I Joined the Fairy Circus

I Joined the Fairy Circus

Look at my face as a child. Do I look like I was ever suited to a “normal” life?

Obviously, I had to join the circus of life, become a fairground barker, jump on a magic carousel, perform in the Fairy Big Top, and travel with a carnival between the worlds.

Hard Traveling

William, the man who raised me, started traveling poor and hard when he was about twelve. My research indicates that his mom couldn’t afford to feed him, so he left home at age seven to work on a farm. A census puts him on a farm at that time, but not in his mom’s household. This is corroborated by a family member mentioning an “uncle” whose farm she visited as a child. The “uncle’s” name is the same as little William’s employer. There is also a relevant photo.

A census also shows that William (Bill) returned home, where his mother now lived with a new husband and his son. That unfortunate young boy stole milk from his front porch after the milkman delivered it because there was not enough food in the home. He would drink from the bottle and then add water to hide his theft. He told this to his daughter, my cousin, who passed the story on to me when I told her I suspected Dad had lived in poverty as a child.

It appears that young Bill left home again soon, to hit the road at age twelve. This was a common solution if a household had too many mouths to feed.

If my earlier writing about Bill contradicts anything here, it is likely because my research netted new information.

Request: It seems that the expression hard traveling predates its use in a Woody Guthrie song. If you know otherwise, please tell me. The expression is magical to me.

It might seem odd that a phrase describing hardship is magical to me. It might even appear callous toward individuals who suffer—or have suffered—on the road. I am in no way romanticizing hard traveling or otherwise minimizing it. My family history, including my own, is why the phrase is magic for me. I won’t didactically spell out further explanation here. The situation is nuanced, so perhaps explanations require an oral give-and-take dialogue. But this essay explains in part, not didactically but experientially and embodied.

A Witch Raised on Optimism and Descended from Society’s Hedge Rows

I wonder if Dad’s love of music came from traveling. His adoration of music seemed incongruent with everything else about him. He even loved musicals. But perhaps his love of show tunes came from his mother, who was a showgirl.

I descended from people who were on the edges of society, but they were not always what most people would imagine.

I assumed showgirl was the family euphemism for stripper. But later, I saw a family painting that I was told is a portrait of Bill’s mom. Curious, I went online, armed with the painter’s name: W Haskell Coffin. I discovered he was known for painting Ziegfeld showgirls. If the portrait is Bill’s mother, she was probably in the Ziegfeld Follies or a similar group.

That is not incompatible with being poor. Here are two reasons. Many performers experience economic hardship. As in any business, some people accumulate wealth, some people barely scrape by. If she did make decent money, she would’ve been past the age of a youthful Ziegfeld girl by the time she suffered poverty with young William. He was born six years after the Follies began. Her money could’ve run out by then.

I’ve spent decades researching my family history, trying to understand it. I’m not a trained researcher. My conclusions could easily be amiss. I tell the story best I can. That’s the job of a circus barker. Perhaps putting a family history together best you can is a necessity when you come from the margins. There were so many roadblocks. For example, I contacted an organization that archives material on Ziegfeld girls. The person with whom I spoke explained that a lot of material was lost because, after Ziegfeld died, there was no money to be made from the archives, so no one took care of them. Marginalized because of lack of money.

The following snapshot of the portrait isn’t great. I took it without great equipment decades ago at a family member’s home:

(Update: Further investigation suggests this might not be my grandmother, despite the family’s claim and all the time I’d already spent researching the painting. At least it opened my mind to her being a showgirl instead of a stripper. I hope I discover the group(s) in which she performed, and I am still looking into Ziegfeld. Research is a living process; new findings lead to—or suggest—new conclusions. Unfortunately, most people in the know have passed on. Of the few that remain, I only know one who is a reliable source. Speaking of new findings: After I wrote the above part of this paragraph, I spoke with that trustworthy source—e.g., when her source might be unreliable, she acknowledges it. She provided new history: She too was told Grandma was a showgirl. She was also told that Grandma was an actress. She added that it was implied—though not said outright—that Grandma was not well regarded by the family because of her work.)

Another example of outliers in the family: Bill was as close-minded as they come. But as a teenager, I brought home a stranger. He had no place to sleep, was due to enter the Marines the next day, and carried a guitar. I assumed Dad would angrily turn him away. That would’ve been typical of my close-minded, bitter father. But he gave the guy a bed. I imagine it was in part because the fellow was soon to be a Marine, but that the guitar had a lot to do with it too.

Dad, unexpectedly, adored folk music, not just show tunes. After his World War II military stint, he didn’t return from Europe to his wife and kids right away (I wasn’t born yet, but I know the story). He went south and hung out with hillbillies. Had they met as hard-traveling children? Thus far, I don’t know where else this extremely conservative man could’ve acquired a love of folk music. And unless he had experienced it rooted in his life experiences and worldview, he would’ve loathed it in the ‘60s when it was associated with radical politics.

I am 74 years old. Previous generations of my family are long gone. Their deaths impelled me to investigate old newspapers, public records, etc., long ago. That has been and continues to be fruitful and fascinating. I will keep at it to answer my new questions about Bill and the rest of the family. Plus, the family member who I know to be reliable remains, ever-ready to talk. And the beloved dead appear in visions to point out directions I might pursue or even tell me stories.)

More Lineage from Society’s Hedge-Row Edges

Bill was not my biological dad. DNA indicates my biological father likely descended from nomads. A family story: An Indian prince proposed to Mom but she chose Bill instead. I don’t know what the family meant by Indian. Mom aside, the family’s lack of education and abundance of prejudice means family members might have considered various peoples as Indian. Was my father Arabic? Iranian? Or?

Grandma a showgirl, Bill a hard traveler, biological father possibly a royal nomad, and Mom a fortuneteller from a long line of Italian witches. I was grown in the edges—society’s hedge rows. Add that I was raised on old musicals with their fantastically optimistic themes, and I had to become a performer in the Fairy circus of life—a nomad traveling for sheer joy, both the experience of it and the giving of it.

Hard Times Taught Me Unapologetic Joy

I am grateful to know a beautiful joy that you can learn from hard times. It is a joy you learn to nurture regardless of circumstances. It is a pure, untainted joy.

That’s one reason I love the circus. Circus artists focus on creating joy and wonder, whether as a clown or trapeze artist. Their shows embody unapologetic joy.

Run away and join the Fairy Magic Circus, for sheer joy:
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Fairy Yule Ritual 2023

In this year’s Fairy Yule ritual, we’ll draw on the transformative powers and other magics of the Yule season.

During the ritual, the Sun King will bless us. He is born on Solstice morning, bringing us hope, empowerment, and tribal connection.


We’ll also cast a spell for prosperity and whatever else we need, by drinking in the season’s wonders and enchantments.

Then there will be a spell to help us help those we care about, whether family, friends, Gaia, all Her children, or …

The event will be via teleseminar—aka group phone call. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you have the information about how to attend.

If you don’t subscribe yet and are interested in attending future free rituals, click here or the banner below.

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Fairy Magic Quest 2023

Cerridwen and Taliesin:
A Ritual Journey
to Achieve Your Sweetest Goals

You can live the Cerridwen-Taliesin myth as a ritual process of
personal transformation and empowerment.

Experience a guided quest with me. Enter the Fey realm of all powers and possibilities. Leave behind barriers that restrict hope and achievements. Even if your barriers seem impenetrable, this event will show you how to fulfill your longings for abundance, soul healing, physical health, adventure, and more.

If you don’t know Cerridwen and Taliesin’s tale, and thus don’t understand my references here, that’s not a problem. I tell the story during the ritual. For now, please enter into the spirit of this post.

Cross the Fey threshold into mythic lands, where you live a revisioning of the Mabonogian tale of crone Cerridwen and bardic-visionary Taliesin.

Win the knowledge in the Goddess Cerridwen’s cauldron, to overcome major challenges—both mundane and spiritual—and know magics that create the life you want. Gain the Fey light that anoints Taliesin’s brow, filling him with inspiration, courage, and down-to-earth savviness. You can be a visionary and practical, and the combination will make your dearest goals come true.

RosesTwineExplore esoteric mysteries in ways that make a big positive difference in your life, spiritually and materially. We don’t have to choose between the two. For example, we can believe we are fairies and create abundance. We can have peace and career success. We can meet our responsibilities and have self-care.

This is a four-month Fairy magic ceremony. It conveys power and wisdoms not available elsewhere. My analysis—or call it a revisioning—of the myth is an esoteric understanding of the story’s elements. I created something so innovative that it generated imitations for at least a few decades—rituals described as similar to mine. My version is the only one enchanted by the extensive shamanic underpinnings that I developed for this ritual process.

My initial development of this ritual of grounded empowerment took three years. Since then, I led the ritual many times for two (three?) decades, continuing to refine it. Now, I only offer it every four years or so. (Last time was 2019.)

This is the first time I am offering this ritual without participants needing to have taken certain classes as prerequisites.

For decades, prerequisites allowed participants to powerfully and safely use this event’s magic to speedily move toward their dream lives.

Then, in recent years, I developed new approaches that work wonderfully for both advanced practitioners and beginning students. The power is enormous, beautiful, and safe. Adepts will receive the advanced experiences they require, while beginners can experience a more accessible route. This occurs because the ritual’s energies will meet people where they are, adapting to their needs, desires, and circumstances, even if those shift from week to week.

This is live magic: hands-on. Vibrant magical power that is the living presence of the old Gods’ love for us. In our mystical voyage, you will get more out of any spiritual and magical work you’ve already done. But if you have no magical background or haven’t tended to yourself spiritually lately, you will never be in over your head during our meetings. Instead, you’re nurtured, empowered, and embraced by a circle of love.

This is the first time I’m extending this ritual to make it a whole four months. I’ve channeled new energies to bring into this ritual, for an additional layer of wisdom and power that meets our current times. The additional time allows us to use the additional material.

Also, as Tania Troyan, a teacher of the Italian language, says, it takes 49 days for new neural pathways to develop and be used. Mark Fischetti and Jen Christiansen wrote in Scientific American, “In 80 to 100 days, 30 trillion (cells in your body) will have replenished—the equivalent of a new you.” A four-month ritual allows you to be embraced by love, power, and support while your cells, brain, and nerves are completely shifting, right to the end. But wait, there’s more! Hahaha.

The work we do will snowball so a lot more growth, healing, shifting, and wisdom come to you long after the four months end.

And I am available after the four months, if you need support with your continuing experiences or have questions about them. I commit to my ritual participants.

RoseLine

Nuts and bolts:
* We meet in teleseminars (group phone meetings). To participate, just call the event’s phone number.
* The event is on Sundays from 6:00 to 7:00 pm Pacific time, starting October 22, 2023.
* We will skip the following Sundays for the holidays: November 26, December 24, and December 31.
* Reserve Sundays March 3 and 10, 2024, same time, for a makeup session, on the off chance I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions.
* Enrollment is limited to 14 participants.
* Cerridwen and Taliesin qualifies as one of the two electives needed before advanced Third Road training.
* Cost is $200 a month. Your carrier might charge you for the calls. Click the Subscribe button below to enroll securely through PayPal.



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If you’ve participated in this event, repeat it at half-price and go to different enchanted lands this time. Here’s the half-price subscription button:



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* Upon payment, your seat is reserved. If you don’t receive an email confirming payment within a few days, check your spam filter and spam mailbox. If the email isn’t there, call me at the number below. A few days before our first meeting, you receive an email with the event phone number and other details. Refunds unavailable. If you want to discuss a scholarship, semi-scholarship, trade, or special payment plan, or you need additional information about the event, please call me.

Be!

La Vecchia Religione

LVROnline Course:
La Vecchia Religione—
An Inside View of Traditional Italian Witchcraft

“La Vecchia Religione” is Italian for “The Old Religion” and refers to the traditional practices of a strega. “Strega” translates into “witch.”

I was born into an Italian shamanic family tradition that dates back hundreds of years. Our family has many magics. This online course focuses on one of the most pivotal. Traditional magic is taught contextually, so lessons also provide a mystical overview of La Vecchia Religione.

The Strega practice we’ll focus on is considered the most advanced magic possible, can improve every aspect of life substantially, yet is accessible to a magical beginner.

stregamoonThis course has five powerful aspects:

One) Weekly lessons received by email. Each lesson is a digital Book of Shadows entry (PDF).

Storytelling relays a great deal of the course’s information, making lessons easy and fun for you. I’ll share tales of an Italian shamanic family tradition.

stregaroseI’ll add other relevant chronicles, too, as well as more material needed to understand the aforementioned pivotal strega practice and traditional Italian witchcraft as a whole.

La Vecchia Religione is a shamanic path. Some shamans invoke magic simply through their personal, quite human stories. If you want strega magic, it’s in such stories.

Your reading this course’s stories, with no more effort on your part than when you read a fantasy novel, magically transforms every part of your life—large improvements everywhere. After the course, a special enchantment always remains available to continue creating numerous, marvelous changes for you.

Benefits of merely reading the stories:

* You automatically start becoming a new you, with greater wholeness of being and peace. You notice your power growing magically and in other parts of your life, so you have better access to all the inner resources needed to reach life goals.

* Your circumstances automatically start improving. Your most cherished goals become more viable and attainable.

* The stories transport you to a Fey-touched realm. And this course’s stories are true-life Faerie tales with real magic that helps you live in your own special Faerie tale: dreams can come true.

Our lessons will bring us into the presence of Diana Magna Mater (Great Mother Goddess). She gave humankind magic so we can live free and prosperously, overcoming challenges, including liberating ourselves from oppression. She will protect and guide us in our journey.

Lessons also provide easy shamanic exercises that reinforce the tales’ enchantments and deepen your relationship with them.

stregamoonTwo) My full-color art ornaments the PDF Book of Shadows pages, including new paintings created especially for this course. I joyfully painted for ages to create fifty new page ornamentations specifically for these lessons! I wanted imagery to convey the enchantment of Italian sorcery.

Think of medieval illuminations, except they are not painted by a stuffy repressed monk but by a modern wild-hearted Pagan. My paintings are filled with magic that blesses your day.

Three) Nine audio files recorded expressly for this course. Spoken word is a way you and I can be in a sacred space together. So I recite excerpts of the PDFs.

stregamoonFour) Two fun, easy crafts projects. I’m thrilled about my Pagan-style craft ideas because they’re sooo magical: they help you experience the power of Italian witchery, deepen the magical journey, and increase its benefits. I’ve never seen anything like these projects, and I’m not going to say here what they are, heh. They’re special, and I’m saving them for you.

I painted art especially for these projects, making your part easy: you receive full-color digital files of my Pagan art, so you only need to print the artwork and follow a few simple instructions. I can barely wait for you to have the art! Heck, I’m chomping at the bit, waiting for you to have the rest of the course, too.

stregamoonFive) One-on-one support. I’m available by phone for up to 45 minutes. If you have questions about the material, need help 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.

stregarose2I love integrating my art into my writing. Ditto creating audio portions and being available by phone. The five parts of the course (text, art, audio, etc.,) weave together to take you on a mystical journey into the heart of Italian witchery. During it, along with the benefits already listed:

* You gain confidence in your own journey—its spiritual, magical, and mundane aspects.

* You find confidence in yourself, just as you are, right now.

* Important insights come to you—wisdom needed to get the maximum out of life.

* You claim your birthright—your heritage of magic and wildness as a Fey-touched child of the Old Gods.

In addition to being transformative, this journey is core to understanding Italian witchcraft as a whole. In other words, along with improving your life, the journey is also an experiential lesson that conveys a mystical overview of: traditional Italian witchcraft as a magical culture, its otherworldly sensibilities, and its history.

stregarose3Though they impart an overview and history, lessons are easy, not like reading a textbook. This is not dry history, not dry material, not a dreary recitation of facts, charts, and lists that you have to memorize, plod your way through, or otherwise labor over. You experience La Vecchia Religione in your spirit.

This look into my family’s magic is traditional Italian shamanism no one else teaches. A lot of this is material I’ve never taught until this course.

stregastarThe course starts February 27, with your first lesson. You receive one lesson a week by email for 11 weeks.

If an unexpected event makes me unable to send one week’s planned material, I’ll extend the course an extra week.

Tuition: The regular price is $209 a month for three months, but I’ve lowered the cost to $167 a month. That is 20% off!

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No experience needed. But even advanced practitioners benefit greatly. If you need more information, or want to discuss scholarship, trade, or a payment plan other than the above subscription, call me at the number below. No refunds. My online courses aren’t transcriptions of oral tradition lessons. (I teach oral tradition by phone.) The online courses are special unto themselves—magic tailored to be spectacularly effective, relevant, exciting, and safe when learned online.

Urban Hedge Witch

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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Upcoming Fairy Ritual

Ancestors, Past Lives, and Witch Power:

A Seven-Week Fairy Ceremony for Magical and Worldly Success

Our Heritage from Ancestors

My first ancestors spun threads of wisdom and power. Generation upon generation wove in more threads, until now thick ropes connect me to all powers and wisdoms.

In this seven-week rite, we become more connected to these ancestral cords by shifting our cells and awareness. Thus linked, our intuitions and hearts discover wisdoms and powers lost over the ages, e.g., hidden enchantments, obscure herbal medicines, extraordinary spiritual balance during the hardest times, the weave of mysticism and down-to-earth savvy, and other empowering choices suppressed by mainstream society.

We Are Magic

Our DNA is stardust; magic fills every cell of our bodies.

In our veins, ancestors’ blood flows, coursing back to the fiery explosion that bloomed into all existence. That creative force is the oldest, most powerful enchantment and is ours to use. It is within us. We can manifest anything. We will claim this power in our meetings.

Healing Ancestral Trauma and Living Our Innate Magic

Trauma suppresses stardust DNA. Ancestral trauma transforms the familial DNA, thwarting its magic. We will:

* Heal ancestral traumas—or call them ancestral wounds—which are sufferings of a family member or members that pass down to every generation, ad infinitum, until healed.

* Heal from centuries of stardust DNA being refuted and suppressed.

* Center into our stardust DNA. We’ll cast off confusion and doubt about our fey essence and insightful common sense. We’ll gain confident clarity about our innate magic and mundane skills.

If you choose to avoid some ancestors or don’t know who any of your ancestors are, you can still do this seven-week ceremony. I’ll show you how.

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We Will Strengthen Our Magic, Hearts, and Minds

The Old Gods promise freedom:
we have the right to
an enchanted, fulfilling life,
ease in our steps,
wildness in our hearts,
health in our bodies,
trust of our beautiful fey souls,
and confidence in our intellects.
This is a witch’s freedom.
Find it,
celebrate it,
live it: enroll to attend the Witch Power ceremony.


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More information about the event:

Working Directly with Ancestors

We will
* Invoke ancestors for guidance, empowerment, and healing
* Heal ancestors and be aligned with them. Aligning one’s energy with ancestors is a traditional shamanic practice that makes your witchcraft and mundane endeavors powerful and creates both physical and spiritual health.

Every Past Life Weaves with Ancestral Lineage

I experienced in my bones that the powers I knew in past lives and the traumas I suffered in them are woven into the threads of power and trauma that link me to ancestors. The seven weeks will:
* heal trauma from past lives
* restore us to wildness, enchantment, and beauty of past incarnations
* give us not only worldly and magical powers of our ancestors but also power we held in past lives

This ritual is suitable to both novices and adepts.

The last time I taught this was five years ago, so if you’re interested in it, grab the chance now. I don’t know if and when I’ll offer it again.

This event is a Faerie Druid rite and a prerequisite for advanced Third Road Druidic training.

These rituals are group meetings by phone. To participate, just dial the phone from anywhere.

We meet seven Sundays, from 3:00 to 4:00 pm EST, starting February 7, 2021. Meetings are held consecutive weeks except we skip February 28. Reserve Sunday March 4, same time, for a makeup session in case I’m unavailable for one of the planned meetings.

Tuition: $400. Your service provider may charge you for the call. The event’s area code is a U.S. #.

Half price if you’ve taken this course before. It was previously called Witch Power, Ancestors, and Past Lives. The half-price option is in the drop-down menu below.

Enroll securely using PayPal:


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My phone number is 814-337-2490.Upon receipt of payment, your place is reserved. Seating is limited. Event phone #, etc., is emailed to you. If you need more info, or want to discuss payment plan, scholarship, or trade, phone me. No refunds.

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The above photo is of my mom, may she rest in peace. Her witch blood flows in me, telling me I’m a Goddess. We’re each a God, descendant of the Faerie race. This ritual helps us access our Divine power.

The Old Ways can be fully embraced. They give us mystical and worldly strengths. My mom modeled for me a path of Goddess mysticism coupled with down-to-earth practical savviness. For example, she was an amazing businesswoman.

Enroll securely with PayPal:


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Vasilisa’s Doll

Vasilisa the Beautiful’s Doll:
A Magic Charm to Fix Problems

A necklace with a doll as the pendant

What is Vasilisa’s Doll?

In the Russian fairytale, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Vasilisa’s Mother is dying. On her deathbed, she gives a wooden doll to Vasilisa, explaining that when Vasilisa needs help, she is to feed the doll and ask for help, and her wish will be granted.

An Amulet for a Hero

Vasilisa’s story, which is one of overcoming trials, implies her doll is a talisman for heroes—individuals taking up a challenge. My gut concurs. By hero and challenge, I simply mean people who take responsibility for their life. Life’s journey is often a heroic quest.

If I take steps toward my goals, try to find steps, or seek the willingness to take them, Vasilisa’s doll will add her efforts to mine.

By contrast, asking the doll to do that which I can do for myself would be a waste of spell crafting. It doesn’t work. It would also amount to not taking responsibility for my life.

Ancestors, the Goddess, and Poppet Magic

I adore magic dolls. Whether you call them spirit dolls, poppets, totem dolls, totems, or guardian angel dolls, I find them tremendously charming, in both the magical and whimsical sense.

I believe many entities help wishes made to Vasilisa’s doll come true. Thus the doll offers powerful enchantments:

1. Given that Vasilisa’s Mother, on her deathbed, gave Vasilisa a doll to help overcome life’s challenges, I think the doll stands in for the mother. Requests to the doll reach the mother and other female ancestors.

2. I think the doll is a gatekeeper who carries wishes to the Magna Mater, Great Mother of all, and to all the wisher’s ancestors.

3. I intuit the doll is a magical being unto herself who grants wishes.

How to take Care of a Poppet

Wood dollA friend spoke to me about how seriously she takes being a poppet’s caretaker. She believes you don’t just tuck it in a drawer and forget about it. I have similar feelings: occasionally, poppets need company, as well as a tablespoon each of food and beverage.

It’s a nice idea to keep your dolls together, if you have more than one, so they can keep each other company.

I keep a few of my dolls in my bed. For one thing, it’s an easy way for them to have company since they’re hanging out with me while I’m sleeping. Sometimes I spend a minute with them before falling asleep.

A tablespoon of food and a tablespoon of beverage is probably plenty for all your poppets combined, a few times a year.

Having said all that, I admit to having neglected my totem dolls for long periods. They forgive me and continue to help me.

… Ooh, just had an idea. I tend to make offerings to my Gods, ancestors, and other spirit friends all at once, by putting out a wee bit of food and drink for them. I can include my poppet spirits in that group. That’s a way I can easily take care of them more often.

Making a Vasilisa doll

When a friend said she wanted a Vasilisa doll, I became obsessed with the idea and, after a lot of fun brainstorming, made two Vasilisa dolls. The photos in this post show the dolls.

I woodburned the design for the dolls. The pyrography (woodburning) goes all the way around the doll, so here are videos that show all sides.

The necklace with the doll as a pendant is for me:

The other doll—which can be a wall hanging—is for a friend:

The dolls are made from the wood of wild roses, which I harvested from my property in 2018, late summer or early fall. Then I let it cure for a year or two.

This is the wood after I harvested and cured it:

A lot of the wood was not usable. My experience is that when I cure wood, the ends tend to split so have to be cut away. The same might go for other portions of the wood. So, from those pieces, I managed to get only two small sticks:

The Hero’s Sacrifices

I consider cast away parts of the wood to be sacrifices to the Gods. That makes those two remaining sticks precious magic—the parts Gods have deemed suitable for me to craft.

In crafting, much might get tossed aside, all of it sacrifice in the name of the Muse, Who for me is the great Mother Goddess, Creator of All. Sometimes, I have a huge gorgeous stick that I have to throw out after curing it, none of it usable.

Vasilisa’s story is one of a hero overcoming challenges. Sacrifices are always made on the hero’s journey.

I love these dolls. The one that is a wall hanging was my first pyrography after a year away, and the lines are not as well executed and smooth as I would’ve liked. It was also the first time executing the design I’d created; the arms don’t quite match. While burning one arm, I couldn’t see the arm on the other side to check it. I thought about sanding the arms off and starting all over again, but their particular positions meant sanding would likely ruin the piece.

Ends up the arms of my friend who wants the doll are very different lengths. Wow. … Regardless, I reduced the wall hanging’s price because of the doll’s flaws. … I love her for her flaws. I love these dolls for many reasons, among them their spiritual beauty, winsomeness, huge spirits, and pretty ways. I’m delighted by my new friends.

Working on the first doll got me up to speed with my pyrography skills again and showed me how to refine my doll template. I’d spent weeks designing a template I can adapt for each doll. I corrected the template so it was easier to make the arms match next time. The time spent creating the original template and then spent changing it was not waste but sacrifice.

I restrung this wall hanging five times because I didn’t like the way it hung. I changed the beads a few times, finally ending up with no beads at all and a simple wax cotton cord, instead of woven cording. Sometimes it takes a lot of trial and error to see simplicity is the best design.

I rewove my necklace after finishing it, coming up with a second—completely new—design.

Repeated efforts until I find the right way are not wasted but are sacrifices that empower the hero’s journey. My dolls appreciate my effort and are all the more magical for it.

The videos of the dolls show them before they were restrung.

More about the Vasilisa’s Dolls I Made

It was wonderfully startling when, before I even finished sanding, I saw faces in the wood—spirits who were either in the wood or wanted to inhabit it. The faces were not appearing on the material plan, e.g., delineated by the grain of the wood. I’m thrilled by these dolls.

My necklace has a round Yew wood bead. It symbolizes the sacrifices along the journey. Sacrifices don’t have to be miserable. They can simply, for example, be part of the exploratory aspect of the creative process.

There is also a mother of pearl leaf, which I added as a symbol of the forests that house many a fairytale I love. The long bead, if memory serves, is bone. Bone represents eternal truths. There’s also a disc that is likely horn, to honor the wild, horned Goddess and God of the forest.

I wanted to add a bead from my mom’s jewelry, but it didn’t work out.

As always, I did lengthy ritual to bless these poppets with huge power.

A Surprise with the Vasilisa’s Dolls

After making both dolls, I told them, “Thank you for coming to me. I’m grateful one of you is my doll, to whom I can make a wish when I have a problem, and you will get me whatever I wish for. I’m grateful the other doll can do the same for someone else.”

They answered, without the confidence I’d expected, “Well, we’ll try.”

Surprised, I said to them, “Thank you. But you don’t sound very confident.”

They explained, “Francesca, we’re just sticks.”

I laughed, then said, “All the powers of the universe reside in every object in the universe. You have all power.”

They said, “Oh, yes! We’d forgotten. Thanks for reminding us.”

A few days later, they reminded me that I too have all power within. That doesn’t mean I should try to do everything on my own. One of the powers of the universe is the power of co-creation.

I should add that my wishes are not always granted, nor should they be. Sometimes the Gods have better plans for me.

Do You Want a Vasilisa’s Doll?

Wood dollIf you’d like me to make a Vasilisa’s doll for you or a loved one, I currently have the right size wood. At the time of this post, these are your costs:

A doll wall hanging is usually $98. There are some considerations, e.g., a larger doll might cost more. A necklace is usually $130. Shipping is additional and is $9 to a U.S. address.

Each doll is one of a kind—I channel woodburning details, then select beads that enhance it, magically and aesthetically, though there might not be beads on the wall hanging.

Email me or comment below if you’re interested. If you request a doll and then don’t like what I’ve made, no obligation to buy. I’m sure I can sell it elsewhere. The doll will go to their right home.

The Fairytale Witch, Greed, & Joy

The Fairytale Witch, Greed, & Joy

Why Are Old Women in Fairy Tales usually Evil Mean Witches?

Many traditional fairytales portrayed elderly women as monstrous witches. Descriptions included despicable eating habits. These witches were gluttons who scarfed down absurdly massive quantities of food in a single sitting, as I’ve seen in paintings of Baba Yaga. Worse, they ate children.

I’ve been thinking the root of such lies was likely greed, at its worst. I imagine selfish people begrudged an old lady her food—her right to life—and, in the same vein, coveted her land, the source of food. They wanted all resources for themselves, leaving nothing for anyone else, not caring that it could be a death sentence.

These skinny ladies in old tales usually stayed bone thin despite dining on children and disgustingly extravagant banquets. Perhaps she represented elderly women actually struggling without much to eat, the mischaracterization meant to provide the justification to rob them regardless. In other words, if an elderly woman was resented for eating any amount of food, then misrepresenting her reasonable or insufficient meals as gluttony provided an excuse to “righteously” rob her—greedy witch! She did not deserve food and its source—land and livestock.

Logic plays no part in justifying wrongdoing. A person gorging themself yet maintaining a thin frame makes absolutely no sense. However, reasons to steal and oppress don’t need to be reasonable; any excuse will do. Spread nonsensical slander about an aged woman, and her neighbors who are greedy like the slanderers will cheer about their thievery. The slanderers have given those neighbors permission to follow suit with other vulnerable elders.

I can easily imagine greedy envy turning into disgust about an elderly woman’s meals. A person’s selfishness often disguises itself, even to that person. Disgust is an effective disguise, distracting everyone from the real greed by projecting it on to an innocent elder.

When they call an old lady a dragon or witch, I take it as a compliment because I am a real dragon and witch. Many dragons and witches are kind and generous with food, magic, and other treasures. They also protect people from oppressors.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Land

Land, food, and greed are tied together. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was originally Life, liberty, and the pursuit of land. For whatever reason the phrase was changed, the original version outlines the basis for a classless society. Land is wealth at its most fundamental level. The right to pursue happiness is vague enough to establish the pretense of forgoing classism. In some ways, classism is simply systemic greed: one group taking too much for themselves so that another group does without, whether the classes are delineated by gender, race, or any other excuse to oppress.

Eating an Entire Pizza Topped with Anchovies and Joy

I was visiting my friend, Jenn Campus. As usual, we touched on one of our favorite topics: food.

I mentioned that I’d made a pizza from scratch and was delighted because I was going to get to eat the whole thing. I live alone, so that pizza constituted two or three meals (with perhaps a salad added). Yum, a couple of pizza meals!

I also told Jenn some of my realizations mentioned in this essay.

Then Jenn’s husband and foodie companion Roberto joined us. I again shared my delight about eating the whole pizza. I added that I’d been wondering how much of a pizza each member of their family got in a meal. Given their large family, I imagined they had to divide a pizza up, and perhaps no one ate more than a slice. Roberto, who’s Italian born, responded that eating the whole pizza is “very Italian of you.” He added that each family member always got their own pizza, except maybe the children split one.

Roberto’s comment was wonderfully affirming, even though I hadn’t told him my thoughts about old ladies and food. My Goddess spoke through him. Though the following were not Roberto’s words, She was saying, “Let old ladies eat the whole pizza!”

Jenn, when I’d mentioned greedy people begrudging an elderly woman her food, suggested that they possibly begrudged her the pleasure in food. Good point. Especially for me. Joy is one of my life’s keywords.

Have You Ever Been Attacked for Being Happy?

The right to pursue happiness—joy—includes the right to land or a comparable means to material well-being, such as a reasonable wage instead of employers earning far more than is even decent while employees can’t make ends meet.

Oppressive religious bodies often portray joy solely as non-material pleasure, as if it’s sinful to care about worldly things. This pseudo-spiritual propaganda fools many people; they become unwittingly complicit in their own oppression (internalize their oppression), by thinking they’ve no right to a proper income.

I’m not implying joy relies entirely on material well-being. Depending solely on the material for happiness creates greed. However, it is appropriate and healthy to pursue both material and spiritual well-being and find a balance between the two, instead of seeking only one or the other.

Your happiness is sacred. Convincing you to abdicate rights by shaming you as if you’re selfish and uncouth to care about worldly things is an attack on your life and your happiness. If you internalize those attacks—internalize your oppression—you might shame or otherwise hurt yourself when you desire joy, start to feel joyful, or have even the smallest joyful experience.

I’ve always feared I’d be punished for my joy. I thought I’d conquered that fear but am revisiting it to overcome it at a new level.

Internalized Oppression Can Damage Physical Health

I have a lot of joy in my day. That doesn’t mean I’m free of problems around it.

It is easy to internalize oppression so extensively that deep-seated, self-destructive beliefs or emotions can affect one’s physical health.

For twenty years, I’ve had serious physical problems caused by extreme swelling that is unrelenting, throughout my body, and visible. (E.g., one of my eyes became swollen shut for days. The doctor asked if something had struck my eye. The swelling was so huge that I looked like someone had socked me.)

Years of exercise, food choices, herbal remedies, and shifts in lifestyle and attitudes reduced the swelling bunches, and with it the number of serious symptoms it had caused. There are far fewer. But a great deal of swelling—and hence serious unremitting symptoms—remains.

The swelling throughout my body is demonstrated in my eyelids most days. It often looks like a blister—white cell buildup under the skin. What is my body fighting?

In desperation, earlier this year, I decided to go grain-free. The swelling abated radically within days. If the improvement had continued at the rate it was going, my need for a wheelchair would’ve been gone, or near gone, within a year.

However, I suspected that I do not have a grain allergy, but that a deep-seated, subtle anorexia was compelling me to deny myself my “daily bread,” as if I don’t deserve food.

I also wondered if I have a deeply-hidden inability to stand on the ground of my truths. Stand, instead of using a wheelchair. I’m pretty good at standing for my truths, but there’s always another layer of growth. Internalized oppression can be subtle and deep.

(These two things I wondered about are related in ways I don’t fully understand yet. The understanding I do have is beyond the confines of this essay.)

I decided to eat grains again. That might seem ridiculous, given that serious symptoms were abating so readily. But I don’t want to deprive myself of my “daily bread“ longterm only to find that I ignored the spiritual solution that would’ve been the longterm fix. Ignoring the source of the problem will simply make it manifest in another way, sooner or later.

Plus life-threatening allergies already seriously limit the foods I eat. If the decision to be grain-free is subtle anorexia, elimination of foods from my kitchen might escalate until I allow myself to eat only a few types of food—not enough to maintain health. (I’m not implying that being grain-free is anorexic per se.)

Psychological states can cause serious medical problems. I do not mean those problems are in one’s head. They are quantitative symptoms, measurable by Western medicine. I need to overcome my fear of being attacked and stand up.

Overcoming Internalized Oppression and Claiming My Rights

I wrote a large portion of this essay before the pandemic and the economic severities it has caused many people. For months, I put the piece aside, to focus on blogs that seemed more related to current affairs. My mind kept returning to this piece, and I couldn’t figure out why. Eventually, I realized it is utterly relevant right now. Perhaps it’s even more important than it was before the pandemic. Elderly people are spoken of as disposable. Greed is rampant, as are illogical excuses for it. People worldwide are struggling and scapegoating, divided instead of standing strong and successful together. … There’s that word standing again.

Hm, elder abuse and the other problems described in the above paragraph are not new. Well, my real point is that I realized the article’s relevance. And that my not seeing the relevance was internalized oppression; I turn 70 this year so am at risk of being scapegoated—viewed as disposable in a society often structured by greed.

There’s another reason the article is relevant. Our current worldwide trauma can deepen longstanding internalized oppression, perhaps reopening healed wounds. That can result in horrible demoralization and other devastating states that stop us from doing what’s needed to take care of ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities.

Nevertheless, it can be an opportunity to see inner oppression and overcome it. In my case, this has included revisiting my fear I’d be punished/attacked for my joy.

That fear is reasonable. If repeatedly attacked for your joy, whether by family, friends, or societal beliefs that joy deserves rebuke and infliction of shame, you might come to expect and fear attack. However, I refuse to live in fear.

Simple Magic Spell to Claim My Right to Food, Life, and Joy

Simplicity has magic: to do the spell, just recite the liturgy below once or, if it feels right, repeatedly. You don’t have to do anything fancy, “right,” or grimly serious like the Great Master Wizard of the Universe. (No, the Great Master Wizard of the Universe isn’t a real thing. I made that up.) I found myself laughing as I wrote and then said the liturgy, and if anything’s right for this chant, laughter is. I intentionally made the chant silly.

When you speak the chant, include the title in your recitation.

Pizza, Prosperity, and Joy Chant

I get to eat the whole pizza.
I can pay for the whole pizza.

To add extra magic to the spell, eat a good meal immediately after the recitation. Kitchen magic!

Preparation before reciting the liturgy is not necessary. You can jump right in and do the spell. If you feel preparation would be helpful, here are suggestions:
* If you prefer to set up magical protections before you do any ritual, do so.
* Take three to fifteen deep breaths. Nothing fancy, just natural deep breaths.
* Examine yourself for internalized oppression regarding your right to food, life, prosperity, and joy. Then try to feel that inner negativity, then start the chant.

As I said, I wrote much of this essay before lockdown, before revisiting my fear of punishment. The revisit makes me doubly happy for the lighthearted chant, which was in the original draft of the article and balances its seriousness. I want my heart light. I want to continue to find fun and beauty no matter what. When in my most difficult times, I see more than ever the vital importance of trying to find joy, even if it’s small.

Those two silly lines hold power for me. Perhaps they’ll also work for you. A simple, silly spell can have great power. (The spell’s strength is not always obvious until you use the spell.) The chant, beneath its silliness—and supported by its silliness—is a ritual to overcome my internalized oppression and claim my right to food as a woman, human, and elder. Since food is central to life, I’m claiming my very right to exist, which shouldn’t even be in question, but the greed of the world challenges our right to live. The liturgy also claims my right to joy.

You needn’t be elderly for this liturgy to be relevant to you.

Self-Awareness, Self-Defeat, Self-Absorption

I like my head in the clouds and feet on the ground. Magic is not enough. I’m doing additional things to decrease swelling, while eating grain. In other words, I suspect not standing sufficiently in my power, truths, and being, coupled with the internalized oppressions of fearing attack, are causing the swelling and, once lessened, will no longer do that. So I’m trying to overcome these inner blocks.

Here is one way I’m trying to do that, in case it suggests action(s) you might take to overcome internalized oppression and/or medical problems caused by it.

I have a daily spiritual practice of watching myself for certain faults to which I am prone. Now, I’m trying to enlarge that practice (temporarily, until it becomes no longer necessary), by becoming more aware of when I’m:
* afraid of being attacked for my joy
* not allowing myself joy
* not noticing or letting myself feel my fear of attack
* not standing fully in my being and truths
* not being sufficiently self-aware and thereby unable to stand fully in my being and truths

About the last item in the list: I’m trying to, more than ever, be aware of my cellular levels, be present to the moment, and forsake numbing, that I might more than ever know deep levels of myself and of what I’m feeling and being. When I have that degree of self-awareness, I trust in magic. I become my child-self who believes in greatness. I stand on the ground of my being and truths at deeper levels than ever. If I hit that level, often enough, we’ll see if I need the wheelchair anymore.

I should add: the self-awareness I’m describing is a far cry from self-absorption. For example, I am of service when I stand for who I am and what I believe in because, in that state, I work more effectively.

Goddess Sehkmet, Please Replace My Fear with Power

I’ve been asking Goddess Sehkmet to remove my fear of attack and replace it with power. I’m praying to Her because I sense She’s especially good at empowering people to be proactive. I want to step up to the plate more than ever by 1) claiming my right to food, life, joy, and prosperity, 2) standing in my being, and 3) doing whatever else is needed to gain maximum abundance and joy and be of maximum service to my community.

Though I’ve read no lore corroborating the ability I’ve above attributed to Sekhmet, one of my students did teach me that Sekhmet protects Ra and carries out His business. (I’m not attributing the student by name because they prefer anonymity.) That reinforces my sense of Her. I’ve seen Goddess Sekhmet referred to as a “protector of truth,” which also seems to make Her the perfect help for the concerns I am discussing here.

Drawing on my above thoughts, I wrote a prayer to Her:

Goddess Sehkmet, Please Replace My Fear with Power

Sehkmet, remove my fear
that I may step up, step up, step up.
Goddess Sekhmet, protector of truth,
help me stand stand stand
in my being and truths.
Sehkmet, grant me the power to
claim my rights, my rights,
my rights to food, life, joy, and prosperity.
You Who protects Ra and carries out His business,
please protect me and grant me the power to protect myself.
Help me carry out my business of
good food, long life, abundance, joy, and service.
So mote it be!

If concerted spiritual efforts do not diminish swelling significantly after 6 to 12 months, I’ll get rid of grain.

Food is life. Food is liberty. Food is land—abundance, property, the earth on which we stand as free people. So mote it be!

Kitchen Magic

One of my pizzas, ready for the oven:

Here’s a rough recipe for it: no measurements, complete list of ingredients, etc., because I tend to wing it and eyeball it in the kitchen. But I put the recipe here in case it gives you ideas.

The crust is my adaptation of a gluten-free pizza dough recipe that was at https://www.mashupmom.com but is now gone. It was the first gluten-free pizza dough recipe that suited both my palate and allergies.

If memory serves, the recipe uses brown rice flour and garlic (among other things), with eggs and flaxseed meal to hold the dough together.

To make a more flavorful, high-protein dough, I added sunflower seed meal, almond meal, garbanzo flour, and enough garlic to curl my toes.

I wanted pizza but didn’t think I had the makings for tomato sauce. Then I remembered tomatoes I’d dried and frozen. I reconstituted them quickly by putting them and a bit of water in a pan and simmering the mixture down a bit. Topped the pizza with goat cheese. Yum.

When I cook or talk about food, the power of kitchen magic visits me. (The little pizza chant is kitchen magic, at least for me, because it focuses on food.) Sharing the pizza recipe brings to mind another reason the crone was hated for her kitchen activities. Hearth magic is power available to oppressed groups, thereby threatening oppressors. Elders will have had many years to hone their power, which makes them all the more threatening.

A kitchen is often the heart of a revolution. People quietly talk at the table, where food, beverage, and camaraderie build the strength needed for the fight to live free. So mote it be!

More Kitchen Magic

Add magical healing to medicinal herbs. How to Enchant Your Cup of Tea: https://stardrenched.com/2017/03/29/how-to-enchant-your-cup-of-tea/

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Winter’s Fairy Magic Secrets—A Daylong Retreat

Join me December 13, 2020, in the Faerie realm for Winter’s Fairy Magic Secrets—A Daylong Retreat

Join me December 13, 2020, in the Faerie realm for:

Winter’s Fairy Magic Secrets—A Daylong Retreat.

Fairy Gods Will Spin Winter’s Enchantments That Take Care of You.

Every season has its special magic. Winter months have a quiet, subtle, enormous power.

It will give us strength and peace.

The Yule season’s magic will center us and renew our spirits.

We’ll enter Winter’s loving Mysteries to receive Divine guidance about our challenges and life path.

A childlike trust in a magical universe draws miracles to you and is more easily gained during the Yule season. This trust is inherent is us—who are old souls and children of the Old Gods. In our day of Fairy magic, we’ll visit the Snow Queen and King, Whose unconditional love for us will spark our confidence in the magic around us and in us.

To participate, just dial the phone.

Enroll by December 9.

Enrollment: $225. Your carrier might charge you for the call.

Click the Pay Now button to enroll securely through PayPal:


Pls give yr phone number



It can be hard to take care of yourself. Spend a day being taken care of. When day ends, you’re more emotionally balanced, and the most powerful, serene you is more in control, to achieve your daily goals and long-term dreams.

Spend a day with Winter’s Fairy Secrets wrapped around you, freeing you, and enchanting your life to provide exactly what you need.

Fey enchantments will center you in your magical, miraculous, Fey, grinning self. After the retreat, you’ll more easily experience that part of you on a regular basis.

We’ll do rituals exclusive to my tradition. The dark months are my favorite time of year. For decades, I’ve spun a quantity of winter lore and rituals. I’ll draw on this body of work to create a blissful day.

Our magic day combines four shamanic approaches:

1) Rituals. We meet, eastern standard time:
11:15 AM to 12:15
1:15 pm to 1:45
2:45 to 3:45
5:30 to 6:30
8:00 to 8:30
Possibly 9:00 to 10:00: if I’m unexpectedly unavailable for one of our rituals, e.g., my phone line goes out, we’ll meet in the 9 PM slot.

Rituals will range from restful to ecstatic to transformative to ol’ fashioned witchy to solemn to silly.

I’ll use advanced magic to create major healing and empowerment ceremonies safe for beginners and substantive enough for adepts.

Enrollment is limited to 16 people, so we can perform ceremonies that can only occur in a small group, and so each participant can receive individualized attention if and when they want that support.

You’ll see there are breaks between meetings, so you’re not overwhelmed.

Please note: You’ll need about three minutes after each session to do a special grounding I’ll teach.

2) You receive a psychic reading about your life path, in a ritual that helps you follow through on the guidance you receive. So you can actually apply it to improve your life.

Whatever is going on in your life, I can intuitively address it.

My work tends to draw individuals who show up for life big-time. My intuitive readings are part of how I help them achieve big and keep at it, because I’m capable of reading about their specific concerns, no matter how sophisticated or unusual those concerns are.

3) Direct spiritual transmissions during the rituals.

What is a spiritual transmission?

I can only give a definition of my particular transmissions: I was born generating a beneficial field of energy. During our meetings, it adapts to your needs, e.g., personal growth, peace, a soul healing, physical health, joy for your wild heart, 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 anything you do to improve your life.

4) I’m available for one-on-one support by phone, for up to one hour, should you want to privately discuss a problem, or if you have a concern that would take too long to discuss during a group ceremony.

You can divide the hour into two half-hour conversations. Our talks must occur within a month after the event.

All these elements—rituals, transmissions, psychic reading, and private one-on-one support if desired—weave together to make a major enchantment, which will probably snowball long after our retreat ends, helping us continue to be serene, powerful, happy, and of maximum service. (Heh, snowball, appropriate to the season.)

Total fee: $225. Your carrier might charge you for the call.

Click the Pay Now button to enroll securely through PayPal:


Pls give yr phone number



Upon receipt of payment, your seat is reserved. You receive event phone number, etc., by email. Refunds unavailable. Call me for more info or to discuss payment plan, trade, or scholarship.

Gentle magic is powerful:

Our retreat will be in a Faerie sanctuary where gentle magics abound. It is a place of peace, music, fun, transformation, and guidance from Fairy Gods.

Gentleness is not the same as milquetoast. We’ll have a gentle yet richly enchanted day, not despite the gentleness but because of it. Fairy secrets are not phrases boasted like passwords. Fairy secrets are the lightest touch of the Goddess’ breath on my forehead, followed by her kiss there, utterly transforming me and my life. Faerie secrets are living mysteries, experiences that gentleness can help happen, allowing ritual to bring us deep deep in, within a few minutes, so this virtual daylong retreat will be remarkably effective.

With nice big breaks, we can do four whole hours of ritual yet have an easy, gentle pace, so we don’t become overwhelmed, tired, or physically stiff from sitting on the phone too long.

During breaks, we can rest, stretch, eat, work out, run errands, or do whatever else we need to accomplish that day.

I cannot tell you how much I look forward to this megadose of magic—gently given us by the loving Winter Queen and King.