No Need to Fit In!

People trying to decide if I’m the right guide for them often say, “I’m eclectic, so I don’t know if I’ll fit into what you teach.”

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Detail. Faerie Realm, silk painting, Francesca De Grandis

Oh dear! It is terrible that the prevalence of bad teachers requires that issue to even come up.

Most of my students are eclectic. I am, too. Those who look for the core of reality, the heart of magic, and the essence of mysticism do not want to be boxed in by labels (Wicca, hedge witch, Druid, Taoist, Christian), and are not looking for ego-feeding titles. They are drawn to teachers who, whatever their path, support students to find their own idea—and experience—of the core of reality, heart of magic, and essence of mysticism. I hope I’m one such teacher.image

During our lessons, we transcend labels and titles, to focus on finding our individual beliefs, personal myths, and shamanic gifts. If folks already have them, I help them polish their personal approach, even if they’re already master level.

Magic, Spirit, and life cannot be standardized.

I do tend to call my classes “Wicca” or “Faerie.” I’m of the generation in which “Wicca” and “Faerie” referred to (among other things) individualized earth-spirituality. Unfortunately, nowadays, those terms are often used rigidly, to denote a set liturgy and belief system, which invalidates many beautiful Gaia lovers.

You’re not alone if you’ve faced invalidation. When first teaching (eek, that was in the eighties!), I thought I knew the one true way. Then I realized my students were my peers and fellow travelers. Guess what? After explaining I wld no longer support a hierarchy, imageI lost many of my students, they migrated to a fundie tradition of fey magic. I was devastated, stunned that people I loved—many of these were my beloved initiates—could not make that move with me, that attempt at being egoless. It was, and still is, painful to see ego takes precedence over ethics, effective magic, fey sensibilities, and beauty. But I mention my experience because it might be validating for folks who went through something similar. Ok, enough negative stuff. To quote “Buffy, “not for me the furrowed brow.”

Onto the rest of my beautiful day—my Gods’ embrace, a flow of joy, magic, and right livelihood, a flow carrying me toward even more joy, magic, and right livelihood. I hope this post is validating and/or, if you’re considering me as a guide, informative.

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Want shamanic counseling? I can guide by phone. Book an appointment online. http://www.outlawbunny.com/pastoral-counseling/

Your Heart is a Faerie Garden

Finis2ECropI give direct spiritual transmissions.  During a transmission, a lot of hard work on myself regarding my own spiritual growth might be required. As such, doing a transmission can cause me immense personal challenges.

The particular transmission I’m doing right now (it is a month long) is causing me more inner turmoil than usual. For example, some of my most basic premises—beliefs my whole life is built on—are being challenged. Though this provides opportunities to commit to my beliefs more strongly than ever, it is not easy, by any means.

As difficult a time as this is, it is a time of enormous excitement. My efforts to face the challenges are causing wonderful shifts. There has been a widening of my inner channels to allow greater experiences of joy, more passion than ever in my work as a shamanic guide, and increased ease about who I am and what I do.

I was already very joyful, comfy with myself, and ecstatic in my work as a guide, so these shifts are taking me to incredible heights. It is so wonderful for me that I want to share part of what is causing it: If you’re meeting a lot of inner challenges right now, I hope that you love those parts of yourself that are troublesome. Welcome them into a circle of love, welcome them into your loving heart. Because love heals all.

Do not reject any part of yourself. I’m not suggesting it is okay to act on the parts of you that want to be hurtful to yourself or to others. I am saying that those parts of you need love. Rejection does not heal us. Love heals all.

When all parts of us come into the circle of love, when all parts of you are embraced by you, the magic in you comes alive. Your rituals are more effective. And you are carried by the currents of magic that constitute the very core of life. Your heart blooms a Faerie garden.Finis1GCrop

Solstice Snow-Kitty

The kitten almost knocked over huge houseplants trying to get a good view out the window. I figure that was pretty clear guidance from the Universe to take a break from shipping books and go outside with my kitten into the snow.

Our venture probably lasted only ten minutes, and was just us hanging out. But I felt joy and wonder.

Cosmic Cat Nap, Francesca De Grandis

I feel blessed today that I find immense joy in small things, despite daily challenges that would’ve killed many people in both spirit and body. I also feel the hope that my classes impart the same sense of miracle in the wee gifts amidst enormous difficulties. That is not necessarily spelled out in my curriculum descriptions, but it is innate in an authentic spiritual teaching and methodology: life brings challenges, and with them great sorrow; life also brings us great joy if we open to it despite our struggles.

There are, of course, times when trauma or other challenges will overwhelm. Then my job during class or a counseling session is not to be a Pollyanna who callously insists, “If you were really spiritual, you would be cheerful anyway!” The recent deaths of Connecticut children has us deeply grieving. At such times, I share coping and grieving tools, ways to heal, and methods to overcome problems.

We cannot always have the joy the World Tree offers us, and must face inevitable pain. My hope, in my heart today, is that I help my students and clients do that and also help them find as much joy as possible, when it is possible. I am an ecstatic, in love with the world tree, and I believe, deep in the cells of my heart, that the world tree is in love with each of us, so It wants to celebrate existence with us.

On solstice day, I smile thinking about my little faerie kitten looking up at the snow, studying it thoughtfully, and I wish you happy solstice.

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I experience profound love from—and connectivity with—the Divine. Do you want spiritual reading that reflects accessible Divine love? How about that honors your idea of Divinity (e.g., God, Goddess, God within, World Tree, Universe)? Read Sprinkling Faerie Dust on Breakfast. Available here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/114317006/sprinkling-faerie-dust-on-breakfast

Ta Da!

Announcing the renewal and relaunch, the cosmic—and cosmically comic—revitalization of this here ol’ website. Come one, come all, join the Chaos Circus. To explore the wonders, the fantastic, the massive changes I made to this site, use the newly-added, new-fangled nav bar above. Yup, we got modern conveniences to go along with the ancient mysteries you will find here.

Stardusted Traveler, come get your weary soul shined. Have your spirit refreshed by its own beauty, then shanghaied by its own magic.

Have your peculiar ways oohed and awed at—everyone here, including you, is the main attraction.

Sit in the front row to get a good view. I’ll sit with you. Or get in the circus ring: introduce yourself in the comment field.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the authentic, the original, the amazing and death-defying Francesca De Grandis. That translates Great Freedom, your purveyor of shamanic wonders and mystical madness. Curator of curiosities, middle management for the Chaos Gods, seer, guide, and utter fool.

I make up fancy phrases to describe myself, like bardic brat. They’re true as tar.

My mother was a fortuneteller, my father hit the road when he was 12, hard traveling. His mother was a “showgirl.” After the war, dad went down south and got into trouble. We don’t know what it was, but the story is “he hung out with hillbillies.” I do remember he loved folk music. This is all truth, it’s family history, told the first time on the web right now. I am an old woman, too old to hide those tales anymore.

That’s a bit of my tale, a bit of my myth—real and honest. Be your myth here. Dragons, Faeries, poets, and other inhabitants of the fantastic, please walk your myths alongside mine, I long for company on the spiritual path.

Tell me a bit of your story in the comment field. I welcome and invite you, praise you and incite you—Join the cosmic circus!

 On a more serious note, Terry Pratchett wrote “Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.” Ok, quoting Terry is hardly a way to convince most people that I even can be serious. But
I take my work as a shamanic guide and healer seriously, and I am good at it. And I have
fun. Walking an ecstatic path frees you from restrictive either/or rules. And building a convincing persona as Oh-Great-Shaman wouldn’t leave time to serve community. Can I hear a “So mote it be?”
Middle Management for Chaos Gods, Francesca De Grandis

Middle Management for Chaos Gods. Self-Portrait

Magic can be quiet, subtle. I am blessed that, amidst my loud joy and silliness, some people “see” me—just another flawed human whom, for some reason, the Divine uses as a shaman.

I’ll be blogging here, while I continue to blog at my other site . Two blogs with two separate RRS feeds.

As we prepped the relaunch, I started blogging here—just four blogs sharing my personal process renewing the site, and what we revamped. I hope you read them. And this blog has info that will help you find your way around.

Whether you travel with me only on the web, or move into oral tradition with me, whether you post here or I never know you visit, I’m grateful for your wild wyrd ways. Thank you so much for coming!

Please explore the site. I’d love it if you posted feedback. You will be dazzled by dancing Deities, heartfelt happenings, genuine living breathing paradox, and more. 

Blessing #2 and Gratitude

Detail, Faerie Landscape, Outlaw Bunny

As the relaunch of this site approaches, I pray to all gods I hold dear, World Tree, the lines which I come from and which I create, and the rest of my Faerie crew, please keep safe and bless this site.

Please keep safe and bless all who support this site through their direct work on it or simply by visiting in good cheer.

Please keep safe and bless me and mine, all my work and all my life.

May this site be maximum fun and beauty, helping cosmos, my Gods, Tree of life, the lineages I come from and which I create, the rest of my Faerie crew, and all beings stay safe, whole, ecstatic.

May this site be maximum service, helping all be safe, whole, ecstatic.

Keep me and my work in your light
that my own light be bright—a beacon.
May all I do and am be a shining beacon
for those who should see it—not a beacon to me,
because I am too frail to carry anyone,
but a beacon leading people to Divinity, as they see it,
that they be loved so fully as to be stardrenched.

May I shine bright in joy.

May I shine free from harm.

May I shine hidden from anyone who’d try to
extinguish my light or otherwise harm me and mine.

May all for whom I am the right spiritual guide find me.

May this site create abundance for me and tribe. 

May this site and all my work
be a welcoming hearth to star-dusted travelers.

May all I do here be according to the Divine Will.

Thank you. So be it.

Dear visitor, a bit of the above blessing is adapted from an earlier prayer I wrote on my other site.

On another note: Humbled by blessings in my life, I had to paint this banner to express gratitude. It hangs in my kitchen. I put it here to send thanks into the universe, to you who bless me—this includes a site visitor who blesses me simply by a single good-willed visit here, whether now or any time since the 90s when the site started.

It is such joy to love my gods, ancestors, and the rest of my community­—the joy of loving a blessing itself.

I feel excited wonder about all the blessings this site has received during our revamp of it, so want to share about that in upcoming blogs.

Thank you for visiting.

Kathi, my webmaster. I painted it in gratitude for and homage to this amazing woman