confidence.

I Love and Hate the Term Hedge Witch

When I first heard the term Hedge Witch, I was delighted. It evokes magical green depths, mysterious going-ons, and fantastical activities. However, I hate the way the term is often used nowadays aka I am a Hedge Witch. I am not like other Witches. I’m better than other Witches.

When we define ourselves by our differences, ignoring our commonalities, we strangle ourselves with categories. Definitions like Hedge Witch, Fairy Witch, and Green Witch can be wonderful when they help us find and affirm who we are magically. But they tend currently to be used divisively and arrogantly, neither of which helps magic work well.

And—I’m only talking for myself—the divisions don’t make complete sense for me because I’m a Hedge Witch, Fairy Witch, Green Witch, Shamanic Witch, and other types of Witches. They are all part and parcel of Witchcraft as I know it. I cannot be one type without being the other types. In fact, in my case, shamanism and Witchcraft are synonymous, as they were traditionally in Europe.

Again, only speaking for my Witchcraft: I need phrases like Kitchen Witch, Hedge Witch, or Solitary Witch because they each invoke a special magic that I want. They are lyric—not definitive—terms. Were I to use them as strict categories, they become cages that trap my spirit and my magic.

What is an Urban Hedge Witch?

Urban Hedge Witch is a term I made up. In the spirit of what I’ve said above, I don’t want to give Urban Hedge Witch a definitive meaning. Rather than provide a glib category, I prefer to let you read this post.

End of introductory thoughts.

A Happiness and Prosperity Ritual Using Rose Petals

I am having the best time! A friend sent me boxes of fresh rose petals.

We were on the phone, and I told her I wanted to strewn petals throughout my new apartment and, still on the phone with her, I looked up how to buy fresh rose petals online. I was stunned by the cost. My friend generously offered to buy the petals.

I’m becoming an urban shaman again after almost two decades of living in the woods. The rose petals became part and parcel of my return to city magic.

The petals strewn all over the floor are just a third of what my friend sent!


That same third is swept up against the door, waiting to be used again in the ritual:

I decided not to dump all the petals on the floor. I loved the amount that I dumped.

I’ve been walking through it, sweeping it up as a ritual for happiness and prosperity. Later, I re-scattered the petals I swept up, strewn them all over the floor again, to finish the ritual. (I’m not giving complete details of the ritual I channeled because I want to move on with the post, but here’s lots of Rose Magic info: https://stardrenched.com/2020/11/24/rose-magic/.)

And then there’s a great big container that I dumped the rest of the petals in. I put my phone next to it for scale. So many petals!

The rose petals were part of returning to urban shamanism not only because I used them in a housewarming rite but also because they were a gift from a friend. Generosity is pure magic.

The Right to Love Life and Live My Dreams

I’ve been running my fingers through the container’s rose petals, loving the licentiousness of so many petals against my skin and how it gives me permission to love life and go for broke. I also crush them in my hands for the sheer visceral pleasure of organic matter in my palms when I’m no longer in the country but in the middle of the gray dusty city.

Ritual Is as Inherent to Living as Breathing Is

My new apartment is tiny. After I moved in, it was wall-to-wall boxes. It kind of still was after only a week and a half here, though it was much better already.

I almost asked my friend to wait, not send me petals until a lot of my boxes were unpacked. I thought gobs of strewn vegetation might be a big mess, what with the crowded space.

Then I realized I should relish the roses whenever they came, and if they arrived soon, they would be a beautiful tool to bless my unpacking and other nesting.

I try to practice what I preach, and I teach to not wait until the “right” time to do a ritual, for example not wait until you are focused, or until you know what you want to get out of the ritual. Ritual is part of life, as inherent to living as is breathing, it was as much a part of the first humans’ life as was hunting.

Thresholds Can Appear Any Time, Any Place

The time when I’m not fully unpacked is betwixt and between; it is a threshold, which makes it a liminal space, a realm in which all possibilities can come forward for my choosing.

This is a perfect opportunity for rose magic. Rose is a symbol of the deepest Mysteries. Sometimes, they are more easily touched when circumstances are new or uncertain.

Plus Mysteries transcend time and space, so are always available to us, whether we’re in the country, the city, the suburbs …

Thresholds can open anytime, anywhere. I can be a hedge Witch anywhere, anytime. Someday, perhaps I’ll open the wardrobe that peeks into Narnia. That door can appear if I watch for it, continue to believe in magic, and ever-acknowledge that life’s problems are constant opportunities for spiritual growth—thresholds, for example, from self-obsession to self-care, from fear-induced stagnation to self-expression, or from resentments to emotional freedom.

To play with rose petals when there was unpacking I might have been doing was gloriously foolish and magically potent.

For one thing, it distracted me from the studio being filled with boxes, and from my being knee-deep in the chaos of constantly figuring out this new dwelling’s basics—where is the light switch I need right now, how do I buzz the person in who is trying to deliver a package, oops there’s no longer a door to my right, a wall is there now. My focus instead shifted to the eternal, the joyful, the potential for all I want to be manifested.

I’m an urban shaman again, using the magic that’s here, and the rose petal ritual was part of my reentry into that.

Urban shamanism was crucial to me till I moved to the country 17 years ago. My book, Be a Goddess!, originally had a passage about city magic. It was taken out, right before the book went to press. We needed to cut page count, and the section wasn’t pivotal to the lessons in the book. But I hated to delete that section. Remembering how crucial it was is important because it affirms my connection to the song I hear from sidewalks.

Urban Hedge Witch at Goddess Diana’s TriVia—Three Roads

In the city, I tend to rent places on the margins between two parts of town. It happens without my trying. I simply find an apartment I like, and it’s betwixt and between.

Now I’m living on the exact border between Duboce Triangle and the Mission District. I am the urban equivalent of a Hedge Witch, a shaman dwelling in liminal city spaces, living at a threshold.

There are actually three realities that my building borders because the Castro is so near that, as soon as I go out, I’m walking alongside members of the LGBTQ+ community.

I am at my Goddess Diana’s archetypal trivia—three roads. (See Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia by C.M.C. Green for more information. Or click here: https://stardrenched.com/2020/03/25/dianas-crossroads-during-the-pandemic/ )

The junction of three roads in the wilderness, another liminal space.

All of San Francisco Is Betwixt and Between

The geological features beneath San Francisco are, for me, congruent with the definition of liminal spaces. The earth under the sidewalks enlivens them until they speak to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of serpentine stone—California’s State Rock—hides below this city. Serpentine, unassuming, yet rich with secrets.

When I first returned to San Francisco, I stayed at a friend’s place for a few months in a posh area—Nob Hill.

I opened my friend’s front door one day, prepared to walk down the steps to go on an errand. But two fellows sat on the front stoop, clearly setting up for a “transaction.” When they saw me, they immediately stood but instead of walking off as I expected, they ambled only a few feet away. Then one of these shady-looking fellows leaned against a car, while his companion relaxed nonchalantly against a tree. There, they continued to prepare for commerce.

This was not an unusual occurrence. All of San Francisco is liminal, betwixt and between.

Greed’s Heartless Threshold between Wealth and Poverty

San Francisco has a merciless border—a thin transparent line between wealth and a poverty reminiscent of my worst nightmares, ones that woke me up in terror and left a foreboding I could not blithely shake.

There’s no San Francisco street where you will not see someone unsheltered. It terrifies me: the American attitude of “I want it all so will ensure very little is left for anyone else” is starkly revealed in San Francisco, and that American greedy norm could easily catapult me into poverty, as it could anyone, even someone wealthy.

I am also petrified by the fact that, were I to take a financial spill, the threshold through which one might travel from poverty to financial well-being is often impermeable. So I try not to morbidly focus on it.

Instead, I strive to acknowledge the possibility of deprivation as an ongoing fact of life, and I choose to participate in life. I must view my enormous fear and the possibility of destitution as thresholds for spiritual growth. I must face this fear yet leave it behind me. None of this is easy for someone who has known deprivation. But I have no choice. Fear will destroy the song in my soul.

I must also remember magic removes barriers (though my fear would tell me otherwise and can be hard to shake off) and take life’s ever-present possibility of pauperization as a threshold in which magic abounds—enchantment that I can embrace as a tool to, among other things, manifest prosperity.

Magic is miracle, so I can let go of the self-defeating belief “The deck is stacked. Success is impossible” and replace it with “All goodness is possible. All thresholds into plenty are possible to traverse.”

My Home in the Hedges

All San Francisco residents are liminal dwellers, but this current apartment stands at so many crossroads and borders, more than I’ve already mentioned. For example, the range of incomes demonstrated by the homes on my one block is remarkably wide. And then there’s the large parking lot by my building.

The lot accommodates a few businesses—a Fed Ex, a pet supply store, and a law office. The lot is a beehive of wildly disparate activity all day, ranging from elderly individuals carrying packages (usually well-off elders, or so their vehicles would imply), to truck drivers who I suspect are long-haulers taking a break, to drug dealers, to teenagers whose cars blare loud tunes, to elegant young gay couples with their dogs.

Unsheltered individuals go to and from the parking lot, as they do throughout San Francisco, though the proprietor of one of the stores makes sure no one sets up camp there.

One day, I looked out to see a homeless man whack back all the overgrowth that had come through the lot’s back fence. I don’t know why he did that. Did the owner of the parking lot hire him? A huge pile of cut-down brush is there now, weeks later. I don’t think it’s all from that one incident. I’m surprised no one’s taken it to build shelter.

Another day, I looked out and, in the corner of the parking lot right below my kitchen window, a homeless man performed obsessive and compulsive movement patterns for about ten minutes. … Well, I’m not sure he did it the whole 10 minutes since I walked away from the window and returned only briefly to peek surreptitiously.

Last week, I happened to notice a woman in the same spot below my kitchen window. As I said, it is not only homeless people who come to that parking lot but San Francisco residents of all kinds, constantly. Beautifully dressed and sharply focused, she was exiting her car. Then she placed a small rug on the ground. After removing her shoes, she stepped on the rug and knelt for, perhaps, Islamic prayer. I backed away from the window, not wanting to disturb her worship. I returned to the window moments later to see her put her shoes back on, pick up her rug, get in her car, and drive away.

This week, a man appeared in the same spot, with his own car, prayer rug, and fulfillment of sacred obligations. Like the woman who had been praying, he appeared to be well-off.

That spot below my window is the parking lot’s most recessed corner, so has become a haven for city dwellers.

How could a parking lot not be a mystic threshold, with the constant comings and goings and potential for anything to occur?

My Home Is in My Heart

I think the Old Gods sent me to this apartment to grow spiritually, become more prosperous than ever, indulge in glorious Mysteries, hone my urban shamanism, and dwell in my full power during my elderly years (I turn 73 this fall).

I may not remain in this apartment for more than a year. It might be a transition. Yet another liminal space.

But my home is in my soul and in care from my Gods, including Gaia and Mother California.

I do not feel rooted into this apartment. I feel rooted into the land beneath it. This plot of earth loves me. As did stony Nob Hill when I briefly lived there.

My roots extend deep. My roots extend wide throughout the West Coast. Uprooting myself to move to Pennsylvania was awful and unsuccessful. I felt like my legs had been cut off, my roots still here. In my 18 years in Pennsylvania, there wasn’t a day I didn’t miss being here.

Children Understand Magic and Liminal Spaces

I grab a huge bunch of rose petals. It is a small amount compared to the exuberant quantity in the container. I drop the bunch back in, I repeat this—grab and drop, over and over, the feel of the petals in my hand, then I squeeze the red velvet as it heals my weary eyes, squeeze, drop, squeeze, drop, then press my face hard against the vegetative red.

One of my favorite childhood memories appears—my father clipped the hedges (oh my, hedges, I never made that connection until right this second) then put the clippings into a huge barrel, after which I found a long something, stick he had chopped from the hedge? Shovel? and I used it to stir the clippings, stir the leaves, pretending to be a Witch, one of my favorite childhood memories, my young heart delighted by the fancy.

The delight made child-me as big as a fairy tale.

All my rose play now and the memory remind my belly and soul that anything is possible; I have all the power I need to achieve what I want.

Taming the Wild? I won’t Let That Happen!

My father, who was a terrible man, burnt down my mother’s rosebushes. (Roses! Everything is connecting. Mom’s beautiful womanly magic in the backyard.)

When he cut the hedges, he must have been trying to tame them, sculpting them into typical bourgeois rectangles. I suspect my child self felt, deep down unbeknownst to herself, that she was rescuing that liminal space, freeing it to be wild again.

I have all the power I need to achieve what I want.

So mote it be! Thank you, thank you, my Gods, my California, and my friend who sent me rose petals!

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In the Goddess’ Care

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Basking in Goddess Love

A Three-Month Immersion in the Presence of the Divine

The Goddess’ care of you will improve everything in your life, both mystic and mundane. Consistently experience Her love for you. Viscerally feel trust in love from the Divine so you relax as you go about your day. Reside in empowerment from the Fairy Gods.

What Is Basking in Goddess Love?

Basking in Goddess Love is a three-month immersion in the Presence of the Divine.

The event consists of half-hour rituals, three times a week, via teleseminar—group phone calls. No special technology; just dial your phone.

The whole time, every meeting, will be ritual, during which we simply spend time with Fairy Gods. (The word Gods includes male, female, and any other gender Deity.) In other words, our sole activity: to be in the presence of the Divine.

The exceptions will be a few preparatory steps, which I lead during the meetings. For example, we’ll set up protection to create a safe space for ritual or will center so you can focus on the rite. You’ll also need three minutes after each session to do a special grounding I’ll teach.

How Can a Half-Hour Just Being with Fairy Gods Help Me?

Simply being in Their company is to receive all blessings.

The rituals will be a chance to completely give yourself over to care from the Fey Gods.

When I spend a half-hour visiting my Gods, everything changes. No matter how much negativity or despair I feel, how many problems have piled up, or how much evil I see in the world, if I spend a half-hour with my Gods, I turn into a completely different person—the truest me. I become more centered and strong. Ideas and solutions I need come to me intuitively. A positive attitude is easier to sustain.

The energy around me shifts, too. My luck is better. Throughout the day, I’m more likely to feel my Gods by my side, the wind at my back, and my feet firmly on my path.

Trauma, Shamanism, Divinity

I want the world to be my talisman. I want the whole day to be my talisman. But how do I reach that talismanic reality when there’s so much horror and woundedness all around me in the world, every day?

Despite challenges, trauma, and the cruelty we see, the Great Mother Goddess—Magna Mater, known worldwide as the Fairy Queen—and other loving Gods can help us have the inner power to control our lives and make a better world.

Simple experiential awareness of Their presence helps heal trauma.

Repeatedly focusing on companionship with Them also brings us into a beautiful liminal space in which we shift into peace, prosperity, healing, power, and happiness.

Some of us need empowerment more than ever right now. Experiential awareness of the presence of the Old Gods provides it.

Consistent ritual is vital in difficult times. During crisis, enrolling in this event might be one of the most important steps you take. For one thing, it’ll help bring the most powerful you forward to face challenges and accomplish exactly what’s needed.

Schedule

Basking in Goddess Love meets for three months, starting May 2.

Three times a week, I will lead half-hour-long ceremonies via group telephone calls.

To participate, simply dial the phone.

We’ll meet from 2:00 to 2:30, Eastern standard time—11:00 to 11:30, Pacific time—on Mondays, Wednesday, and Thursdays.

Reserve Wednesday August 3 and Thursday August 4, the usual time, for makeup sessions in case I’m unavailable for planned sessions.

Enrollment is $250 a month for three months. Your carrier might charge you for the calls.

I’m charging far less than I would usually for the amount of work I’ll be doing, because you needn’t attend every ritual. You have the yummy option of coming to all of them, but you can miss meetings without wasting your money. Show up when you can, even if it’s only half of the meetings.

I won’t repeat information and rituals that you missed. If that leaves you unclear about something during a meeting you’re in, just do the best you can, going along for the ride. You receive huge benefits when you simply show up for rituals in which you feel a Divine presence. Plus the accumulative effect of the rituals’ loving energy is huge. More about the accumulative effect is below.

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Limited enrollment. Upon receipt of payment, your seat is reserved. You receive event phone number, etc., by email. Refunds unavailable. Call me if you want more information or to discuss scholarship, trade, or payment plan. My number is below.

Basking in Goddess Love can be used as one of the two qualifying electives needed to participate in the advanced Fairy Witch Training .

Are You Thinking, “I’m Too Busy for These Rituals”?

When I’m not centered in my Gods’ love for me, I lose far more time than the three half-hours a week we’ll do ritual. Without that centering, I waste time on worry, obsession, time-robbing bad habits like too much social media, and ineffective solutions to problems so I am battling them endlessly.

In ancient shamanic culture, tribes were busy—hunting, weaving, etc.,—and all the more so during crisis. However, they didn’t try to shoulder on without group rites. Sacred group meetings were part of the everyday, even during major upheaval.

More Benefits from Being in the Presence of Fairy Gods

I find the Old Gods so beautiful that, when I am conscious of Them, as we will be during the rituals, Their beauty somehow reveals and affirms the full extent of my own inner and outer beauty. This is self-confidence to the max.

Experiencing Their beauty also centers me into my wisdom, gloriousness, and power. I also center into a flow of beneficial synchronicities.

Their beauty washes away my doubt and pain.

When I am aware of the presence of the Fairy Queen and the other kindly Fairy Gods, They are more able to lend me all Their powers.

They are more able to give me assistance, sustenance, magic, joy, and good luck.

How Do I Benefit from Repeatedly Spending a Half-Hour with Gods?

After visiting with Them on a regular basis for a while, you start to feel Them with you more consistently, not just during our rituals or on the days you attend them.

A half-hour with Pagan Gods three times a week snowballs into ongoing blessings, for example, you more consistently go about your life centered into your truest needs and wants, and you live in peace and love.

The sum of the whole becomes greater than its parts. This includes extensive healing. This three-month immersion is a soul-healing, which is greatly needed by some of us in these crazy times.

Healing includes recovering from ancestral traumas.

If You Know How to Visit Gods Without a Facilitator:

If you have the skills to visit Gods on your own, it might be hard for you to get around to doing that, unless you are part of a scheduled group.

And it can be hard—if not near impossible—to find time and willingness to spiritually tend to oneself on one’s own.

Honestly, part of why I’m leading this group is so that I have to show up three times a week to hang out with beautiful people and my sweet Gods. It’s amazing how much we humans can resist the very things that are best for us and that we love.

If lack of time keeps you from shamanic self-care, including creating or choosing rituals to take care of yourself, I have your back. I have rituals already prepared for you.

You needn’t go it alone.

What Will Our Visits with Gods Be Like?

To be in the company of the Fairy Queen and all our other good Fairy Gods is to be in Their hearts, Their care, Their magic, Their realm.

The Old Gods are miracle makers so a half-hour with Them can accomplish a lot.

For three months, we will be immersed in the source of all power.

Otherworldly time spent with Them is a nourishment and joy unlike almost anything else.

There will be various rituals. Here are some of them. We will:

* Visit the Goddess’ garden of bounty. She never kicked us out of the primordial garden. The Biblical story that we were thrust from the garden is a lie tailored to convince us we need to toil miserably for our nourishments. No! The Old Gods will welcome us into the garden and shower bounty on us.

* Also visit the Avalon isle and other Fey realms where Gods walk.

* Dwell in magic. The current of magic that flows through the universe is the living presence of the Gods and Their love for us. When we sink into that magical flow, it carries us to our dearest goals.

* Abide in Their Love for us, in the sense of settling into that love and experiencing its transformation of us and our lives.

* Revel in connectivity with the cosmos. That connectivity is union with the Gods.

* Worship the Gods, not in the usual sense of uplifting them while demeaning ourselves but in a mutual, empowering celebration of ourselves and Them.

* Nestle into the good luck that flows throughout existence. Good luck is the Fairy Gods’ care for us.

We Will Avoid Hard Spiritual Work, LOL

I am planning rites that are joyful and easy. Sometimes shamanism is hard. But not always.

Though this event nurtures inner growth, it is unlike many of my events. We will not pursue the usual vigorous disciplines I teach. For example, the focus on inner growth will not include examining oneself for behavior, feelings, and ideas that hurt oneself and others.

A mystical approach that does not include hard work can be escapism and function like a drug unless accompanied by the ongoing spiritual practices that I teach. But they are not part of this upcoming event because everything has its season.

There is a time to simply be in the presence of Deity. That is what we will do.

Catch a breath. Rest, recoup, regroup.

Relax. Let yourself have ongoing easy spiritual sustenance.

During every ritual, I also give a direct spiritual transmission.

To define my transmissions: I was born generating a beneficial field of energy. During our meetings, it adapts to your needs, e.g., personal growth, soul-healing, physical health, joy, safety on the mundane and etheric planes, the spiritual strength to get back up after life’s knocked you down. The transmissions do not focus on one benefit only, but bless you as a whole being. They also add luck to your efforts to improve your life.

Skepticism about Spirituality Is Healthy

Be Skeptical.

If you’re dubious about these rituals accomplishing what I’ve outlined, you’re smart. The world is full of “spiritual” con-artists.

My claims aren’t hype. If one of my services or books accomplished something for you that nothing else had, that begins to give you the real picture.

I trained from childhood as a shaman. I dedicated my life to developing shamanic skills and innovative ritual methodologies and to becoming a guide capable of addressing different life arenas at depth.

I can make a half-hour shamanic experience extraordinary.

Don’t take my word. Trust what your gut tells you. … Does it say my methods create miracles?

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Pagans, Publishing, Morals, and More

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Francesca De Grandis and Anne Newkirk Niven discuss Pagan publishing, spirituality that gets you through hard times, building Pagan community, and ethics.

Anne Newkirk Niven is the editor and publisher of Witches&Pagans magazine and SageWoman magazine. She has been a Pagan publisher since 1988, and lives with her family in Forest Grove, OR.

Francesca De Grandis, bestselling author of Be a Goddess!, is a fairy witch. She offers long-distance classes, shamanic counseling, and healings. Her Goddess spirituality embraces practical magic spells.

Francesca De Grandis: Anne has maintained high ethical and professional standards over the decades I’ve known her. That, along with her devotion to community service, make her a precious spiritual force. So I felt impelled to interview her. Anne, how have your goals as a priestess-publisher evolved over the years? 

Anne Newkirk Niven: My goals as a priestess-publisher remain the same over 30+ years in this profession, but how I implement them has changed over the years.

Those goals are (in order of importance): foster and promote Pagan-centric community; provide information of use to Pagans, witches, Wiccans, polytheists and Goddess-centric folks; not go broke (personally) in the process.

What’s changed is an original emphasis on ink-on-paper magazine publishing, then a 5 year stint with an emphasis on social media, and now, a return to magazine publishing. Social media was a bit of a sugar high: lots of fast, short term growth, but no long-term satisfaction for me as a publisher.

Francesca De Grandis (FDG): Please tell me something in your specific, personal Pagan spirituality that gets you through hard times.

Anne Newkirk Niven (ANN): My personal Pagan spirituality is very eclectic, but nourishing. The one ritual that gets me through is saying grace with my family once a day (some days that’s brunch, other days it is dinner, depending on schedules) before meals. Our grace is idiosyncratic, was created by me, then added to be our oldest son when he was about seven, then amended again by adding a Japanese phrase taught to us by an exchange student from Japan. It roots our days in each other, as well as in gratitude for what we are given.

FDG: I’ve known you a long time and have seen you continue to strive toward a high moral standard. What helps you keep working toward your ideals? 

ANN: Honestly, that’s a hard question. What else would I do? I guess that I really don’t think I’m doing anything extraordinary. I was raised Christian, but in a liberal church (the type that’s almost extinct these days, sadly) and I internalized the concept of self-sacrifice, honor, and compassion. That didn’t change when I became Pagan. So, it’s pretty much key to my self-image to do my best to uphold these ideals. If I did otherwise, I wouldn’t recognize myself.

FDG: Is there a Deity who has substantially supported you in your community work or personal life? If so, can you explain Their particular powers and how those powers have helped you?

ANN: I seem to be something of a serial monotheist: a series of gods (only one, actually) and goddesses have influenced my life, but seemingly for specific purposes. Usually a deity speaks to me, asks me to do something, and then when I’ve accomplished that goal, bids me farewell. First was Jesus (who I call “J.C.”) who I was very devoted to as a tween and in my teens; then a large number of goddesses in my twenties and thirties, and then a slow parade since then. I’ve had relationships with, including Mary, Kuan Yin, Oshun, and Frigga, among others. Although I have felt upheld by each of them, I wouldn’t say I relate to their powers or attributes, more to their personalities. Lately I think I’ve been called by Sigyn, but I haven’t quite figured out that relationship yet.

FDG: Is there anything else on your mind you want to share?

ANN: I’d like to share the idea of being kind to one another. I’m acutely aware that, as an interlocking set of communities, we Pagans, Witches, Wiccans, Polytheists, and Heathens (and more and allies) are a fractious bunch. But I would like to ask us all to elevate the virtues of compassion, kind-heartedness, steadfastness, and empathy. This is a very challenging time to be alive, but the gods and goddesses called us to be here, and I believe it was to share their love with the whole world, not through evangelism or bringing people to a specific path, but through living as if we gave a care about others. That’s my guiding light.

FDG: I love the beauty and honesty of your answers and cherish your closing remark. You are my spiritual sister, Anne. Thanks so much for talking to my website visitors.

ANN: I love you right back, sister!

For anouncements of upcoming fairy shamanism classes, freebies, and other sparkly yummies, click the newsletter link below.

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

The Well-Rounded Witch Training

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The Well-Rounded Witch Training: Learn Different Fairy Magics so You Can Improve Your WHOLE Life

The Well-Rounded Witch Training

Learn Different Fairy Magics
so You Can Improve Your Whole Life

Starts January 23, 2022

Classes are teleseminars—group meetings by phone. Just dial the phone to participate.

The Well-Rounded Witch Training consists of four courses, each focused on a different magical speciality.

These four areas of magical expertise contribute to your being a well-rounded witch who has the exact powers needed for any situation.

Fairy witches tend to be eclectic. I strive to be a sorceress who can use all the types of magic that’ll improve my inner and outer life. This series of courses is for individuals like me.

I want magical abilities that can meet any challenge or opportunity. This includes rituals that foster the mundane abilities needed to meet any challenge or opportunity. This series of courses is for individuals like me.

I’ve taught some of these classes since the ‘80s because they’re magical training that makes a difference.

The courses are Fey-touched, not abstract theory about Faerie shamanism. The Well-Rounded Witch courses train you in elven wizardry—application of Faerie shamanism to real life. Shamanism can not be learned in a vacuum. Learning shamanism requires applying it to real life. As a result, you enjoy a wonderful life blessed by the Fay Gods, and your own unique Fey light shines fully.

The Fairy Gods are alive. They are movement. They are fecundity. Reduced to theory, They’d be immobile, dead, and fruitless.

The Fairy Gods are every moment.

Life is movement and a series of ever-changing moments, not static. These classes help you feel your movement, fecundity, and ever-evolving being, within a larger fecundity, a bardic symphony, an enchanted dance—a beneficial flow of blessings surrounding you and your days to create positive change, right direction, and the happy breaths of a fulfilled person. You directly meet and dance with the Old Gods.

This is mysticism grounded in practical spell-crafting—witch spirituality integrated with common sense; the combination improves your whole life.

The four courses of The Well-Rounded Witch Training combine to make a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Lessons help your innate metaphysical power grow, so spells you cast from any course become more effective because you’ve taken the other courses. Also, you learn enchantments that, while actualizing the goals on which they’re focused, also spread blessings to the rest of your life; the more magic you do toward some of your goals, the more all your other dreams are fulfilled.

The weave of the four classes also provides the following benefits or brings them to the next level:
** Profound soul-healing occurs, sometimes so easily you don’t notice it till later.
* You Honor and draw on the Deity within.
* Serving all our relations in the ways your heart wants becomes more possible.

No prerequisites required to delight in these Faery Faith rituals and mysteries.

The training is suitable to all levels. Adepts experience sufficient depth. Beginners are not overwhelmed or left to fall behind but given the guidance they need.

Any two of these courses can be used as the two qualifying electives needed to participate in the autumn 2022 advanced Fairy Witch Training.

This eight-month shamanic journey has four powerful aspects:

1) 28 lessons. We meet in teleseminars—group phone calls. To participate, just dial your phone.

We’ll work in old-style oral tradition, allowing immense headway quickly. Enrollment is limited to 16 people, to allow ceremonies that can only happen in a small group, and so each participant can receive individualized attention, should they want that support.

I commit to my students. A shamanic journey is personal. Traditional shamanic lessons include individualized attention, which tailors the training to you.

2) Direct spiritual transmissions occur each meeting, deepen the rituals, make them safer, and increase experiential understanding of the course material.

The transmissions also enliven your cells, so your magic wakes to its next level of power as do your mundane strengths.

There are other benefits; the transmissions’ energies adapt to your needs, blessing your internal and external life.

I cannot imagine oral tradition without direct spiritual transmissions. They seem part and parcel.

(I’m not explaining what spiritual transmissions are because the important thing is the benefits they’ll give you during the training. If you want a definition, click here—https://outlawbunny.com/2020/11/19/what-is-a-spiritual-transmission/—and be apprised that my definition is not typical.)

3) One-on-one support by phone. I’m available should you need to privately discuss anything, or if something comes up for you during a group meeting and would take too long to discuss during that meeting.

Below are the four courses, in the order they’ll be held.

Course One, Herbal Magic of the Faerie Faith

Course One: Herbal Magic of the Faerie Faith

Learn magical herbalism taught by the Fey Folk.

* theoretical underpinnings of effective plant-based rites

* practical herbal spells for love, protection, and bounty

* green enchantments for spiritual-healing and inner wisdom

* sexual health through mystical foliage enchantment

* the hidden freedom, wildness, and passion that flora offer us

* spells based in solid effective magical techniques

Plus, your connection to the Old Gods automatically deepens so Their blessings in your life increase, and you can revel in the blissful joy of Their company.

These particular herb lessons also ignite a Fey-touched joy that helps make life worth living.

Since 1988, this Third Road herbal training has provided rare Faerie spells and lore. (Third Road is the name for the body of material I teach.)

I channeled this sigil and put it here to bless these courses.

Course Two: Writing Magic!—Word-Craft to Transform Your Spirit and Your Life

Course Two: Writing Magic!—Word-Craft to Transform Your Spirit and Your Life

Anyone can use word-magic, not just people who think of themselves as writers or are experienced wordsmiths.

FaerieRlmWetWPnk99Learn the bards’ skills—the magical art of shaping reality for yourself and others by writing, e.g., journal entries, musings, stream of consciousness, poems, songs, rituals, or tales.

Writing Magic! draws on traditional witch wisdoms to:

* Reach your life goals through bardic magic.

* Use word magic as a tool for inner and outer transformation.

* Use writing to heal your spirit, enrich your inner and outer life, and also to make a difference in the world.

* Overcome challenges to authentic self-expression.

* Meet the Muse and find inspiration for writing, other art, and a happy life.

* Learn how to get yourself writing, which helps you also get going on any project, e.g., cleaning the house, exercising, or practicing a new art form.

Bardic magic also automatically imbues your daily activities with confidence, passion, and vigor. You are better able to center into your power and essence so you make powerful decisions.

Whether you’re a complete novice or professional writer, whether you prefer to journal unread or hope to publish, you can expect to grow as a person, magician, and wordsmith.

You’ll create a new world, not merely on the page but in your actual reality. A word-magician’s language comes alive with enchantment and joy.

“A lot of melody just comes to me but I hated the lyrics I wrote, so stopped trying. After three weeks of using Francesca’s material, two whole songs just came to me. I’m writing!”—Bob W, producer, songwriter

Relevant background: Francesca De Grandis’s bardic works—written texts and oral teachings—shaped the liturgy and culture of the Pagan movement. Her bestselling, lyrical album of original songs Pick The Apple From The Tree was a top ten in New Age Voice and selected by SageWoman magazine as one of the thirteen most important albums of the Goddess Spirituality movement.

Course Three: Living Tarot—the Major Arcana

Course Three: Living Tarot—the Major Arcana

A tarot deck traditionally consists of Major Arcana cards and Minor Arcana cards.

This class focuses on the Major Arcana cards, which represent major changes and patterns, such as the overall spiritual and mundane journey through life. We will explore the Major Arcana’s

* divinatory meanings (fortune-telling)

* metaphysical teachings—esoteric wisdoms that empower you on the otherworldly and worldly planes

Strength, tarot card, Francesca De Grandis, 12-03

Strength, tarot card, Francesca De Grandis, 12-03. Click on the painting to see it larger.

This two-pronged approach to tarot fosters your Fey-touched mysticism while also providing you with down-to-earth guidance about finances, love, and other worldly concerns.

You will learn how the Major Arcana can guide and inform you about anything. For example, the cards can
* Expose the back-stabbing at your place of business so you can navigate it successfully.
* Reveal your inner blocks to happiness and how to move past them.
* Affirm your particular abilities as valuable to community.
* Point out the steps toward being of maximum service to your tribe.

And your inner guide will automatically become stronger.

Methods to draw on the Major Arcana’s divinatory and esoteric powers will be taught in an organized and experiential program of inner change and magical spell-work.

No previous background in Tarot required..

Fool, tarot card, Francesca De Grandis, 12-03

Fool, tarot card, Francesca De Grandis, 12-03

Students need a deck of Rider Waite Smith cards (also known as the Rider Waite deck) with them during class meetings. If you prefer using another Tarot deck, the lessons are applicable to most, but we all need the Rider Waite Smith deck as a common visual reference during the course.

My qualifications: I have been a tarot reader since the 70s, professionally since the 80s. Most folks do not know that Third Road classes started with Tarot classes. I regularly taught Tarot as a tool for divination, personal growth, and magic for many years. Now I teach Tarot only occasionally. My Tarot—and other mystical—methods are so innovative that they have been integrated worldwide into numerous systems of inner change. This has happened so often that a lot of my techniques are considered traditional, anonymous material.

Course Four: Animus Power—A Ritual to Claim Your Healthy, Joyous Masculine Power

Course Four: Animus Power

A Ritual to Claim Your Healthy, Joyous Masculine Power

This course is a seven-week shamanic ritual for women, men, and individuals of any other gender identity or lack thereof.

2ndGreenMan1

My description of this event and ideas about related matters are not intended as definitive gender statements, but are how I express theories and modalities I developed based on my experiences of my animus and the animus of other individuals.

Language can limit communication. Shamanic empowerment is communicated energetically and experientially. I encourage you to revise my words according to your beliefs if you want. You can use this course’s tools to transform you and your life in ways nothing else can. They’ve changed person after person’s life substantially for the better. So much freedom has been reached!

And with that:

Everyone has a male aspect. (The word animus means a person’s male aspect.)

In most people, the male aspect gets seriously wounded. Society works hard to blind us to this wound. Many individuals with a wounded animus don’t recognize that some of their major life problems stem from that wound.

In this course, we heal that injury and empower a caring, healthy, holy, joyous masculinity within ourselves.

We also discover and embrace the internal, loving father.

The animus healing and empowerment I’ve described helps you:

* Take action on your visions, making your dreams a reality. E.g., you acquire the power to serve your tribe

* Replace frustration and hopelessness with the determination to accomplish whatever is important to you.

* Stop procrastination and other self-sabotage that keeps you from following through on your objectives. Work toward your happiness right to the finish line.

* Express yourself fully and with confidence. When we set free the suppressed animus, we become assured and buoyant. It can be overwhelmingly difficult on one’s own to find one’s animus let alone recognize it as suppressed. I will show you how to do both.

* Heal the (often subconscious) shame of a suppressed animus. Expect a big boost in self-respect when you take this journey with me.

* Leave behind the depressing inability to find solutions. More easily see ways to survive, thrive, and self-express, and have the power to do so.

Those are big benefits that spare us misery and help make life joyful.

Starting about 1987, I led this Animus Power ceremony regularly for years. Though it helped attendees considerably, I stopped offering the event for a long time to focus on other shamanic work, though I consistently shared some of the ceremony’s material in my classes and with clients one-on-one. I started offering the ritual again but not on a regular basis. I’m thrilled to be in a position to lead the ritual this year so you can experience all its joyous, important material.

My relevant background: I developed innovative modalities for—and understandings of—gender empowerment (for example, my concept of, and rites to free, a suppressed animus). I am trained in traditional shamanic healing forms of gender empowerment and also did original, related anthropological research.

“Her insightful research in anthropology led to her innovative work in the modalities of spiritual healing.”—S.S. Kush, Professor of Anthropology

Participants have found this ceremony to be an irreplaceable pivot point toward reaching inner and outer goals that previously had them stymied. Nothing like this process is available elsewhere, even after three decades of my teaching it.

AnimusDetail

Schedule

This eight-month training has 28 lessons, all on Sundays, 3:00 to 4:00 pm, EST (noon to 1:00 pacific time), starting January 23.

Course One, Herbal Magic of the Faerie Faith, is seven weeks long, from January 23 through March 6. Reserve 3:00 to 4:00 pm est, Sunday March 13, for a makeup class in the unlikely chance I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions.

Course Two, Writing Magic, is six weeks long, from March 27 through May 1. Reserve 3:00 to 4:00 pm est, Sunday May 8, for a makeup class in the unlikely chance I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions.

Course Three, Living Tarot, lasts eight weeks, May 29 through July 17. Reserve 3:00 to 4:00 pm est, Sunday July 24, for a makeup class in case I can’t attend one of the planned sessions.

Course Four, Animus Power, lasts seven weeks, from August 14 through Sept 25. Reserve 3:00 to 4:00 pm est, Sunday Oct 2, for a makeup class in case I can’t attend one of the planned sessions.

There is a break after each course to keep the schedule from being overwhelming.

Enrollment

Total cost—for 28 classes, direct spiritual transmissions, and one-on-one private support should you desire—is $200 a month. Your carrier might charge you for the phone calls into the lessons.

Enroll securely with PayPal. Use the Subscribe button below for automatic monthly payments of $200, for eight months.


Pls give me yr phone #



Upon receipt of payment, your place is reserved. If you do not receive an email confirming your payment within a few days, please check your spam filter and spam mailbox. If the email isn’t there, or you want to discuss a scholarship, semi-scholarship, trade, or a payment plan other than the subscription option on this page, or you need more information about the course, please call me at the number below. No refunds. However, you can cancel your subscription any time after the two payments for the specific course you’re in at the time of cancellation.

A few days before your first class, you receive an email with the course details—e.g., the phone number to dial for the meetings.

To participate in only part of this training, contact me, letting me know which course or courses you want. I will invoice you for $400 per course, paid in installments of $200 a month. Each course stands on its own, a training unto itself.

If you’ve taken any of these courses, repeat enrollment is half-price. Contact me, letting me know which courses you want to repeat, and I’ll invoice you through PayPal.

If you want to study these fields of magical expertise, now is the time. I’m pretty sure I haven’t taught the Tarot course and the Herbal Magic course since 2012, so who knows how long it will be before I teach them again. I probably won’t offer Animus Power again for another five years. It’s been years since I’ve taught Writing Magic!, and I don’t know if I’ll teach it again. Take these classes while you can. Embrace your animus power, herbal power, bardic power, Tarot power.

These lessons have saved me over and over. I’m blessed that the Goddess whispered them to me. More on my curriculum-creation process:

* When teaching orally, I’m ensconced within a family oral tradition I entered in infancy, learning magic con leche. I received experiential wisdom-lessons not taught elsewhere.
* Raised in a European-based shamanic family tradition that includes both Italian sorcery and Celtic shamanism, I teach a multicultural Faerie shamanism.
* I joyfully, carefully channel curriculums, constructing lessons over time. This tunes us into enormous, subtle powers. You won’t pay for a jumbled rehash of same-old same-old white-bread ideas that an unprepared teacher declared, “Voila, genuine Paganism!” 🙂 Instead, I committed my life to developing material for you.
* I received full-time, long-term shamanic training. It was not academic but an experiential training of skills. That focused study gave me the ability to trance into the heart of reality, 24-7, where I channeled lessons for seven years.
* For decades since, to ground me, my Gods asked me to trance only part of the day. Feet more on the ground than ever, I continue to explore our magical yet earthy cosmos and channel new earth-based mystic material, because resting on my laurels would be no fun. I like fun.

Fairy witch, Francesca De Grandis, is the bestselling author of the books Be a Goddess! and Goddess Initiation.

A mystical event is no substitute for medical care by a trained physician, psychiatric counseling, or other therapeutic treatments. Participants are personally responsible for the consequences of their voluntary participation.

The Enchanted Kitchen: an Online Course

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Starts the week of August 15, 2021

KitchenMagic2

Learn kitchen magic for prosperity, protection, peace, confidence, courage, and nearly anything else you want.

These are quick, easy spells for life’s essentials and life’s joys. Lessons are quick and easy, too.

The way I teach you, a complete beginner can be a powerful kitchen witch.

My style hearth magic fits into your day. Most of it can be done while cooking, cleaning, and other customary activities, which means you can do plenty of witchcraft to manifest the life you want.

Use ordinary household objects, like spoons and culinary herbs, as mystical tools.

When busy, stressed, or ill, it’s hard to find time and energy for spellwork. Learn sixty-second enchantments, manageable for anyone. These spells are so easy and powerful.

And learn longer hearth rituals, for special occasions when you have time and desire.

The Enchanted Kitchen is one of the Faerie shamanism courses I channel: this style of hearth witchery is potent mystically, spiritually, and magically, and we’ll access these immense blessings easily. The Fey Folk add beauty to the magic and reveal mystical secrets. Beginners and adepts gain huge improvement, inside and out. I have something unique in this class—channeled from past lives.

KM5WT

You receive:

1) Twenty lessons, one a week. Each lesson is a digital Book of Shadows entry (PDF), ornamented by my original shamanic art, which blesses our work.

Course material is spread over 20 lessons to make every lesson bite-sized, so it fits into your busy week. You also get three weeks off for the holidays.

You’ll learn a lot a lot a lot. But I tailored lessons to be manageable even for super-busy folks who have countless responsibilities and constant, unexpected commitments. I want you to have tools to overcome the challenges life throws at you.

2) Four audio recordings, from my Faerie hearth to your Fey heart. Hearing a spell’s words can be enchanting. Each recording is a quick audio snack: a recitation of a bit of that week’s PDF.

3) I’m available by phone for up to 45 minutes. If you have questions about the material, need support because your commitment to doing the lessons falters, want to further explore a particularly tantalizing part of the curriculum, or have other concerns, feel free to phone.

You can divide the 45 minutes into two or three conversations. Conversations must occur during the span of the course or within a month after.

You can also ask for support from fellow students:

4) Access to my website’s exclusive online hearth. This private page is where classmates can support each other, share victories, and ask each other questions.

This sacred discussion is just for students, without “teacher looking over your shoulder,” so you feel free to express yourself. E.g., I won’t check for “mistakes” in your magical viewpoints. You’re a grown up, in your unique process, and if you feel you might be on the wrong track with something in the curriculum, you can ask me about it by phone or ask your fellow students. My students tend to give wise feedback.

I will however pop in regularly to check that no one’s being a meanie. You deserve a safe space.

5) A free bonus: a PDF Book of Shadows for optional journaling about the lessons. Every page has my shamanic art and no text. Either type into the PDF or print the file to handwrite in.

6) A surprise gift: I commissioned fantasy artist Kathleen Marshall to paint a modern rendition of a traditional hearth blessing. You receive a digital file of the art for your kitchen, plus lore about the blessing.

Starts the week of August 15. The course is 20 weeks, which are consecutive except we skip the holiday weeks of Nov 21, Dec 19, and Dec 26. If an unexpected event makes me unable to send one week’s planned material, I’ll extend the course one extra week.

Tuition for this four-month course—20 lessons, four audio recordings, access to our private online hearth, free bonus, and surprise gift, plus one-on-one private support—$600 . Special reduced rate: $200 savings. Your cost is $400. $100 a month for four months.

Use the Subscribe button below for four monthly payments of $100. Enroll securely with PayPal:



KitchenMagic1

If you need more info or want to discuss scholarship, trade, or payment plan other than the subscription, phone me. No refunds.

My online courses aren’t my oral tradition or transcriptions of oral tradition classes. The online courses are something special unto themselves—spectacularly useful and powerful.

I’ll continue to teach oral tradition classes by phone. My oral tradition cannot be conveyed online.

The online courses are curriculums I’ve worked on for years. I channeled magic tailored specifically to be exciting, effective, and safe when learned online. I was willing to spend years figuring out how to make this course worthy of you. So mote it be.

Maytime Portals to Faerie

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Dangerous Faerie Realms in the Month of May

Reject Forbidden Portals and Still Frolic with the Fey Folk


ByPass Most May Portals, for Better Ways to Meet the Fey

Getting to know and interact with fairies is a joyful part of our human heritage from our ancestors. However, not all interactions are desirable. Some can be nasty and unsafe.

In the early days of May, portals can appear.

You might stumble across such an opening on Mayday, an ancient Pagan holiday also known as Beltane, or on other early May days.

Don’t go through it. This time of year, it is extremely likely to open to realms humans rarely survive, physically or spiritually.

Even highly skilled shamans (witches, druids, whatever) cannot endure what occurs beyond such gates.

What happens there is not necessarily evil, though it can be. It’s simply beyond human endurance.

Even Fey there who are good-willed will not treat a human with the kindness that other Fey might extend on this side of those gates or in other Fey realms.

The Fey folk of the particular realms I am warning against are oblivious of human needs, so there will be neither food nor drink suitable for humans.

These Fey, oblivious not only to human needs but also to human fragilities, will unwittingly kill a human by dragging them along on Fey escapades that either go at a speed lethal to a human or are otherwise impossible for a human to survive.

And those are only the dangers from kindly Fey there!

What I’ve said above about May gates and the worlds beyond them is traditional lore. Forgive me for not attributing source. I know I learned from a person, not from a book, but I can’t remember who. I do know the lore corroborates experience from past lives and my current one.

You Can Have Blessings, Joy, and Happiness from the Fey Folk

Despite my above cautions, we can meet the Fey folk and have amazingly beautiful, wild, thoroughly fulfilling encounters. Not all that is Fey is forbidden to humans. Quite the opposite. Many Fey love us and are safe. They will even protect us from nasty Faeries.

The Fairy Queen and King love humanity and want to bless all humans.

Who are the Fairy Queen and King?

All over the world, in culture after culture, lore tells of the Faerie Queene and King, by different names. In the lore—though sometimes you have to go far back to find it—these Old Fairy Gods are also known as the Great Mother of All and Her Cocreator, our Father. These two deities are our Divine Parents.

(If you noticed I spell fairy different ways in this blog, I’m basically using them all to mean the same thing, though that is an uncommon practice. Ditto related words—fae, fey, fay. I love all the variations. For more about that: https://stardrenched.com/2020/09/08/fairy-faerie-faery-fey-fay/)

How to Meet a Fairy and Be Blessed by the Old Fairy Gods

Easy ways to draw fairies are in my post about rose magic:

The post shows eight simple ways to use roses to attract fairies and other blessings.

The post also has a ritual for the Great Mother of All and Her Cocreator our Father to welcome you into Their care, protection, wild Mysteries, and more.

Here’s the Rose Magic post: https://stardrenched.com/2020/11/24/rose-magic/

Rooster Magic

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Rooster Magic, Symbolism, and Meanings

What Is Rooster Magic? What does Rooster Symbolize?

Rooster is a symbol of joy, vitality, inner fire, passion for life, healthy pride in your accomplishments, and fun.

Thus, rooster magic creates all those blessings, and I’ll show you how to do rooster magic in a sec, yay!

What Is the Meaning of Rooster?

If a rooster appears in your dream, or rooster pics are showing up an inordinate amount in your online newsfeed, here are ways you might interpret that symbolism.

1) It could mean that you need to find more joy, healthy cockiness (heh, accidental pun there— cockiness), self-respect, or any of the other things I mentioned roosters symbolizing.

2) On the other hand, it could be the universe affirming your lust for life, fire, or other rooster-like traits, so that you know you’re on the right track.

3) Or both messages could be present: a confirmation of your fabulous rooster self, with an urging to strengthen those traits.

With three options to choose from, it can be confusing. Go with your gut. But then confirm with a friend who is a straight-talker, so you don’t fool yourself.

How to Do Rooster Magic

Try any or all of these:

* Place a picture or statue of a rooster in your home and/or workplace. This totem—or call it a fetish—attracts rooster powers into a space.

* Contemplate a picture or statue of a rooster for five minutes. You needn’t study the totem with a sharp focus or intellectually analyze it. Rest your attention on the rooster the way your head rests on a pillow at night. Try for relaxed attention and gently note what you experience, whether an idea, feeling of empowerment, peace, or anything else. There’s no right or wrong here. If you experience nothing, it doesn’t mean you’re not receiving rooster power. You may not notice it yet. If you have a tiny positive experience, that could be the tip of the iceberg, the rest of the improvement occurring during the contemplation or after it.

* Crow like a rooster when you wake in the morning. Sounds silly, but it plugs you into rooster energy and helps it flow through you, empowering you for the day ahead.

* Strut around like a rooster. If the silliness of it makes you laugh, that’s great. Laughter is medicine that heals and uplifts the spirit. And fairies, drawn to the merriment, will add to your power.

* Wear jewelry with a rooster picture on it. The jewelry functions as an amulet.

* Let’s not forget actually raising a rooster and hens as an option. In a world where the abstract or symbolic are often considered more powerful than the actual items being symbolized or discussed, it’s important to remember having a real rooster in your yard would be powerful rooster medicine.

* If a deity in your pantheon likes roosters, put a photo or sculpture of a rooster on your altar and tell your God it’s for them. Three Gods partial to roosters:

I Learn Rooster Magic

I didn’t pay attention to rooster magic until fairly recently. Then I saw a beautiful stone pendant carved as a rooster. I just had to have it, even though till then I’d usually found the plethora of rooster decor annoying.

When I received the carving, I knew Exu would love it.

African God Exu and Roosters

Exu is one of the African Pagan Gods. He embodies enormous vitality, fire, confidence, and love of life. He bestows those traits on those devoted to Him.

He is a major figure in my pantheon and takes good care of me.

I had to laugh when I was putting the finishing touches on this essay and happened to see the following Yule 2020 photographs. They show me wearing fascinators (tiny hats) I designed and made.

Usually you wear only one fascinator, but I wore three. They don’t look like hats but like flowers and hornlike flora growing from my head, and the three work well together.

Anyway, I laughed with delight and happiness—not self-denigrating mockery—because, in the photos, I might as well have been strutting around a barnyard! I look so pleased with myself and happy, full of life at age 70, proud of my wild whimsical designs, and relishing the abundance of hair ornamentation that adorned my crown for the Yule ceremony that was about to happen, and Exu fosters all these traits.

In other words, I laughed to stumble across photographs that show me an utter and happy rooster-like example of my above remark that Exu bestows certain traits:

I’d never seen any lore about Exu and roosters, but He told me He’d like to wear my new pendant. I draped it over a statue of Him. In the process, I sensed that rooster holds some of Exu’s powers, which is how I learned and became enamored by the magics of rooster. … In retrospect, they’re self-evident.

When I researched Exu and roosters, still nothing. But I believed He loves them nonetheless. My belief was corroborated when I happened to learn the God Mercury likes roosters. 

Roman God Mercury and Roosters

Mercury is one of the Roman Pagan Gods. His affection for roosters makes sense to me. Exu and Mercury have so many similarities that they’re beyond the confines of this post. But both Deities have a sense of humor, lust for life, fire, and out-of-bounds exuberance. I know either of them would exclaim, “Cock-a-doo·dle-doo” with great gusto, luscious pride, and yummy silliness.

An exception to my ignoring rooster magic before my experience with Exu and the pendant:

Goddess Athena and Roosters

Athena is one of the Greek Pagan Gods. I love this Goddess Warrior Mother Who protects and upholds me. I saw a wee portrait of Her online that I purchased:

The wee gold-tone spheres around Her portrait are not part of the piece I purchased. I beaded a setting from gold-colored seed beads, to hang the portrait from a cord around my neck.

Who wouldn’t want a portrait of Athena with a rooster on Her head, LOL!? So I did some online research to discover She likes roosters. Then I forgot that Athena pendant and the related research, until after I had the rooster experience with Exu, made up ways to do rooster magic, and created a jointed paper rooster doll as one of those ways:

Jointed Paper Doll of a Rooster

I love making jointed paper dolls and channeling sacred art. Combining the two is the best experience for me. Making a jointed, paper-doll rooster was a way to learn more about rooster power and drink it into my cells. A video of the rooster doll I made:

If I spoke too softly at the end of the video, here’s what I said: “Magic is in everything. The magic rooster, my magic hands, your magic nose, my magic toes.” Hahahahaha.

Have a Rooster Totem in Your Home

An exclusive for my newsletter subscribers: in an upcoming newsletter, I’ll gift subscribers a PDF painting of the doll’s parts. You can print and cut out the parts, to assemble your own jointed, paper doll rooster. Click the banner below to subscribe.

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