The Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training

The Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training
Be Prosperous, Feral, Free,
and Magic Like The Moon

Contents
If this table of contents’ links don’t work, scroll past the table of contents for all the event information.
* Magical Overview of the Training
* Attend by Phone. It’s Easy!
* Class 1: Center and Circumference
* Class 2: Faeries Love Gaia, and Gaia Loves Faeries
* Class 3: Myth, Body, Gaia, and Faerie
* Class 4: Come Home to the Faerie Queen
* Schedule
* Enrollment
* Four Master-of-the Arts Magics Will Fuel Your Success

Magical Overview of the Event

This eight-month Shamanic journey
begins January 22, 2023

Harness power
in the far reaches of Fairy Witch mysticism.

The Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training consists of four courses. Each one helps create a magical repertoire with spells that cover any situation.

The Old Gods don’t try to tame you,
or insist you become dour.
They help you find great freedom,
and They help you find your power.

They guide you when you’re lost
and don’t scold you when you’re wrong.
They hold you when you’re hurting.
They show you how you’re strong.

In this mystic training’s rites,
the Old Gods help you be
prosperous, wild,
magical, and free.
So mote it be!

Classes are teleseminars—group meetings by phone. Call the event phone number to attend. No special equipment or app is required.

Here are the four courses.

Class 1: Center and Circumference
Be Your Fullest Self, and Be in Union with All Things

This is mysticism that creates a new reality. We’ll address worldly (e.g., finances) and spiritual (e.g., your life purpose) concerns.

The course helps you live fully. Here’s one way that will happen:

The lessons free you from society’s lie that important parts of life conflict with each other, so you have to sacrifice unnecessarily. Here’s an example to make that clearer:

Part of becoming utterly ourselves is interacting with others. However, many of us were taught from childhood that we must give up the self to be part of a group. Not true! You can be immersed in love from others and still be you.

We’ll do rituals that empower you to be your true self. We’ll add other rituals that nurture your ability to remain your true self while you’re in the company of loved ones and the larger community. You don’t have to isolate so you feel comfortable being you.

Bringing full self together with thriving participation in community can be daunting. In this course, you don’t have to choose. You’ll gain what you personally need to be fully yourself and also integrate self with community—center and circumference.

Another example of supposed conflicts that the course conquers: The lessons nurture the self-fulfillment that comes through knowing one’s talents while also helping you use them to the max to serve others.

image

Expect rituals that help you stay in the center. I mean your inner center. I also mean the center of what really happens in life—the grandeur of the cosmos, the beauty of tribe, life’s miraculous possibilities, the big ups and downs, the little ups and downs. You remain safely centered within the circumference of truths.

In addition, the rituals help these centerings remain while you thrive within the circumference of a loving community.

We’re going to accomplish a lot in this course because of its innovative modalities.

Center and Circumference is tailored step by step to its participants. For example, you may need rites that show you your unique place in community and give you the power to take that place.

This course is an intensive = soul-depth, pivotal movements, and playtime.

You’ll be magic like the moon.
You’ll be in union with all things.

The last nine yards to personal well-being and life goals can require evolving past how we’ve always done things—as mystics, as a species, and as unique individuals.

I’ve spent my life channeling a new approach, working full-time to develop and refine it. I continue to evolve material as the global psyche shifts and the Gods give me more information. All the courses in this series have such material.

This post outlines my visions, realizations, and other reasons for creating these four curriculums years ago. Reviewing the post reminded me that I was way ahead of the curve. And I spent decades building up to these courses before that. Do not accept teachers who threw a curriculum together because they’re jumping on the bandwagon late in the game.

Each of the four courses in The Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training is a complete training in itself. These life-changing courses also weave together into a transformative journey that is even greater than the sum of its parts.

Each course emphasizes specific topics in depth.

The courses also overlap. Some overlaps are mentioned in the course descriptions here. Paradoxically, focusing on a few things, while including several others in that week’s lesson, deepens focus. Far-reaching connectivity is part of Fairy mysticism. You’ll receive experiential shamanic lessons in which you can feel all of creation as a weave that lovingly supports you.

If you do a lot for people, you need someone to take care of you. Healers, parents, teachers, psychics, nurses, and other givers, enroll in The Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training. In every one of its courses, I take care of you, and you soar.

Class 2: Faeries Love Gaia, and Gaia Loves Faeries
Nature Spirituality, Ecstatic Union, and Personal Wholeness

This class’s nature spirituality is without dogma. Just straight-ahead earthy mysticism.

We’ll delve into a connectivity with nature that makes you whole, happy, and powerful. If you have that connection already, it will grow quite a bit.

We’ll explore mysticism that heals Mother Earth and ceremonies with Her that, in turn, heal and empower us. If you already have that, it will be amplified.

You’ll experience a spiritual connection with nature while you’re also thoroughly in touch with the psychic realms, creating an ecstatic union and wholeness. This results in maximum physical and spiritual health.

All the courses in The Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training include material to achieve an utter integration, within and without. (Interesting sidebar: In a lifetime of channeling rituals and teachings, they almost all foster this integration. When the rituals and teachings focus elsewhere, even then they are potent tools for integration.)

In the process, Faeries Love Gaia, and Gaia Loves Faeries will also explore how our joys and our delights—including our lovemaking—can heal the earth.

As another part of that process, we’ll look at 20th and 21st-century shifts in the global psyche, spirit realms, and environment. The shifts require that at least a handful of mystics take steps that hadn’t been needed previously. The course addresses these steps, which go the last nine yards to human rights for all, our planet’s health, and our personal life goals.

I truly trust that we’re ready to take alternative spirituality and healing another step.

Gaia Spirituality! My star-touched cells long to dance with Gaia’s. She, in turn, needs my best. She and I are in a joyous union, in part through maximum service to each other. The training will facilitate each participant taking the next step and becoming their best, whatever those mean for each of us. We’ll nurture our uniqueness and celebrate it as pivotal to the salvation of the planet. Oh, union!

The course also includes shamanic techniques that maintain your home and the land on which it sits as a healing hearth and sacred site, respectively.

Hidden power spots and overlooked nature spirits abound, needing our blessings, and waiting to bless us in turn. We’ll discuss the power of your residence’s area. Included will be a ritual to wake up and empower the spirit of your local land.

In addition, the course shows how we can best be Gaia’s stewards on the mundane plane, according to our circumstances, personalities, and desires.

And the curriculum does so much more:

Most mystics face emotional wounds and health problems. Some of these might open a person to their metaphysical power. Nonetheless, healing wounds stops them from limiting our happiness. Healing is also required for mysticism to be safe and effective.

In Faeries Love Gaia, and Gaia Loves Faeries, we heal these soul wounds and transform them into safer doorways to power.

Mystics might suffer other emotional wounds and health problems caused by mystical exploration. Possible negative impacts of vigorous otherworldly exploration have been insufficiently addressed. My curriculums are exceptions.

This course’s innovative theories and methods support wild flights into fantastic realms and train you to come back whole.

Lessons in Faeries Love Gaia, and Gaia Loves Faeries are multi-faceted. All the material, even when it seems disparate, comes together to create personal inner integration and integration with Mother Nature. An effective approach to Nature Spirituality must include many far-ranging aspects, combined in a way that adds up to a larger whole. This course ranges from deep mysticism to practical stewardship of land to inner change that helps you with worldly matters.

We can be Gaia’s Faeries—Her children who love Her, tend Her, and dwell within the fullness of Her love and care. Participants in this course visit the realm of Faerie. We drink star-water. Our cells dance with Gaia’s. And our recognition of our beauty becomes an unstoppable agent of change for the better.

Each course in the Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training has a diversity of intertwining topics. Humans, life, magic, and all of creation are wondrously complex weaves that are somehow also wondrously simple.

The magic of all four courses evolves our DNA toward inner wholeness and integration. Our new state will be a blueprint that the rest of Gaia’s children (animal, mineral, vegetable, and spirit) and Gaia Herself will fashion themselves after, sometimes on a conscious level, just as often not. In other words, we become a psychic template for society and Gaia, simply by changing ourselves. Our inner change empowers the rest of the cosmos to do the same. Any spiritual evolution we achieve in any of these courses helps everyone.

Faeries Love Gaia, and Gaia Loves Faeries is core material for mystics—central to personal and global evolution. I see how much it helps my students.

This class is an intensive.

Class 3: Myth, Body, Gaia, and Faerie
Fairy Wisdom and Rituals for Otherworldly Adventures

Shamanic rituals for Faerie shamans, bardic poets, visionary painters, cosmic clowns, spiritual outlaws, and other fey-touched seekers. And for anyone who wants to become a fey adventurer.

For now, I’ll oversimplify the definition of myth and define it in a way that might seem eccentric until it’s explained in the course. Let’s call myth an altered state, otherworldly realm, or mythic self-identification. Myth has a more complex, inclusive meaning that we’ll explore during the event.

Myth, Body, Gaia, and Faerie combines myth, the physical body, Mother Earth, and Fairy realms. We will experientially integrate living in myth, being in a physical body, interacting with Gaia on the embodied and mystical planes, and visiting otherworldly lands of Faerie.

This weave produces rich experiences and ecstatic mysticism that are uniquely and innately available to you, then deepens those wonders more, then deepens them beyond more.

Such an extensive weave is made up of many things, including the power to meet practical needs. The class helps star-children improve daily life in worldly ways (e.g. finances, love, home, and career).

There will also be magic to
* Manifest physical health by meeting the needs of your star-touched physiology.
* Heal your soul wounds.
* Make mystical experiences safe. (Star-drenched!)
* Keep you, as a Fey-touched individual, safe in your mundane activities. (Stardust still falls on us when we walk on the earth!)

imagePart of the healing available in the course will be a chance to address loneliness, self-doubt, and other challenges star-wanderers might face because society misunderstands the mythological and therefore judges us as deluded, immature, or otherwise “wrong.”

Class 4: Come Home to the Faerie Queen
Be Star Drenched! Fulfill Your “Impossible” Dreams.

This class was first taught years back, after I had a vision. Here’s a short version of it:

The Faerie Queen tells us,
“I am Mother to the Fey.
More of you are awake now.
Lovers, warriors, children, elders,
cats in disguise, and Fey-blooded humans,
wolves, bards, dragons,
gardeners, herbalists, corporate executives,
changelings, tricksters, moon-children, star-children,
and so many more of you,
you are awake now.
Come unto me, come home to me, I am your Mother,
and I will protect you, uphold you,
tutor you until your starlit blood shines
like the milky way in all its immense luminosity.
Dance with me! I have been lonely for my children.
But you are awake now, so come to me, my Faerie children.
The new Fey tribe begins—a mystical global village.

This course delves into the full version of the vision and responds to the Faerie Queen’s call. We go home to reside within Her love and care. And we enter a global Fey community.

Before I offered this class for the first time, I’d waited lifetimes for the Fey-spark in humans to fully re-ignite. More and more, the ancient starlit blood came forward. Finally, momentum hit critical mass; Fairy magic was thoroughly awake in huge numbers of people. Fey-touched! This left us with new questions:

* Have you sensed shifts in the human/plant/mineral psyche?

* What do you require for self-healing, prosperity, and great sex during present times?

* Are your mystical aspects desperately needed by everyone right now, including by you?

* Would you like to learn how to (better) use your new/old/undiscovered/shifted powers, both magical and mundane?

* Is Paganism too dogmatic, not pagan enough? Do you long for fellowship that supports unique visions?

* How can mystics—ranging from activists to quiet magicians—come together to love, celebrate, and protect Gaia?

* Can Gaia—can we—be happy, or even survive, without such a tribe happening globally?

To address all these concerns, I developed a curriculum that has fresh ideas and innovative magic that help us embody the answers to these questions.

That’s how this course was born, revealing unprecedented steps and new approaches to be taken.

Various individuals copied the course’s title or other parts of the event’s announcements and used the imitations for their retreat, course, blog, or book. My vision for a new way of being had such relevance that it was receiving a lot of attention. So some people wanted to seem like they could teach the same thing. No imitator can teach the original, life-changing, reality-shifting material but me.

image

Included are lessons about how to be your style Faerie shaman. Faerie is filled with different places, each special. One is your home. This class helps you go home. If you’re already home, you’ll learn (more) about its unique magic and spirituality, and how to use them practically to empower your mundane life.

The curriculums in The Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training culminate decades of work. Rewrite your DNA with me and break through to the stars. You’ll create previously-impossible possibilities for yourself, Gaia, and all beings.

Creating Come Home to the Faerie Queen lessons inspired me to develop the other courses in this series. Now, we’ll use the beginning as the end—the instigating course is now the culminating one. The juicy beginning can be even juicier magic after the other three courses are taken.

Schedule

This eight-month training has 29 classes, meeting on Sundays from 6:00 to 7:00 pm pacific time, starting January 22.

Class 1: Center and Circumference is seven weeks long, from January 22 through March 5. Reserve 6:00 to 7:00 pm pacific time, Sunday March 12, for a makeup class in case I can’t attend one of the planned sessions.

Class 2: Faeries Love Gaia, and Gaia Loves Faeries lasts eights weeks, April 2 through May 21. Reserve 6:00 to 7:00 pm pacific time, Sunday May 28, for a makeup class in case I can’t attend one of the planned sessions.

Class 3: Myth, Body, Gaia, and Faerie is seven meetings, June 18 through July 30, skipping over July 2. Reserve 6:00 to 7:00 pm pacific time, Sunday August 6, for a makeup class.

Class 4: Come Home to the Faerie Queen lasts seven weeks, August 27 through October 8. Reserve 6:00 to 7:00 pm pacific time, Sunday October 15, for a makeup class.

A break after each course keeps the schedule from overwhelming you.

Enrollment

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


Pls give me yr phone #



Your place is reserved upon receipt of payment. 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, or you want to discuss a scholarship, semi-scholarship, trade, or payment plan other than the above subscription option, or you need more information about the course, please call me at the number below. A few days before our first class, you receive an email with course details—e.g., the phone number to call for the meetings. No refunds. However, you can cancel your subscription after two payments for the specific course you’re attending.

To participate in only part of this training, tell me which course or courses you want. I’ll invoice you through PayPal for $400 per course, paid in installments of $200 a month. Each course stands on its own, a training unto itself.

If you’ve taken any of these courses, repeat enrollment is half-price. Let me know which course(s) you want to repeat, and I’ll invoice you.

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

Any two of these courses, except Center and Circumference, can be used as the two qualifying electives needed to participate in the advanced Fairy Witch Training.

Four Master-of-the Arts Magics
Will Fuel Your Success

The price for the event is a deal because I bring four Master-of-the Arts magics to this eight-month shamanic journey. I do a lot to ensure Fairy magic enchants your life:

1) Twenty-Nine Oral Tradition Lessons

Each meeting is not only a lesson but also a ritual because traditional shamanic lessons include material taught experientially. I use master-level Witchcraft techniques to create ceremonies safe for beginners and substantive enough for adepts.

Drawing on ancient transformative practices and ancestral wisdoms, I developed innovative modalities and theories.

Enrollment is limited so we can work in Fairy oral tradition, which happens in small groups, and in which headway can happen quickly. Limited enrollment also allows participants to request individualized support. Authentic connectivity.

A shamanic journey is personal. Traditional shamanic lessons include individualized attention, which tailors the training to you. In-depth guidance.

2) Every Week, I Do a Spell For Your Success

I cast spells that give you good luck, add power to your efforts to improve your life, strengthen the magic of our meetings, make life safer, awaken your magic to its next level of power, and awaken your mundane strengths further too.

Good luck can be required to create the life and state of mind you want. The spells I’ll cast give you so much luck.

They also adapt to your needs automatically (instead of me arrogantly deciding what you need), e.g., prosperity, personal growth, physical health, peace, business opportunities, confidence.

The spells adapting to your needs means they not only create specific benefits but also bless you as a whole being and enrich your entire life.

3) Psychic Readings about Your Goals

During at least one meeting per course (and likely several in each course), you receive a psychic reading about how you can best implement the lessons, apply them to your specific situations, or otherwise use them. This might include uncovering and overcoming blocks to the life you want.

No matter how serious, complex, sophisticated, or unusual, I will address your circumstances and personal state.

4) One-on-one support by phone. I’m available should you need a private discussion, or if something comes up during a group meeting that would take too long to discuss during the meeting.

Mysticism is practical. It can transform you and your life in ways nothing else can. My approach has changed person after person’s life substantially for the better.

Reviews:

Life-changing. I don’t have words adequate to thank you. … One of the most deeply meaningful experiences of my life.”—Melissa

I am truly blown away at how much I was able to resolve and heal.”—Chad Woodward

My life just seems to go better when I’m taking one of your classes!”—Shauna Farabaugh

Total cost for eight months of Faerie Shamanism training—29 classes, 29 weeks of my spells for you, psychic readings, and one-on-one support—is $200 a month. Your carrier might charge you for the calls into the lessons.


Pls give me yr phone #



I don’t know when or if I’ll teach this series again. I’d guess the last time I taught Faeries Love Gaia was in 2007, Center and Circumference in 2010, Myth, Body, Gaia, and Faerie in 2014, and Come Home in 2015.

A lot was shifting in the Faerie and mundane worlds, so I
originated these classes. I saw that new methods were needed to work toward your happiness right to the finish line. The same goes for human rights and care of our planet.

To be part of this four-part breakthrough Faerie Shamanism training and acquire its in-depth expertise, enroll now.

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

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

In the land of Faerie, miracles are bestowed upon me every day.

Maytime Portals to Faerie

Dangerous Faerie Realms in the Month of May

Reject Forbidden Portals and Still Frolic with the Fey Folk


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

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

In the early days of May, portals can appear.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And those are only the dangers from kindly Fey there!

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

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

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

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

Who are the Fairy Queen and King?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11-14-2020: A Fairy Magic Day

A Fairy Magic Day: Join me, November 14, for a daylong retreat, in the Faerie realm.

Spiritually refuel and center. Find power, peace, and renewal. Receive Divine guidance about your challenges and life path. Get covered in stardust. To participate, just dial the phone. Enroll by Nov 11.

Join me, November 14, for a daylong retreat, in the Faerie realm.

Spiritually refuel and center.
Find power, peace, and renewal.
Receive Divine guidance about your challenges and life path.
Get covered in stardust.

To participate, just dial the phone.

Enroll by November 11.

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


Spend a day being taken care of. I’ll take care of you the whole time. More important, we’ll do ceremonies in which the Great Mother Goddess takes care of you. 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.

The Great Mother Goddess in ancient Italy was Diana.

The first record of the Goddess instructing us, “All acts of love and pleasure are my rites” is Diana speaking. She wants us free, on all levels, including politically. In fact, there’s Italian lore that She gave magic to humankind so peasants could use spells to free themselves from the landowners’ tyranny. She will join us at our virtual retreat, blessing our rituals with Her Divine love, so we are more free than ever to be ourselves, and move into power and serenity. And She’ll provide whatever each of us needs at this particular time in our lives.

Goddess Diana is also the Faery Queen.

(The English spellings vary. E.g. Faerie Queene or Fairy Queen.) Yes, She wants us free, on all levels. She will be with us all day, providing what we need to be our magical, miraculous, Fey, grinning selves, and more easily return to that part of ourselves in the future.

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.

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 a loving Goddess.

Fairy, Faerie, Faery, Fey, Fay, …

Fairy God, Francesca De Grandis, 2010. Painting of a foliate face with deer horns.

Different Spellings: Fairy, Faerie, Faery, Fey, Fay, Fae…

1) Does the Spelling—e.g., Fairy vs Faerie—Change the Meaning?

Some people use the various spellings to convey different meanings. The distinctions made shift from wee group to wee group, and continue to change from month to month, and thus might cause more confusion than they alleviate when voiced in a large public forum.

The main differentiation made is between the fairies who populate Victorian literature—darling, wee, cute, winged creatures—and the Faeries of ancient lore. (I’ll define the latter in a moment.) Individuals who voice this distinction often insist the Victorian darlings are inauthentic and a corruption of the “real” thing. I disagree.

The Fey Folk (Fae Folk, Fair Folk) take on many guises, and many a child, before losing their otherworldly site, has seen the Victorian version. I will not trample on a child’s vision.

Several of those children, grown, have told me how they suffered when they came to the Pagan community, hoping this’d be a place they’d finally be understood, only to have their visions invalidated, once more. How awful!

The boastful disdain, subtle or overt, for the Victorian fairy and people drawn to them makes me sad. It seems the naysayers want to garner attention, by showing they know an old spelling: Faerie. As if that made them superior to people who don’t use that spelling. These naysayers are authenticating and inflating themselves, by saying they are not someone else, as if the someone else is less than them.

The longer I live, the more I know most Fey Folk don’t give a hoot about your spelling. They do get annoyed by people who are snobby.

So I say: spell as you will. If you want to explain your view of the Fey, rock on! A specific spelling might not be the best way to explain. As I said, meanings of the various spellings constantly shift. Honor your own concept, share it if you feel like it, and walk away from anyone who turns down their nose at it. (Here’s a little humor about snobby magicians: https://stardrenched.com/2012/10/04/fluffy-bunny-pagan/)

2) Who are the Fey/Fae/Faerie/… of ancient lore?

Opinions vary. I believe they’re part of the Old Religion—shamanic culture that predates Christianity—and that there are at least the following four categories of Faeries (how I spell the word here doesn’t matter to me):

* ancient Fey Gods

* an ancient African tribe on the Dahomey coast, people with a tiny stature who migrated throughout the world, teaching their enchantments. That makes sense to me. Almost every culture has lore of a small, dark, magical people. And Africa has been the origin of so much of the world’s culture that it likely could also be an initial source of much magical culture. 

* descendants of human women who mated with beings from the sky. The latter are considered Gods, angels, or aliens.

* any otherworldly creature, as opposed to just humanoid beings. All magical entities—e.g., dragons—are traditionally called Fey/Fae/Faerie/….

3) The Fairy Queen Honors Varying Visions of Her Kind

And She doesn’t care if you refer to Her as Faerie Queene, Faerie Queen, or Faery Queen.

A relationship with the Fair Folk is a human heritage. It does not belong to an exclusive elite who insists there’s only one type of relationship, or one way to view the Fae. That supposed elite tends to be obnoxious about the spelling. It’s a subtle way to tear down anyone else’s involvement with the Fey.

The older I get, the more I want to honor everyone’s relationship to the Fair Folk, whatever form it takes, as long as it is ethical, and with ethical Faeries. (This article Ethical (and Unethical) Fey Teachers talks about ethical and unethical Fairies: https://stardrenched.com/2012/05/30/ethical-and-unethical-fey-teachers/).

I’ve vowed lifetime after lifetime to continue to part the veil between the mundane and Faerie realms. I cannot do that work unless I honor the various relationships with—and mental pictures of—the Fair Folk. In that spirit, I celebrate folks’ preferred spelling(s).

Honoring everyone’s ideas of the Fey doesn’t imply that my particular relationship with them is milquetoast. My Fey life is amazing. It’s precious and special and crazy powerful and deep. I suspect many a person feels their particular version is amazing, precious, special, crazy powerful, and deep. That’s wonderful! Beautiful!

We can all have different amazing versions, and cleave to them without invalidating anyone else’s. Mine is so strongly a part of me that I feel secure enough to support those whose experiences are wildly divergent from mine. When we embrace our own experiences, we’re free to support other experiences without feeling they denigrates our own. When we honor other folks’ experiences, we are more able to embrace our own.
Nordic Faerie I met in the ‘90s. She is over 5’ tall, and was my webmaster for a while.  Francesca De Grandis painting of blonde woman with wings and modern garb.

4) Lore, Linguistics, and Anthropology Have Special Magic

Language and anthropology fascinate me. The history, lore, and linguistics surrounding each spelling are important and beautiful. (I’m not going to get into them in this post, because they’re not core to the main thrust of this essay. Besides, many other writers could do much better jobs of explaining the cultural backgrounds of the various spellings than I could.)

If an individual finds freedom, joy, and magic in a spelling because of the meaning its cultural background suggests, that’s beautiful. I enjoy doing that myself. But it’s only one of the options I draw on (and not a main one). Were I to insist it is the only approach, and therefore you must cleave to it, my haughtiness would not be true freedom.

As a poet and mystic, I cannot let my use of language be restricted to cultural backgrounds of words.

5) Faerie Secrets Are Alive and Demand Freedom

Right now, using all the spellings works for me. I don’t want jargon that restricts me. I want words to free me. A dogmatic use of language obscures the paths to fairy secrets. Words cannot contain Faerie secrets, anyway. I want to use language to point me toward the Fey mysteries. To do so, I personally need all the spellings.

They each evoke a distinct Fae reality for me—or several—providing various powerful opportunities, various portals.

Additional portals appear because a spelling might evoke something different from one context to the next. So I won’t decide that one spelling shall always mean one specific thing, and another spelling shall always mean another specific thing, no matter how much the history of the words might denote otherwise. Otherworldly mysteries transcend logic or fixed definitions; there’s an ever shifting poetry to all this that I need to honor, the ever-changing poetry of life as it manifests moment to precious, unique moment. That which is alive is not fixed. I am not saying you must honor the poetry of this. I’m talking about what currently works for me.

Each spelling also has its own poetry and a melody. The poetry and song may shift from context to context because, as I said, mysteries are alive, and as such ever-shifting.

An abundance of spellings is an abundance of Fey opportunities. I won’t let any mortal bar me from Fey realms, for even a minute, by insisting something is legitimate and correct only if stifled in a constricted language box.

Call it Fae, fairy, or fantabulosis, capitalize the words or not, but Fey experiences and the fairies themselves run from those who try to confine them.

Painted this picture of one of my ancestors in 2012. Francesca De Grandis painting of an African woman with pointed ears like an elf’s.

An example of how different spellings provide different portals:

In my 30s, I started using Faerie instead of Fairy because the former evoked the idea of mystery and majesty to me in a way the latter hadn’t. The language shift was affirming and freeing.

Eventually, restricting myself to that spelling felt less affirming and more naysaying, less freeing and more restricting. In fact, it felt like mystery and majesty were diminished by restricting myself to that spelling.

I continue to use Faerie. It invokes my past lives and other things I treasure. No spelling is ruled out.

Often, I’m using the various spellings as synonymous. If I labor over spelling decisions all the time, I’d make myself crazy, because, in my own way, I’d be trying to trap Faerie secrets in verbal boxes.

I need to choose my spelling carefully when it feels important, and the rest of the time just go with the flow, perhaps using my intuition as part of that.

I’m having a ball with all the spellings. So much magic is invoked. I love being a wordsmith, bard, and poet. I love how lore, culture, and my personal history impact meanings.

Another example of spellings as portals:

6) Faerie Tale or Fairytale?

The more typical spelling evokes a turning point in my life, and all the power thereof.

When I was in grade school, my teacher told a fairy tale about a generous little girl who kindly gave water to someone who was thirsty. As a reward for the child’s generosity, her water-ladle flew up into the sky and became the Big or Little Dipper, I can’t remember which.

I ran home to excitedly ask my mother if the story was true. Goddess bless Mom for answering, with a completely straight face, “Yes.” Mom was a Strega, and her reply nurtured my innocent trust in fairy tales and magic. This put joy in my heart, when I was desperately hoping for an alternative to the bleak view of life that reigned in my neighborhood.

Today, there’s no doubt in my mind that magic is real, as real as a kiss. There’s no doubt in my mind that Fey matters are real, including a-good-Faerie-appears-to-grant-your-wishes-with-a wave-of-their-wand. No doubt in my mind the universe is constantly doing a powerful spell for us to have love, abundance, etc.—our hearts’ desires. There is magic surrounding us and taking care of us.

The day I ran home to ask my mother about the reality of fairytales was a turning point. My life would’ve been horrifically lacking had Mom laughed at the joyful hope in my young heart—hope of magic and possibility. Instead, Mom’s response was an important contribution to my certainty of magic.

So I won’t give up the spellings fairytale, fairy tale, fairy tales, fairytales. They—not Faerie tales—call forth a specific certainty of magic. Faerie tales calls forth in me another type of certainty about magic. but what’s important to say here is:

Today, Fairy tales, Fairytales, etc., invoke the childlike wonder I felt at my mom’s remark, and a child’s utter belief in magic. The part of me that understands the very realness of magic as a fanciful reality, as opposed to, for example, magical realities being mere metaphors for psychological states, comes forward.

When that part of me awakens, opportunities abound:

My spells are powerful. I get to enjoy visits to the other world, where I am blessed with joy, peace, bliss, and power. The enchantment that fills the universe and surrounds me blesses me and carries me to my ideal situations, whether worldly or otherworldly. So mote it be!

Fairy witch, Francesca De Grandis, is the bestselling author of “Be a Goddess!” and Goddess Initiation. A teacher, guide, and healer, she offers long distance classes, rituals, private counseling, and healings. Her Goddess spirituality embraces practical magic spells. Raised in a European-based shamanic family tradition that includes both Italian sorcery and Celtic shamanism, Francesca’s witchcraft is a multicultural Faerie shamanism.

BtmNewsltr

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

Upcoming Training

Update: The day and time of this event has been changed, so you can enroll if the new schedule suits you better. New schedule: we meet seven Sundays, from 4 to 5 PM EST, starting Sunday November 8. Classes are consecutive weeks except we skip November 29, for Thanksgiving weekend. Reserve Sunday Jan 10, same time, for a makeup class in case I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions. Rest of class info is below:

Come Home to the Faerie Queen
A Seven-Week Faerie Shamanism Training

FeyRealm

The Faerie Queen tells us, “I’m Mother of the Faerie Nation. And more of you are awake to your magic now—lovers, warriors, children and elders, changelings, cats in disguise, bards, wolves, gardeners, corporate executives, tricksters, star-children, and many others. Come to me, come home, I will protect you and tutor you until our starlit cells flow back and forth between us like the milky way in all its immense luminosity. You’re awake now, my Faerie children. The new global Fey village has begun.”

This class responds to the Faerie Queen’s call. You’ll create previously impossible possibilities for you, Gaia, and all beings. Honest. The curriculum is the culmination of decades’ work. Rewrite your DNA and break through to the stars.

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

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

The Fey-spark in humans re-ignited. Ancient starlit blood came forward till it finally hit critical mass; Faerie magic’s thoroughly awake in many people. This leaves us with new questions and new approaches needed to answer them:

image* Have you sensed shifts in the human/plant/mineral psyche?

* Can you have self-healing, prosperity, and great sex during present times?

image* Do you feel the mystic part of you desperately needed by everyone, including you, right now?

* How can we better use our new/old/undiscovered/shifted powers, both magical and mundane?

image* Do you find Paganism too dogmatic, not pagan enough? Do you long for fellowship that supports your unique vision?

* How can mystics—ranging from activists to quiet magicians—come together to love, celebrate, and protect Gaia? Can Gaia—and ourselves—be happy, or even survive, without such a tribe happening globally?

This class addresses these issues with innovative magic and fresh ideas.

FDG2015ProfileYou also receive lessons to be your style Faerie shaman. There are different places in Faerie, each special. One is your home. This class helps you go home. If you’re already home, you’ll learn (more) about its unique magic and spirituality, and use them practically to empower your mundane life.

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

Come Home to the Faerie Queen qualifies as one of the two electives needed before advanced Third Road training.

Nuts and bolts:
* These are group meetings by phone. To participate, just dial the phone from anywhere.
* Class meets seven Sundays, from 4 to 5 PM EST, starting Sunday November 8. Classes are consecutive weeks except we skip November 29, for Thanksgiving weekend.
* Reserve Sunday Jan 10, same time, for a makeup class in case I’m unavailable for one of the planned sessions.
* Tuition: $250. If you’ve taken it before, repeat it at half-price. Your usual long-distance charges apply and appear on your phone bill. The event’s area code is a U.S. #.
* Enroll here.
* Or pay by check or money order here.
* Upon receipt of payment, I email you event phone number, etc.
* Call me—814-337-2490—for more info or to discuss scholarship, trade, or payment plan. Do not email me. Refunds unavailable.

imageIf you want to be part of this experience, enroll now, because I don’t know when I’ll be able to teach it again. It’s maybe been six years since the last time.

If you see someone else’s class that sounds the same, this class is original material. No one teaches it but me.

Faerie holds daily miracles. I trust that.

Enroll here.

DentaliaBar

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

The Faerie Queen’s Innocence

The Unseelie Queen and her pawns would have us give our anger supremacy: They would have us fuel our anger with pseudo-morality, the same angry false righteousness that makes pseudo-Christians betray Christ’s message of love.

imageAnger has its place. It should not be suppressed. Nor should its good power be ignored.

But it too often permeates, perhaps subconsciously, many a pagan’s being, many a pagan tradition. It corrodes their magic, until there is none left—none—and they are left only with the pretense of it and childish boasts of power.

I train my students rigorously in magical technique, but it is not enough in itself. I received impeccable magical training, but my magic could not withstand my anger if it were made supreme.

But we have a choice. We can acknowledge and honor our anger, then let it go. Because when we do, we become sure in our guts that we deserve a place with the Faerie Queen and Seelie Court. It cannot be an intellectual exercise—you have to experience letting go of anger to have gut knowledge of the following:

Anger made supreme is a trap the Unseelie set us. When we release anger, to make love supreme, supreme in our cells, the Faerie Queen’s magic and innocence and love flood us. All our green fantasies, and wishes to see the unseen, come true. We feel, feel, note the word “feel,” we will feel the magic that most people can only imagine as part of a dream. Feel it in our waking hours. We will walk the path through enchanted woods. We will feel the World Tree as our safe home.

In other words, we will be magic. That is what happens when a pagan soul relinquishes anger and owns the love in their heart.

Footnote: This material came to me, right before bedtime, day #1 of the Hundred People direct spiritual transmission. But “material” is an insufficient word because, along with insight, was a breathtaking breakthrough experience, more transformative than any realization.

Giving the weeklong transmission caused me many beautiful learning experiences. Posting about only one of them might make that one incorrectly seem more pivotal than the others. But this is the only one I felt guided by my Gods to discuss at length online, thus far.

Have you had a magical Fey experience that substantiates mine or is otherwise relevant? Please post it below. I’d love to read it. And it will support other site visitors.

CnslingBotmBnr2

Spirituality, Small Groups, and Promotion

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

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

Been in an interesting process. Wld luv yr insights.

I was in a position to blog at HuffPo. After mega-deliberation, I decided that it’s not for me, at least not yet. (I’m not anti corporate media: I watch tv and movies, published with HarperCollins, scripted a segment for a major tv network, enjoy YouTube, etc.)

Interestingly enough, after my decision re HuffPo and some other corporate media, I was asked to blog for Dharma Trading Co. And I have absolutely loved working with them! Their audience is nowhere near the size of HuffPo‘s, but it feels right.

Yesterday, Anne Newkirk Niven, editor of Sagewoman and other pagan rags, asked me to blog for her. I was given a choice between blogging for http://witchesandpagans.com, which has 30,000 Facebook likes, or the soon-to-be blog for Sagewoman (7000 likes) that will become part of the larger witchesandpagans site.

After looking at the site, praying, and meditating, I chose Sagewoman. That might seem the poor promotional choice, because I don’t know if it means less readers. You’re supposed to get as many readers as possible, right? But numbers aren’t everything.

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

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

Narrowing my focus sometimes implements one of my life goals: authentic connectivity, which can require a community I get to know.

I am not saying that no one gets to know anyone at witchesandpagans.com. I am not saying I chose Sagewoman in order to narrow my focus. In fact, I am not stating here why I chose Sagewoman. My process of choosing Sagewoman was complex—and partially sheer intuition—and I do not fully understand it yet, so will not try to outline it here. My point is: I made my choice despite the possible numbers, and the choice is in keeping with my life goals. I am not making a pronouncement on what is “right,” I am just sharing my process. Speaking of which:

I do not strive to be queen of the witches. I want deep connection so that, whether in print or in oral tradition, we can get spiritual work done. Am i knocking big numbers? No. There are types of spiritual work you can do in big numbers. There are types of authentic connection that can happen in big numbers. (I must say, though, that big numbers too often consist of folks spouting off about how much they know, telling you how superior they are to you, and decrying the pagan they now think is a jerk.) When going for large numbers feels right and honorable, I do it. The rest of the time, I do work that requires smaller groups. I usually limit class enrollment, for just that reason.

What do you think of all this? My process is terribly against-the-grain in some ways, so I wld love your thoughts, whether you post them here or on Facebook.

———————–
Want support from a shaman who lives intuitively and successfully meets life’s demands? Please make an appointment for a session.

Meeting Lady Olivia Robertson

My dearest Olivia, Below is a post to honor and celebrate your birthday. The piece was written over a decade ago, but you may remember it, because you told me twice you wanted it as your memorial reading. A birthday is a much happier occasion, I am blessed to post this as a birthday offering.

FOInitiationB

A treasured picture of my FOI initiation. Click on it to see it less blurred and large.

It’s been quite a while since we’ve been in touch—only once or twice in a decade—which saddens me. I wish my health had allowed otherwise. The multiple sclerosis (that’s what my illness probably is, we still don’t have a definitive diagnosis) ate up my life for years. It got so bad that it looked like I’d only a few months to live. Not to worry, now I’ve another 10 to 30 years left, because I made a deal with the Faerie queen. She needed some community work done, which I now do, and she keeps me going.

My health, though greatly improved, is nevertheless challenging: I use a wheelchair and require caretakers to perform many of my daily tasks, such as dish-washing.

But I am able to continue my work, and am still very happy in it, serving community with the shamanic skills that I was given for that purpose. And the relative improvement in my health has allowed me bit by bit to reconnect with some folks: I’m so grateful to be contacting you and re-sharing with you the piece you enjoyed.

With love, Francesca De Grandis

**************************************
Meeting Lady Olivia Robertson
Francesca De Grandis, September 2002

In the early ’90s, I was given a vision of Olivia. I saw her to be very similar to myself, what I would become. I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant; Olivia is one of the public priestesses I most admire and my admiration for her also extends to her simply as a mystic with an enormously inclusive and remarkably warm heart. Thus, to say I think we are alike might sound uppity. But in fact, it’s not that way. It’s just that, simply speaking, we are quite alike! Take that as you will.

So I went on a pilgrimage in Ireland to meet her. To her castle in Clonegal. And I wondered: Since I only had that one brief visit scheduled, how was I going to forge the connection that I was spiritually driven to make?

Waiting for her to arrive, I suddenly sensed a presence behind me. Knowing she had come into the room, I turned and there she stood, wearing bright green eye shadow and her bathrobe, the latter clearly—somehow I knew this—worn as a ritual robe. She had posed herself precisely, and her entire aspect proclaimed, “Aren’t I magnificent!?” And she was. She truly truly was. I knew that my vision had been real and correct.

We sat and chatted. Thinking that I had to grab her attention immediately, and somehow impress upon her that we had a reason to go further than a brief, amiable discussion, I took a risk: I told her who I was.

I said to her, “Olivia, I had to meet you. Because I’ve been told we are alike. I’ve been told that, like me, you are eccentric, a remarkable counselor, and an equally remarkable ritualist.”

She responded, “Why do think they call us eccentric?” And then she went on, answering her own question, “You know, they did this book. And, in it, so-and-so lay on an altar and such-and-such-other-person was leaping over a fire, and they called me eccentric! But you know why I think they call us that? It’s because we don’t do it for the money.”

FOInitiationA

A treasured picture of my FOI initiation. Click on it to see it less blurred and large.

Oh, but I gulped at that point. Because of what I knew I had to say next. To tell her who I was. Only the truth, as always, would do. And I said, “But, Olivia, I do get paid for my services.” I didn’t tell her that I do far more free work than the work that I get paid for, because that wasn’t the point.

She looked at me, perhaps startled, and said, “Ah, I know why they call you eccentric. Because you are sincere. You believe the gods are real.”

She understood. And although we had scheduled a brief visit of an hour or two, she cordially allowed me to spend the rest of the weekend with her.

There are many things I could say about Olivia. Not only in regard to what happened between us that weekend and since then, but also about her work in the world. But for now I will say this: She embodies a gracious inclusiveness that I think is sorely lacking in almost every other spiritual leader and religious organization I have seen. She understands that each person’s path is beautifully valid and, therefore, welcomes everybody into the Fellowship of Isis, blessing each soul who appears before her, querying each person with delighted questions about their unique journey. And I will add this:

Years later, she came to dine with me in my home which, being oh-so-truly-humble, unlike myself, was a sharp contrast to her castle. And as we sat in my kitchen, breaking bread at my Formica table, I happened to tell her that I had spent seven years in Faerie; a time in which I was in trance 24 hours a day. And she asked a question that no one else had ever spoken, no one had had either the insight or forthrightness. She said, “Were you celibate during those years?”

She, again, understood; she is not only a profoundly loving person, though that would have been enough. She is far more. Often, when someone has a big heart like Olivia does, others assume that the good heartedness lacks depth. People tend to think that a person has to be one-dimensional—as if one can have a good heart or brilliance, creativity or amiability, cheerfulness or insight. No, people are much more complex and wonderful than that. And in Olivia’s case, the “more” is that she is also a true not to mention brilliant mystic, and a woman I suspect has made heart rendering sacrifices to serve the community.

At the time of this writing, I have not seen Olivia for maybe three years. And I will get to be with her again in a week. During her last few visits to the States, I had to be at different conferences than she was at. I hated it but, you see, to use the old, trite, but so apt expression, duty called. I am a priestess and must go where Goddess sends me.

So this chance to see her face again, to tell her how much she means to me once again, and to pay homage in any way I can is exciting. I do not use the word homage as a sycophant; for I, too, am one who can proclaim her own magnificence. I have no false humility. But in my struggle to be a community servant, in the day-to-day fierceness of battling for a better world, I, warrior, lift my sword in salute, paying homage to my comrades in arms. To those who walk beside me, believing in greatness, sacrificing far too much for the good fight—you know, there’s no other way to fight the good fight except to sacrifice far too much —, I say, “I could not continue this battle, this terribly difficult work, without you by my side. Even if I never see you, simply knowing that somewhere you are doing the work that needs to be done allows me to keep doing it myself.” And I look up to the spiritual servants, though I am one myself. Lady Olivia Robertson, one warrior and lady to another, blessings on your magnificent soul.”