Magic Is Sacred

GdsBlsRtl

My beloved witch,

The Goddess blesses your rituals. I wrote/painted the above picture-poem as the third and last meme in my mini-series about the sacredness and beauty of witchcraft.

The previous two memes are here and here.

(All three memes blurred a bit, because I shrunk the files so their webpages would appear quickly for you.)

I call them poems, though they could be viewed as prose. To me, they’re poems or prose-poems, both in that they are lyric and evoke magic.

I believe one of my jobs as a bard is to evoke magic. I’ve not seen that description of a bard in a historical text, but I know in my bones and past life memories that the Gods choose some bards to create ritual aka bardic poems.

My class lectures are sometimes lyric and other times straightahead prose, but on some level they are still my concept of bardic poetry.

Are you a bard who creates ritual? Or were you chosen to do bardic work other than ritual creation? We all are given such different jobs by the Faerie Queen.

I combine words with art to further the experience. Even when I first started teaching shamanism, class handouts sometimes had my calligraphy and artwork, though they were far more primitive than they are now. But I feel that extra effort added blessings.

I make memes like this not just for my site but also as Book of Shadow pages for myself and students (aka handouts). I’m fascinated with painting borders around my words to add magic for Book of Shadow pages. I even had to paint a border for the newsletter button below this post.

… Oh, if you wonder what the newsletter button has to do with Books of Shadows, bear with my following explanation, since at first it may seem to have no relation to the topic:

Ok, to me a Book of Shadows page points to your day and how you can live it magically. In the same vein, I teach oral tradition—which the written word cannot convey—and you only grasp oral tradition when you use its lessons by living magically in your day. So, in the final analysis, your day is your ultimate Book of Shadows, because it is your life that holds the most magic, not any text. Your life is the real ritual, not the words on any page.

And my newsletter is a doorway into that oral tradition, because it announces upcoming classes. So I can think of one of my newsletter buttons as the front cover to a Book of Shadows. So mote it be.

Since I view life as the ritual, it might seem contradictory that I work hard crafting my words and visually ornamenting them. But I want my pages to be really good pointers to the magic available in the world around us, so they can help me—and hopefully other people—see how to live a day magically. I believe that is why Goddess gave me gifts with words and art. Blessed be.

BoSNwsltrSm

Faerie Freedom

KindFey

The road to Faerie is not civilized, but kinder.

I wrote the above line in the 80s, but recently someone asked why. Good question! Here’s my answer:

Indoctrinated with the idea that our wild aspects are always ruthless and to be feared, many people’s wild, beautiful power is crushed.

Breaking out of that oppression, they often go to the other extreme, allowing themselves any actions at all, even cruel or irresponsible ones, unaware they’re being hardhearted. They might honestly believe they’re doing no harm, insisting, “I’m just being me. If you don’t like it, you’re trying to oppress me. Not my problem, because I’m a free spirit.”

I wanted to create a maxim showing a third option, other than the two extremes of suppression or hardheartedness. So I coupled the ideas of wildness and kindness.

However, it’d take a whole book to fully explain why I wrote the maxim, since I was trying to express so many ideas in it. I use my skills as a poet to write lyrical aphorisms because they can contain endless concepts and levels in a few words and touch the heart rather than just the intellect.

However, I should share: on one level, the adage refers specifically to the path I walk with my students—the Third Road—and was written as part of a blessing for students entering into a deeper level of study with me.

I wanted the blessing ceremony to include the following thoughts: We’d long ago rejected the hardheartedness mentioned above. But our upcoming shamanic journey would release more of their —and my—wild power than even our previous work together had done. When gaining another degree of wildness, it’s easy to fall prey to foolishness previously discarded. We needed to continue to integrate our wild and civilized aspects. This would more than ever make us whole in ourselves and as a community. Otherwise, we more than ever risked becoming enormously fragmented in ourselves and alienated from fellow seekers. I preferred to express all those thoughts in words that could be carried through the training not just in the mind but also the heart: “The road to Faerie is not civilized, but kinder.”

Hmm … maybe putting all the stuff in the above paragraph into the ceremony would’ve made things clearer, LOL.

Always happy to answer a question! I can’t always explain my poetry, because sometimes poetry is the only way I can explain something. But I tried my best today.

Blessed be.

NewsPrpl

Joy Creates Abundance

The Generous Sun – Francesca De Grandis, 2012.

The Generous Sun – Francesca De Grandis, 2012.

Beltane Poem

Do you say you’re too worried about money to be happy? Do you insist making a living earns all your time, you can’t take time for joy?

Ancient Mayday, it was not just an elite priesthood who went into the fields to make love. Even farmers did it to bless their crops.

Joy creates abundance.

Know the battle is fixed: When the Winter Queen and Spring Queen’s armies fight on Beltane, the Spring Queen always wins.

What keeps you from Spring? Is it fear, hate, self-doubt, refusal to love the frail arrogant humans populating this planet? What keeps you from Spring? Leap the Beltane fire. Be purified.

You winter heart—what freezes it still!? Leap the Beltane fire.

And be welcomed into Spring by the Faerie Queen.

She gives you a rose.

A dragon appears, climb on its back, take your rose with you, take flight upon this great and honorable beast.

As you fly, your thawed heart blooms a garden, your thawed heart blooms spring, your thawed heart starts to hope.

Become a garden on the back of a dragon,

Throw back your head and howl in mad joy.
Throw back your head and laugh with foolish pleasure.
Throw back your head to watch the moon and sun smile at us all.

Come to earth.
Throw back your head and grin, that Mother Earth caresses your feet.
Bow your head. Looking down, grin that you, a garden, are embraced by Mother Earth.

Thank the dragon, and say goodby as it flies off.
Do not try to keep it by you a second longer,
do not think it has more for you.
Trying to capture or control a dragon is bad news,
even if you do not realize you are trying to imprison it.

As you cry out a wish from the bottom of your garden heart,
a wish for abundance and all your heart’s desires,
throw your rose into the sky.

Do not try to get the rose back, let it go.

Send the gods love and power and hope.
Then say thank you and goodby to them for now.

Joy creates abundance. Take time for joy.

May 2, 2013. Yesterday, I wrote a Beltane ritual in my head while I was leading it. Usually I don’t remember what I channel unless I write it down right then but, for various reasons, some of it remained with me. The above is a variation on what I remember of yesterday’s Beltane rite/poem/concept. One reason I remember it is that, as some of you may recognize, there are bits adapted from a Beltane script/poem/concept I developed years back. I made a new poem out of it today (never try to capture a oral tradition moment, make a new moment instead) to 1) help the rite’s participants, including moi, follow through on yesterday’s work 2) because gods impelled me 3) I am a ritualist, poet, and cosmologist who likes to share some of her ideas in written form, lol 4) I am taking time for joy.

There Are Ghosts in All Our Heads


The word “red” means red.
“Apple” means apple.
If someone thinks I said,
“I’m eating an orange,”
they’re listening to a ghost,
not to me.

They will tell you I
said things that I didn’t.

We all have ghosts
that smother our ears.

——————–
Sprinkling Faerie Dust on Breakfast. Powerful reading that is short enough to fit into your day. Available only from the author: https://www.etsy.com/listing/114317006/sprinkling-faerie-dust-on-breakfast