The Virtual Pagan Monastery 2023

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Francesca

The Virtual Pagan Monastery 2023

Retreat to the Virtual Pagan Monastery
where you can use Fairy magic to
achieve worldly and spiritual goals.

The Virtual Pagan Monastery group
begins Monday September 11
and is three-months-long.
Enroll by Wednesday September 6.

Ceremonies are led by Francesca De Grandis,
Fairy Witch elder and best-selling author of Be a Goddess!

If this table’s links don’t work, scroll down for any of the event information.
Magical Overview of the Event
Attend by Phone. It’s Easy!
Schedule
Enrollment
Three Master-of-the Arts Magics Will Fuel Your Success
Feel Too Busy to Visit the Virtual Pagan Monastery?
Anyone Can Find Power in the Virtual Pagan Monastery
Ongoing Empowerment
Going It Alone?
Fairy Gods Create Miracles
Miracles Can Happen Fast

Magical Overview of
The Virtual Pagan Monastery 2023

You are invited
to fifteen-minute-long ceremonies
three days a week
at my Fairy monastery.

In each brief meeting, you enter a mystical environment that quickly centers you into power and serenity. If that seem impossible—because, for example, you’re dealing with trauma—my students will tell you I deliver on my promises. Plus, the rituals also help manifest your pivotal material and spiritual goals. You get this three times a week without spending a lot of time. Ongoing re-centering, ongoing miracles.

Walk between the stars with me.
We will cast old-fashioned magical spells
for prosperity, serenity, the ability to serve with our precious gifts, or your other goals.

We will find peace, healing,
and outrageous joy,
our spirits held safe by Fairy Gods.

Then we’ll return to earth,
our hearts and strength renewed
with the ability to reach cherished goals.

If the earth’s weight bears down on us again,
we can return to our Faerie sanctuary
to walk the stars again and find the power we need
to meet the hours ahead,
triumphing
with joy.

Definitions if you’re new to my work:
*Witchcraft and Shamanism are synonymous in my tradition. Ask me why if you want.
* Ditto spells, rituals, ceremonies, meditations, etc.
* All the magic I teach is Fey, whether described as such or not.

Think of the Virtual Pagan Monastery as a haven hidden in Faerie realms, or a Goddess temple, Druid grove, unusual monastery, or whatever feels right to you.

It is where we find power to fulfill longings. Love, money, health, serenity, self-love, and other desires.

It is a sanctuary and joy, even in the hardest times.

Paganism needn’t lack contemplative aspects to remain wild and free. Inner adventures fuel my passion for life. Ritual moments between the stars nourish and give joy like few things ever could.

Plus for my outward efforts to be effective and loving, I need an inner life. For example, the mystical planes are where I perform magical spells to succeed on the worldly plane.

I needed new terms to depict monastic spirituality that liberates instead of oppresses. The devotional practices, contemplations, and shamanic rites I channel for the Fairy monastery are not dour, overly formal, or anti-sex. I created the term ecstatic contemplative to describe folks like me. I also coined Pagan monasticism to expand the sense of spirituality. Ecstatic contemplations in the Pagan monastery free us from subjugation and give us the magical and worldly powers to live wild and free.

Attend by Phone. It’s Easy!

Simply call the event phone number to attend. The group meets by teleconference. No special technology needed.

Schedule

The Virtual Pagan Monastery group meets three times a week for three months, starting September 11 and ending December 8.

We meet from 7:15 to 7:30 pm pacific time, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

You’ll need three minutes after each session to perform a special grounding ritual, which I’ll teach.

Reserve Monday December 11, Wednesday December 13, and Friday December 15, 7:15 to 7:30, for makeup sessions in case I’m unavailable for planned sessions.

Enrollment

Cost is $200 a month for three months. Your carrier might charge you for the calls.

To drop out, simply cancel your subscription, and no further payments are required. No refunds.

Enroll by September 6.

Click the Subscribe button below to enroll securely through PayPal.

Limited enrollment. 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, or you want to discuss a scholarship, semi-scholarship, trade, or payment plan other than the subscription, or you need additional information about the event, please 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.

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

The enrollment price is a great bargain. I do a lot to help you accomplish a lot. Here are three Master-of-the Arts magics I bring to the monastery:

1) Oral Tradition Faerie Rituals Three Times a Week

I use master-level shamanic techniques to create ceremonies safe for beginners and substantive enough for adepts. Enrollment is limited so we can work in oral tradition, in which immense headway happens quickly. Fairy oral-tradition magic works only in small groups.

2) I Cast Spells For Your Success

Three times a week, for the entire three months, I cast spells for you to achieve goals. Here’s how:

Each meeting, you receive direct spiritual transmissions. Spiritual transmissions are a method I use to give you good luck, add power to your efforts to improve your life, and strengthen the magic of our rituals.

The transmissions also adapt to meet your needs, e.g., money, soul healing, physical health, opportunities to express your wild heart, or relief from pressing spiritual challenges such as despair.

3) One-on-One Shamanic Support by Phone

I’m available if you have concerns to discuss privately. Or, if you have a question that’d take too long to answer during a group ceremony, you can call.

Reviews

Someone might think, “I won’t get much from 15 minutes.” But Francesca’s Pagan Monastery showed me how deep a 15-minute ritual can go. She knows how to do this.—Jenelle Campion

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

Cost for three months of rituals, transmissions, and one-on-one support:
$200 a month.

Feel Too Busy to Visit the Virtual Pagan Monastery?

If you have to miss a lot of sessions, it’ll still work. For one thing, the rituals are set up so that, if you can’t attend all the meetings, you won’t miss instructions or continuity needed for the rituals you can attend.

For another, you benefit from every meeting because I give you a spiritual transmission whether you’re at the meeting or not.

I support you in your life circumstances and frame of mind.

I’m charging less than I might for the amount of work I’ll do. This way, you have the yummy option of coming to all of the rituals but can miss some without wasting money. Show up when you can, even if it’s only half of the sessions.

Another reason to not worry about time: When I’m not centered in my Gods’ love for me, I lose far more time than three fifteen-minute rituals a week. I waste hours on
* worry
* obsession
* time-robbing habits like too much social media
* ineffective solutions that leave me battling problems endlessly.

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

Grab this opportunity for immense blessings. This is the second Virtual Pagan Monastery group I’m leading in 2023 because there’s been an even greater need for it than usual. I tend to open the monastery briefly for visits only once a year and, in fact, it had not been open to visits in three years.

Anyone Can Find Power in the Virtual Pagan Monastery

The Fairy Gods stand with us against hierarchy. Anyone can visit the Virtual Pagan Monastery and get a lot out of it—beginner, adept, monastic, non-monastic.

I facilitate our circles with easy-to-understand, step-by-step magical instructions.

Ongoing Empowerment

Continual spiritual sustenance: fifteen-minute-long ceremonies, three times a week for three months.

It can be hard—if not near impossible—during crises or other busy times to spiritually tend to oneself, but the virtual monastery is a quick way to do it regularly.

Ongoing spellcasting: rituals three times a week to create and maintain success, luck, and wholeness.

A happy life requires care. Repeatedly, we need to regain emotional balance, experience spiritual renewal, and create positive outcomes.

Enrolling in this event might be one of the most important actions you take. If you need to miss some sessions, enroll. Perfect attendance isn’t always real life.

These special visits to the monastery are a chance to continually center into your wisdom, truths, and power, and to remain in a flow of good luck.

I need miracles often if not daily. Visits to the Pagan monastery keep miracles happening. For example, magic washes away doubt and pain, replacing them with confidence, peace, and success. Every visit is pure magic.

Going It Alone

Even if you know how to do rituals, it might be hard to fit them into your week because it takes time to do them, let alone create or choose the right ones. Plus willingness to consistently take care of oneself can be weak when on one’s own.

You needn’t go it alone. I’ll lead you in rituals.

One reason I open the monastery to visits is so that I have to show up three times a week to hang out with beautiful people and my sweet Gods. We all need fellow travelers.

Fairy Gods Create Miracles

Their magic is so strong that fifteen minutes improves your life. You emerge from each brief session more able to cleave to your path, do what’s needed to achieve goals, stay centered, take maximum advantage of opportunities, and overcome challenges.

Don’t take my word. Trust your gut. It might say that I excel at facilitating fifteen-minute shamanic experiences that are relevant, extraordinary, and miraculous. (If my self-praise seems overly bold: Mom told me to let everyone know how good I am at what I do because no one else was going to say it enough.)

If You Think You Have No Time to Visit the Monastery

Whether happily swamped with efforts toward fabulous goals, or consumed with holding your head above water, enroll. Here’s why:

Without the sophisticated, effective magics we will do, you might waste a lot of time going down rabbit holes. Instead, the rituals help keep your life and thoughts streamlined, focused on what you need and want.

When I commit my time to something important, even if I don’t know how I’ll be able to fit it in, the Gods make it work for me.

You’ll be able to fit in 15 minutes often enough.

Miracles Can Happen Fast

With the ancient Fairy Gods by us, we’re unstoppable. The Old Gods are miracle makers so They accomplish a lot quickly.

My shamanic methods have conquered challenges that should’ve killed me, and have freed me from inner and outer limits. They can do the same for you.

They give you spiritual and worldly power to have a happy life, no matter how large, complex, or sophisticated your challenges and goals.

I’ve never met anyone too successful materially, spiritually, or magically to not profit in major ways from my work.

Recoup, regroup, restart. Every day is new and offers miracles.

Be a Goddess Who Has All Powers

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Francesca

Rage, Despair, and Grief Are Chances to
Be a Goddess (or Other-Gendered Deity) Who Has All Powers

To survive and thrive, I am so flexible that I am formless.
A nomad mystic, traveling Faerie realms, I am stardust.

All Human Fates Entwine

Part of my human and Fey heritages is connection with humankind as a whole.

All our fates are entwined.

As a shaman and servant to the Fairy Queen, I have a joyful duty to serve not only my shamanic students but also the larger whole.

My students and other friends are wonderful spiritual companions. Traveling spiritually alongside them upholds and nourishes me. The following is not about these friends. It is about the human race, which is part of my larger community along with Gaia’s other children.

A substantial percentage of humankind practices greed, heartlessness, and cruelty regularly. At times, my rage, despair, and grief overcome me. I’ve realized that, at such times, these painful feelings might be the only way I connect with humankind as a whole.

Though a misery to me, these feelings are strong fibers that bind me to every human on the planet.

One way or another, connection to humankind must happen. I cannot escape it, no matter how terribly a large part of humankind treats Gaia and all Her children. I want to choose how I connect.

Escape from Cruel Situations Can Feel Impossible

When rejected, mauled, and deprived from birth,
when carried in the womb of a Faerie woman
who was scorned, battered, and exiled,
when our skin and hair
was perceived as reason for incrimination,
when humans have haunted me and hunted me
for almost three-quarters of a century,
until in old age and a sleepless night,*
my past seems to be proof
that escape from cruel situations is impossible,
my despair, grief, and rage are inevitable and sane.

I must embrace them.

Then I can recognize
that my exhausted mind deceived me.
I can achieve freedom.
Doors to freedom surround me.

Rage, Despair, and Grief Are Gates to Power:
I Am Stardust

Yes, I embrace them.

They become my gates to power: To survive and thrive, I must become so flexible that I am formless. Formlessness immediately leads to my transforming further, into star dust. It is my natural state. I remember my path. I can plant my feet firmly into it.

Once in my natural state, I quickly, without even trying, become the entire cosmos—Diana, Magna Mater. It’s one of my favorite states.

Now I have no choice but to be in it if I want to survive and thrive. In it, I have all power.

My job is to be my true self—I am stardust, Diana, Magna Mater—because that innately serves the cosmos.

I Am Stardust and Faery Power. I Release Everything Else

Preparing to move to Italy, I am ruthlessly getting rid of every material possession possible. I want nothing but stardust.

I will keep what I need for functionality and beauty. Stardust.

I don’t regret moving back to California, even though, now, I don’t intend to stay.

California is my home—my mother land. But you can’t go home again.

I had to return here to take care of some things before moving to Italy. I didn’t know that is why I came back.

A Nomadic Mystic Traveling Across Faerie Realms

Before moving across the pond, I need to spend time with dear friends in California. I need to revel in and strengthen our connections with each other. Almost all my friends here had kept in touch with me long-distance before I moved back to California. But I need time with them here. Not only am I enjoying wonderful companionship, we’re strengthening a foundation to continue our authentic connection long-distance. This time together will make that long-distance friendship even better.

I need to revisit the land beneath San Francisco’s concrete to say the proper goodbye I could not manage when I moved away before. I need to do other things here, too.

I hope Italy will be my permanent home. But who knows.

I’m no longer counting on a permanent home.

My father was likely Middle Eastern. He might’ve been a nomad. Has my bloodline kept me from settling down happily? Is my DNA the reason that trying to make a permanent home on the material plane made me unhappy?

My home is within myself and within care from my sweet Fairy Gods.

My home is between the stars. I have always known that. I have always traversed Fay realms, but they are my home even more than ever.

Is a Spiritual Home an Illusion?

… Perhaps the idea of a home in the mystic and spiritual realms is a deception.

… No, it’s not a deception. A spiritual home is an important concept. A spiritual home has many vital meanings. … I will never let go of the idea of a sacred “home.” … There are good reasons that I work hard to help my students find their spiritual homes. There are good reasons that I strive to help each student find various metaphysical homes. They could range from being at home in a career to being at home in oneself to trusting one’s magical truths.

And a paradox exists. I need to relinquish the idea of a home, in some ways. The free movement of Nomads with their ever-moving homes is battled by the patriarchy, a death culture that wants everything fixed in place. Borders and boundaries maintain greed-based institutions like patriarchy, colonization, and racism**.

To be free of society’s oppressive spaces and culture, I need, to some extent, to let go of even a metaphysical home other than the ever-shifting Tao. It is the glorious now that is always magic aka miracle.

This is not to say I can escape misery. Or despair. Or rage or grief. They are part of life. Part of the Tao.

Clinging to any rigidity that my fear insists protects me increases misery. Surrendering to the Tao opens every moment to the possibility of joy.

After decades of practicing this surrender, my hopefully-correct understanding is that it’s become time to take it further. So I am. If I understand correctly, my survival and thriving require formlessness greater than I’ve ever experienced, despite my decades of shifting, shifting, and shifting. And I must be formless more consistently than ever.

My formlessness turns into stardust. And then I am a Goddess, Who has all powers. So mote it be!

Enjoy Shamanic Fey-touched travels.
In my events,
we have our heads in the clouds
and our feet on the ground.
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Footnotes

* A friend of mine says that whatever comes into your head after 9 pm is garbage. That’s obviously not true. But I understand her point. When you’re tired, it’s easy to sink into beliefs like, “My life is meaningless.” I am grateful when I remember my friend’s words at such times.

** Patriarchy, colonization, racism, and the other isms are synonyms to some degree. They’re also synonymous with greed. For example, if a white woman fights only to overcome her own oppression, good chance she is trying to climb into the upper caste so that she too can profit from the exploitation of oppressed groups. That is not feminism. It is greed. However, if she also fights misogynoir, she helps dismantle society’s oppressive structures. In other words, she understands that stopping isms requires stopping them as a whole. Mind you, there are many necessary exceptions to seeing them as a piece. For one thing, every ism has a distinct nature and needs to be fought against as such. But always fighting each one individually will dismantle none of them.

La Vecchia Religione

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Francesca

Online 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.

This 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.

I’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.

Two) 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.

Four) 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.

Five) 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.

I 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.

Though 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.

The 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!

Scroll down to pay securely with PayPal:

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.

The Practical Fairy Witch Mystic Training

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Francesca

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 CircumferenceBe 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.

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 FaerieFairy 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!)

Part 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 QueenBe 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.

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.

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.

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.

A Garden Is Magic

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Francesca

Photo of Jenelle’s Garden. In the garden is a statue of Quan Yen and a street sign that reads “Queen Street.”

Months back, I gathered with some of my sister Third Road initiates, by phone, to do a magical spell. (Third Road is a tradition of Fairy magic that I channeled and continue to channel.) During our ceremony, Jenelle Leigh Campion read a poem she’d written about her garden, pictured above. Her artistry wowed me once again.

The poem also portrays themes dear to me:

* Inner wholeness created through connection with the larger whole and through appreciation of every part of the whole. This sensibility is central to my journey as a spiritual seeker and Fairy shaman.

* The green world as an enchanted realm in which each plant is a living spirit. Plants are my friends who give me great joy with their beauty and wisdom, while they help me with my witch spirituality.

Here’s Jenelle’s poem, prefaced by her introduction:

This piece was inspired by a writing prompt that asked me to write from a “family consciousness” perspective and use the “royal we” pronoun to describe a family having a group experience. Instantly, my garden called out as the collective voice that would like to be channeled into my writing and this was the result.

Garden

We are the garden.
We are the ones who grow.

In the misty, humid dawn we drink in dew
collectively unfurling
from the evening’s contraction.

Hibiscus sees the light first,
standing almost as tall as the wall behind us.
Only a few shy flowers appearing amidst the bush.

Our bright pink petals of Lady Magenta
highlight brightly
in the sea of our green.

The tender arrives to inspect
our changes and newness
and inspire the cherished waters to flow,
refreshing and preparing us
for the work of the day.
Growth.
New achievements unlocked.
New blossoms to bloom.

Magnolia is always in the light drawing nutrients
down from the heavens and
up from below the foundation.
She hugs the earth and sky.

The cluster of Bamboo and Rosemary
are the grandmothers in the garden.
Kwan Yin stands in their heart,
reminding compassion.
These plant darlings shimmer in green
and laugh into the wind as they bend.

The potted plant party corner thinks
it’s having an exclusive event.
And they are right.
The late day sun is their jam!
Drinking in and
reveling in brightness
their medicine becomes
plump and potent.

We all become more
plump and potent,
happy in our brightness
or shade.

Easter Lillies, Holly, and Queen of the Nile
liking their cool calm zones
to chill and become beautiful.

We are the garden.
We are the ones who grow.

We are one circle,
within a larger neighborhood circle,
and a city circle,
state,
country,
continent,
world.

One global plant family
everyday turning up
to bring delight
to our courtyard.

Jenelle, who also paints amazing pictures, says, ”It is my joy to send art out into the world because it nurtures happiness, creates feelings of abundance in our lives, and shares the spiritual support and magical empowerment that the sweetness of beauty can provide.

I’m blessed by my students because, like Jenelle, they are amazing companions for me along the Faerie path. Join us. My newsletter tells you about upcoming classes and other events. Click the banner below to subscribe.

Honoring the Ancestors: The Man Who Raised Me

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Francesca

Photo of my beautiful young parents

Honoring the Ancestors: The Man Who Raised Me

Honoring ancestors has many aspects for me as a witch, and just as many for me as a human and individual. I want to touch on a few, before talking about my dad.

Ancestors Who Were Oppressors

Human nature being what it is, we all have ancestors who were horrible people, and some who were outright oppressors.

When I teach how to contact ancestors, do ritual with them, and live in alignment with the old ways of our forebearers, someone inevitably asks, “What should I do about awful ancestors? I don’t want any contact with them, let alone honor them.”

Whether the student deems those ancestors oppressors or terrible in other ways, the question is important.

The answer can’t be one-fits-all. Nor can I personally hang the problem all on one hook; I’ve had to approach it from a lot of different angles, including the following:

I myself have had to make peace with awful ancestors. For one thing, I don’t want hate in my heart. I can no longer bear the damage it does me.

For another, making peace helps me regain wisdom lost over the ages—herbal medicine, witchcraft, and other empowering choices suppressed by oppressors.

My very first ancestors at the beginning of human time (well, I believe the line from which I descended started long before that, but I won’t get into that here) started threads of wisdom and power that have spun forward in time. Every one of my ancestors has held and holds a piece of that thread. I don’t want my resentments to break the thread any further than has already happened. Even if an ancestor contributed to that breakage, I want to repair it.

Making peace doesn’t mean I ignore injustices ancestors have perpetrated, any more than I’d bury my head in the sand about living family members who are complete racists or otherwise awful.

But I find some peace in my heart, and that is how I honor ancestors whom I otherwise want nothing to do with, and thus repair threads that might’ve been damaged by them and my own hate. This is what I’ve learned through my own trial and error and what works for me.

What Is Ancestral trauma?

Ancestral trauma—or ancestral wound—is the suffering of a family member or members that then passes down to the next generation and the next, until it is healed. Though it’s passed down through behaviors and internalized oppression, as a shaman I also sense a maimed energy that each generation picks up. That energy also transforms the familial DNA. The behaviors and internalized oppression help create and maintain the energy. And vice versa.

Finding peace about awful people in my familial line is part of how I’ve healed the ancestral wound they passed down to me from the trauma they themselves caused to my other ancestors and that they themselves might have suffered. Carrying hate in my heart continues the legacy of hate and holds trauma securely in my DNA. Feeling hate is one thing. Holding onto that hate is another.

Ancestors if You’re Adopted

Another common question is how to deal with ancestors if you’re adopted. There are so many questions when it comes to that, including one relevant to this post: making peace with an abusive adoptive parent who has passed on, or with their ancestors.

A family member of any kind carries (or breaks) the thread of ancestral wisdom, power, and information. My theory is that, should that family member have adopted you, they hold a piece of the thread not only in their own bloodline, but surprisingly enough, hold a piece of the thread in your own bloodline. There’s not space here to go into that theory. But, if you’re like me, making peace with adoptive parents who’ve died could be important.

Awful ancestors are no small concern. There can be huge challenges, including endless questions. It takes time to deal with it all.

For example, it’s taken years to make peace with my father who has passed on. And I still experience some hate for him. I will continue to work on it.

Learning to align with my ancestors that I might live in the magic, beauty, wisdom, and power known by my forebearers has been an ongoing process. There’s been no single step then, voila, all done. But I take one step at a time, and that yields big results.

I’ve repeatedly needed to take different types of action.

For example. I’ve had to channel a lot of ritual to do this work. But now I have a body of rituals I can continue to use and also teach in my classes, and draw on for one-on-one shamanic counseling sessions. (Links to information about classes and counseling are below this essay.)

My first ancestors spun threads of wisdom and magic. Generation upon generation added more threads, until now thick ropes connect me back into the past, to my very first ancestors.

The answers that help me might not be the right ones for you. My experiences are not your experiences. But sharing our experiences can be healing. The following story about my father represents a bit of my journey making peace with him.

May 12, 2020:

Honoring the Ancestors: William Stafford

Dad, looking worn My father was always on the outside looking in. And he loved music beyond all reason.

He was a small-minded, violent man, who suffered a hard life.

I found his name in the census, which shows that, at seven years old, he disappeared from his mother’s household.

I found someone by his name in another household, that of a farming family. I suspect Bill had been sent out to work and live on a farm because there were too many mouths to feed in his own home. This is possibly corroborated by information one of my relatives has provided. In the census, Bill appears back with his mother a few years later.

Around the time he disappeared from home, his mom remarried. Did Bill’s stepfather not want him? Was this one of the first times Bill was on the outside looking in, face pressed up against the glass?

After a stint in the military during World War II, he returned from overseas and disappeared again. As a child, I was told that, during that period, he was in the south, “living with hillbillies, and ended up on a Georgia chain gang.”

My young father in uniform

Decades later, I asked him about it. All he’d tell me is that it wasn’t a chain gang. It was prison or jail, I can’t remember which, and he wouldn’t tell me why he was arrested.

After his time in the south, Dad came back to Boston—where we lived—and continued to be on the outside looking in.

He would pretend to be Irish, in a town that adored the Irish.

He would pretend to be a cop. In 1964, I was 14, and the Beatles were playing in Boston. The arena was a madhouse. When the concert was over, the crowd poured out into the lobby, and there was my dad, come to drive me home.

“How did you get in, Dad? Why did they let you in?”

He had convinced the security guards that he was a cop. Perhaps he’d flashed them a fake badge; I can no longer remember.

There was a police radio in his work room in the basement. My dad, the not-cop.

He chased fire engines. One time, he pursued one of those howling trucks, only to see it turn onto our street. He kept following. The truck stopped at our house.

Always on the outside looking in. A spectator to his own house on fire.

The man was as right wing, racist, sexist, -ist, -ist, -ist, as you can get. But when I was sixteen, I met a guitar-carrying hippie who didn’t have a place to stay. I brought him home. In retrospect, I don’t know why. Dad hated hippies.

But dad didn’t throw the kid out, didn’t care that he was a peace-loving hippy with long hair. The guy was carrying a guitar, and that’s all that mattered.

Or, maybe, Dad knew what it was like to not have a place to stay. Perhaps that’s what happened.

Bill loved folk music as much as he hated liberals. In those days, folk music was paired with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and revolution. Dad didn’t care.

I wonder if his appreciation of folk music came from his hillbilly friends.

Bill loved show tunes. This macho man raised me in a home where vinyl recordings of Broadway musicals constantly played in the background. I still know a lot of those lyrics by heart, and still happily belt them out to entertain myself.

Dad looking worn but happy When I was 14, I asked him and Mom if I could start going to folk music clubs. These were clubs for adults, and were not in my neighborhood. They were in downtown Boston and Cambridge.

Mom and Dad went to a club with me and decided I could go to them on my own.

Their attending the club with me was bizarre because they usually had very little to do with me. I was a feral kid who’d raised herself.

But there was Dad’s love of music again (and Mom’s huge-hearted ability to foster my wild dreams and artistic escapades).

Within months, I was playing some of those clubs myself as a musician.

When Bill died, I felt like someone hit me in the head with a 2 x 4. But only days later, I needed to be in the music studio. Before recording my album, there’d been 10 years of starts and stops. Recording were finally underway, due to circumstances that were temporary, the deadlines were incredibly tight, and I didn’t know how much longer Bruce Smith—my coproducer—would be available. It was now or never for this, my first, album.

It just so happened we were scheduled to record a song I’d written about Dad years back. When I arrived at the studio, I told Bruce that I’d probably break into tears at some point, and to give me five minutes to cry, and that then I’d be as professional as always. I also told him to not pull any punches when we were critiquing the mix; I didn’t want him being sensitive to my feelings; I wanted the best possible recording.

When recording the song, I thought of how Dad’s face was always pressed up against the glass, an outsider looking in. He would’ve loved to have been in that studio with me that day when I was recording a song about him, would’ve loved to have been on the same side of the recording booth’s glass walls.

The album was a bestseller. Dad would’ve loved that.

Mark Chimsky, who’s edited some of my books, asked me for a blurb today. I don’t usually give blurbs. The whole blurb thing is often just one big dishonest elitist scam, with people in power giving blurbs only to other people in power, and excluding most everyone else. But Mark is one of the most ethical, dear individuals I’ve ever met. He would’ve opened the window if he’d seen Dad’s nose pressed against the glass.

Later that day, I saw my blurb along with 19 others. The top blurb was from Johnny Cash. There was my name right below Johnny’s. I wanted to cry. The two names together would’ve meant a lot to Bill.

It doesn’t matter whose name is where. It’s all ego and illusion. Bill’s lack of self-worth drove him to construct a false ego, which he kept inflated by pretending to be Irish in the Boston of my youth, where Irish was a big deal—and an Irish cop at that, which was an even bigger deal—and by bragging about his teenage kid who played guitar.

He kept his false sense of self inflated by hating everyone who wasn’t … him. America was better than the rest of the world. Massachusetts was better than the rest of the country. Our neighborhood was better than all the other neighborhoods. Our family was better than all other families. And he was better than everyone else in the family.

He’d disappeared from the census, disappeared into prison, and disappeared into the recesses of his own self-doubt. So he bragged and hated.

I’m not saying his choice to brag and hate is the inevitable result of being made invisible and being shoved to the other side of the glass.

I’m not saying he shouldn’t have been made accountable for his hatred. I’m saying his choice is understandable.

I didn’t like Bill. He was an awful man, in ways there’s no point in giving details about here. A few years ago, when I found out that he wasn’t my biological father, it was a relief to know that we didn’t share DNA.

But I’ve come to understand that he was an intelligent, passionate, inventive fellow, and that he was shoved around and denied, denied, denied. (For one thing, he was a self-taught electronics engineer and resented that lack of college education kept his earnings low, despite many years in the electronics field.) I’ve come to compassion for this guy who helped make my childhood miserable.

No, I didn’t like Bill. But I’ve come to appreciate him.

… I guess in that sense I’ve come to like him. I appreciate his wandering restless spirit that led him to the south after he’d already been in Europe, long from home.

I appreciate his intelligence, vehemence, passion, and determination.

I’ve often wondered if he was one of the young boys who hopped trains during the depression, thrown out of the house because there wasn’t enough food. If so, that was a hard time, and he was a vagrant, wandering. I appreciate that he wandered away from his own soul, and the closest he could get to chasing after it was running after fire engines.

Wherever he thought the fire engines would bring him was an illusion, even when a fire truck brought him home to our house. And somehow, I’ve come to even like Bill for that.

I imagine somewhere, on the other side of the veil, Bill is wandering. I can’t imagine he’s been laid to rest. I can almost see him with my otherworldly eyes, see him waiting for reincarnation, needing another chance.

Dad looking worn but happy Though it’s geared to inflate his false ego, I’m happy today to tell his spirit, wherever he is, “Dad, look, look where my name is. Next to Johnny Cash’s.” And, “Dad, I never mentioned it before. My album with the song about you on it? It was a bestseller. And that book I told you I was writing, right before you died? Bestseller and dedicated to you.”

It doesn’t matter whose name is where. The prestige of a best seller doesn’t matter either. It’s all ego and illusion. But I’m happy to tell Dad where my name went today and to tell him the album and book gained recognition. Because illusions can be all someone has. Blessed be, William.

Additional Material

Honoring mothers: https://stardrenched.com/2017/09/18/ancestor-magic-mothers/

Mentioned above, the best editor ever: https://markchimskyeditorial.com

Newsletters to stay abreast of upcoming classes: https://outlawbunny.com/newsletter/

Spiritual counseling for ancestral trauma and other concerns: https://outlawbunny.com/pastoral-counseling/

Diana’s CrossRoads During the Pandemic

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Francesca

Diana’s CrossRoads During the Pandemic
Creating Spiritual, Physical, and Financial Wholeness in Crisis

I’m at double risk regarding Covid 19, being elderly and disabled by a chronic health problem. I’m also unable to receive medical care, due to corrupt bureaucrats.

So I understand that ethics and inner empowerment are possibly irrelevant luxuries for some folks when life gets really hard. But not for me. My spiritual wholeness and commitment to serving community during this crisis are tantamount.

After repeatedly conquering circumstances that easily kill people—e.g., poverty and life-threatening illness—I saw that, for me, my spirituality at such times was an essential tool for both surviving and the subsequent establishing of my happy, prosperous life.

At a ritual I led last week, we each found ourselves at a moral crossroads and made decisions about which route to take. In the months ahead, I think a lot of people, myself included, might face a lot of moral crossroads. Most of mine will likely be about the need to dedicate myself more than ever to relinquishing false ego, surrendering to my Gods, and serving Them and all Their children. At least that’s what came up for me during the ritual.

During the rite, I channeled the “script,” so it’s not written down. But I’m hoping to convey a bit of its sentiments in this post.

We each went to the otherworld and stood at the archetypal trivia with Goddess Diana. In Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia, C.M.C. Green says the crossroads of Diana is not the cross-shaped junction made when two human-made roads cross, but is the Y-shaped trivia found in less tame environments and is created by animals’ travel. Green spoke of paths that connect to make the trivia as wild and dangerous, explaining that a human walking such trails might stumble upon a ferocious animal, and an animal traveling thusly through the forest might come upon a hunter. I couldn’t find the passage in the book again that discusses this; I hope I’m not misrepresenting Green’s work.

The day of the ritual, the roads’ deadly possibilities represented moral dangers to me.

Morality is not an abstract, for me. For one thing, when I do not make moral decisions, my good fortune diminishes. The diminishment isn’t always related to the decisions, per se. Poor ethical choices block me from blessings. Ethical choices increase not only my wholeness of spirit but also the wholeness of my finances, physical health, and every other part of me. For example, when I sink endlessly into worry about finances, income dwindles if not outright evaporates. It is only human to fret. But, at least in my particular case, living in that mindset is being self-involved, which isn’t a virtuous state.

I’m not implying poor ethical choices cause all misfortunes. I was talking about my own life. Plus, my good fortune is far from dependent upon my flawed, human efforts. My generous Gods have my back. But any of my problems not of my own making can be exacerbated by my poor choices.

I cannot speak for other people, but I am by nature a selfish stubborn person, who suffers from ego. I do not know if these propensities in me are greater than in anyone else, but they have caused me great suffering. I work hard doing everything I can to do away with these flaws, but, being human, will never reach that goal.

I recently hit a point where I felt I had to dedicate myself to my efforts to eradicate the aforementioned traits more than ever. More about that in a bit.

There are always opportunities for my selfishness and false ego to exert themselves. For example, it’s easy for me to condemn someone hoarding supplies during the outbreak. My reaction to hoarders is pure ego. Instead of climbing up on my high horse by harshly judging someone, I want to remember we are all flawed, and we’re all in a growth process, learning and growing, so there is no logic in judging.

It is easy to spot obvious immoralities, such as hoarding supplies during the pandemic. It is harder to spot subtler immoralities, such as condemning hoarders. Flaws can be sneaky, disguising themselves so that we don’t see them in ourselves.

The overinflated ego of judging others hurts me. Grandiosity can make me feel I am above the need to look at my own failures. Time spent in outrage is time I need to look at my own errors that day, cook myself a good meal, and otherwise be good to me. Plus the time I spend judging others is time needed for being of use to community.

Judging others also closes heart and mind, not only to the those judged but to everything. I want my heart and mind open to the Goddess’ guidance about ways I can support my community during the pandemic. I want to do everything I can as a shaman and human to help folks—myself included—stay on an even keel, stay whole, stay on top of things, and remain effective.

It’s impossible to walk on air like a saint. However, my past experiences of major crisis taught me how to keep returning to an even keel, keep returning to practices that build wholeness, and thus stay on top of things and be effective.

For me, listening to my Gods and staying close to Them is a priority. It helps me stay centered and strong, so I’m able to take good care of myself and be of maximum service. And I need Their constant guidance to be effective. They give me ideas about everything from the logistics of executing a mundane chore that seems beyond my limited physical capabilities, to the creation of specific shamanic events that’d serve folks well right now.

Important aside: My upcoming three week event is one such event: https://stardrenched.com/2020/03/16/upcoming-event-3/

Crisis and trauma are crossroads at which I grow—even if I can only do so quite slowly—or go down big time. The chances for selfishness and false ego to emerge quadruple. So, given that the societal traumas of the past year have impacted me, I’ve dedicated myself more than ever to pursuing surrender, service, and egolessness.

As an example, here’s one way the chances to stumble ethically increase: possibility of hardship can make one feel like one must do something wrong in order to survive. The expression It’s just business embodies that attitude. It excuses ill behavior by positioning the choice for morality in the face of survival threats as a new and different quandary, specific to one’s own situation, instead of as a core aspect of spiritual struggle since earliest human times. In fact, we might say that, in a way, (and only in a way), the dilemma of choosing one’s spiritual ideals over survival might be the essence of morality (or an essence). This is not to suggest that one should not fight for survival. Survival can be the moral choice.

I hope the above paragraph or anything else in this essay doesn’t sound preachy, judgmental, and black-and-white, as if 1) anything less than perfection makes you a complete failure, 2) we should shame ourselves for the least mistake, and 3) I alone know the correct steps in crisis, and thus am capable of making moral decisions for you. To the contrary, I believe that, under the pressure of crisis, people might need more than ever to be gentle with themselves and others: more than ever accept how imperfectly we act, more than ever esteem the littlest step we take toward our moral ideals, more than ever honor every act of kindness we make, and more than ever respect the need to take breaks from solving problems.

And I surely don’t know what anyone other than myself needs to do.

In any case, moving on: Many of us on spiritual paths can easily fall into focusing on spirituality as a tool only for personal gain. E.g., “If I meditate to be more serene, I’ll be more levelheaded. Then I’ll be able to earn a better living.” Though I think using spiritual tools to enrich one’s material life is healthy and important, and I teach that sort of application, it’s not healthy for me if it’s the whole picture. I need spirituality to also be a means by which I stay in shape to be of maximum service to the Gods and all Their children.

I have watched people who, when navigating hard times, cleaved to Spirit solely as a tool for their own sole betterment. It backfired, increasing their selfishness, false ego, and bitterness, and often causing them serious financial, romantic, and other problems. Some of those folks persisted endlessly along the same path, which turned them into horribly harmful people. It frightened me. I don’t want to be like that.

And, as I said, if my spirit is not in reasonable shape, neither are my finances or anything else.

Moreover, when I forget spiritual tools were gifted me both for my own personal betterment and to keep myself in shape to be useful, I find myself on an emotionally distressed hamster-wheel, with thoughts like, “I’ve got to improve myself. If I don’t, there’s going to be a disaster. If I don’t there’s going to be a disaster. A disaster. A disaster.”

Then, focusing on spiritual tools as a means to getting in shape to serve restores my balance, peace, common sense, joy in life, and trust that the Gods have my back.

I had three choices standing at the trivia. Going backwards didn’t seem a choice because you can never return to the past. But I could stay where I was. Sometimes that’s the moral stand. For example, I might need time to be with what I’m feeling, or to rest and gather the strength to move forward, or to choose which direction to take, or to plan my first steps along the road I choose. (Self-care is a virtue.) And sometimes I am just stuck. Moving forward is more than I can manage, and I can make a choice to accept that, and thereby surrender to life as it is, since I too, even when I’m stuck, am part of life.

My second option was the right hand pathway forward (I don’t know why it was to the right). On it, I could move forward into once again deepening my commitment to serving, surrendering to my Gods, and letting go of false ego.

The left-hand path was also a path to greater surrender, usefulness, and egolessness, with one difference—compassion for myself.

I realized, looking with my otherworldly eyes, the right-hand path at my particular crossroads included constantly chastising myself for not changing fast enough and for not being “better.”

That path also required I view each of my missteps, no matter how small, as proof that I’m a complete moral failure, and that my vigorous moral strivings are insincere. Forgetting that we all stumble a great deal, I’d live in fearful certainty that my smallest error would lead to moral, emotional, financial, or other disaster. The path also had me traveling along, all the while overlooking my improvements and all the good I do.

Whereas on the left path, I’d learn to walk toward my goals with compassion for myself. That self-care would consist of
* acknowledging that we grow bit by bit (with occasional, magnificent leaps and bounds)
* celebrating my progress
* being gentle with myself when I fall short
* admitting my errors without becoming fatalistic
* recognizing my dedication and the vigorousness of my efforts
* honoring my achievements—great and small
* seeing the good I do
* and enjoying the celebratory pleasure of being grateful to the Gods for giving me the ability to do the things in this list.

Two of many reasons I love my friend, Jenn Campus, is that she keeps surrendering to life and focusing on service. The day after the ritual, I happened to see an exquisitely worded Instagram post of hers (she had not been at my ritual): “We have yet to see the spring of this pandemic period. We are still in the brutal winter—wondering if our stores will see us through, wondering who will be standing with us on the other side of it…even if we will be one of the ones still standing. … In the words of Sophie Mainguy, a French ER Doctor: ‘We are not at war and we do not have to be at war. … The firm ambition of a service to life is enough. There is no enemy. There is another organism living in full migratory flow and we must stop so that our respective currents do not collide too much. We are at the pedestrian crossing and the light is red for us.’ ”

Jenn’s post is related to what we did at the ritual. I love my fellow seekers.

The doctor’s eloquent statement about remaining quarantined to avoid the coronavirus has meaning on the mystical plane, as I am sure the good physician knows. For me, that layer speaks of abiding by life however it manifests, which for my own practice is the same as surrendering to my Gods.

Surrender to life is not about giving up or being a doormat. I will continue to stand up for my rights and the rights of others.

Surrender is not about forsaking all pleasure. Surrender helps me use the enormous amount of ethical magical and mundane power available to create the world I want, a world of joy, beauty, and abundance.

Surrender also helps me be of maximum service, whether I am providing shamanic services for my beloved clients, or dialoging with the vet as I try to understand her patient but nevertheless confusing dietary proposal for my ever sick kitty.

During the ritual yesterday, I felt Diana blessing the path I chose. I felt the power She gave me to do what I need as I begin along that path. I felt chills throughout my body from the starlight, moonlight, and sunlight with which Diana filled me.

I also knew Her amazing help that day wasn’t enough. I’d need Her continual help as I walked that path. I have to constantly rely on my Gods. I don’t remember the prayer I said about getting divine help along the road I’d chosen, but I wrote a comparable prayer. Here it is, should it be helpful to you:

Magna Mater, Great Mother of All, Bear Madonna,
and Our Good Father, Co-Creator of All,
Wild and kind horned Pater,
please give me the power and wisdom
needed on the path ahead,
each step today and in these coming months.

Help me affirm:
I have a healthy ego.
I release my false ego.
I acknowledge my limits.
I acknowledge my limitlessness.
I celebrate my inner and outer beauty.

I dedicate myself to joy, usefulness, and power. I give myself to My Divine Parents, that You may shape me and use me as You will. Your desires are also mine, deep within my cells, even if unknown to me for now. I can and do create the amazing loving, beautiful world I truly want. So mote it be.*

I will probably need to make that prayer a lot in the coming year.

The ritual described above was one of the free rites I lead once a month. I’d love it if you joined me in any of them. They and other upcoming events are announced in my newsletters. Subscribe for free here: https://outlawbunny.com/newsletter/

I love you, be safe.

* Attribution: I read spiritual literature of all kinds. As a shaman, I seek the core of reality, and it is found in disparate places. There’s an Alcoholics Anonymous prayer in which are the words God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.

My prayer’s words I give myself to My Divine Parents, that You may shape me and use me as You will are an adaptation of the Alcoholics Anonymous words I quoted. Their sentiments, for me personally, are vital to me, absolutely vital to my spiritual, psychic, physical, and financial well-being, and every other imaginable aspect of my well-being.

Upcoming Event

Posted on March 16, 2020 by Francesca

Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory:
A Three-Week Shamanic Healing and Empowerment

Move from trauma to victory.

During or after crisis, the most basic emotional well-being can feel wobbly at best. Serenity and control of one’s life can feel completely unattainable.

In Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory, we will heal ourselves and our lives, and claim the prosperity, love, and other blessings the Universe sends us.

This course is suitable whether your crisis(es) is past or present.

Traumatizing situations range from current health dangers, to family dysfunction in childhood, to trauma in our DNA from ancestral misfortunes, to the loss of a loved one, to a terrifying societal norm, to economic loss, to portions of the media and social media tailored to emotionally batter us until we feel impotent and alone.

When devastated by misfortune, not everyone has the same trauma symptoms. But here are some rough sketches of what might occur. Most of these examples are extreme and might manifest more mildly:

* You function in a daze, mind clouded and emotionally numb. To avoid feeling helpless, you keep busy to the point of exhaustion.
* Confidence in your perceptions, decisions, and moral beliefs diminish. A belief that nothing can improve pervades your worldview.
* Exhaustion of body or spirit makes you feel unable to bear up under the smallest responsibility. The littlest challenge is overwhelming. You might need an hour—or day—to build up to performing a five-minute chore.
* A minimal stress causes panic and terror. It seems as if your spirit—your very essence—has been stolen. You feel without any purpose. Inner and outer power seem nonexistent.
* For self-protection, you withdrew emotionally. Isolated from the support needed to heal and find your power, your emotional devastation increases.
* You don’t go after what you want because you fear the pain and disappointment that might come if you don’t reach your goals will be unbearable. You reject offers of help you need to recover and triumph. No one seems trustworthy.

Whether your trauma (or traumas) is past or present, I reach out to you with my whole heart and soul to invite you into a safe space.

Join me in tribe. Enter a sacred circle. For three weeks, we’ll meet once a week, for a shamanic healing and empowerment circle.

Hope is not a lie. Here’s why:

1) Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory is down-to-earth shamanism that addresses real life issues.

War vets, incest survivors, and others can tell you my shamanic approach helped them move past suffering.

2) For over three decades, I’ve developed and led ceremonies to help participants move through crisis and trauma and claim power.

Thus, I have an extensive repertoire of shamanic tools for this event. These decades also polished my shamanic skills to a degree of thoroughness that can only happen over time.

3) I’m not coming to our meetings as an outsider, but as someone who used shamanism to overcome tragedy herself. I repeatedly survived situations that would’ve killed most people, and came out triumphant. This informs our process.

It also means I won’t look down at you, with supposed superiority. We meet as fellow travelers.

4) Shamanically (as well as psychologically, and historically), trauma is an opportunity that could not be better tailored to springboard us into personal power.

Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory (TSV) helps our innate powers emerge, so we can better overcome problems, heal, live fully, and inspire others.

TSV also helps unlock our magic, creativity, and warrior spirit.

5) We can thrive in community. In this upcoming event, we can find wholeness, together.

An extremity of duress, even if past, can affect physical health, spiritual vigor, self-confidence, emotional well-being, and effectiveness. Reclaim them with me. With tribe, in sacred circle, in union with the cosmos, we can move on and claim our lives.

This three-week journey has three powerful aspects:

1) Three ceremonies, one per week, for three consecutive weeks. These rites are via group phone calls. To participate, just dial your phone. These will be major healing and empowerment ceremonies.

We’ll work in old-style oral tradition, which allows immense headway quickly. 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 they want that support.

The rituals facilitate major transformation: energy will continue to shift in us after each rite, and probably snowball long after the three weeks end.

2) Direct spiritual transmissions for three weeks. Between weekly TSV meetings, the transmissions continue to support you, keep the healing and empowerment going, and more.

My transmissions are soul healings. They also bring additional serenity into your shamanic process, increase its power and safety, further your personal growth, and add luck when you do anything to improve your life.

One of each week’s transmissions will be during the group meetings.

I can’t say what “direct spiritual transmission” means for other practitioners. In my case: I was born a good luck charm, generating a beneficial field of energy. I don’t do anything to you; I don’t inject you with energy, rearrange your energy, or even dust off your aura, LOL. I simply give off a blessing energy during a transmission, much like burning incense gives off specific magical energies in a room.

My transmissions adapt to your needs, e.g., physical healing, or the spiritual strength to get back up after life’s knocked you down.

3) In addition to individualized attention during group ceremonies, 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 during the span of the course or within a month after.

No experience needed for this event.

If you’re a shaman or other support for trauma survivors: a study showed that caring for folks in trauma can be traumatizing in itself. Join our circle, to receive the care you need.

Only a shyster or inept facilitator would promise to “fix everything” in a three-week ritual. Trying to do too much transformational work, all at once, can buffet the psyche, doing more harm than good.

Our journey can cause life-changing shifts for you. Many individuals who have gone on short journeys with me call the results miraculous. The brevity of TSV helps keep the process from being overwhelming.

A three-week process is long enough for my particular shamanic tools to foster substantial improvements in your well-being and circumstances.

When the three weeks end, you can continue making major positive changes, in a second Trauma, Shamanism, and Victory group.

After the first TSV group, there will be two weeks for participants, including me, to absorb the transformative work we accomplished.

Then a second three-week TSV journey begins—a different ceremony from the first one, utilizing different shamanic tools.

Enroll in either or both three-week groups.

The first group meets Sundays, 3:00 to 4:00 pm EST, for three consecutive weeks, starting April 19. Reserve Sunday May 10, same time, for a makeup meeting, in case I’m unexpectedly unavailable for one of the planned sessions.

The second group meets Sundays, 3:00 to 4:00 pm EST, for three consecutive weeks, starting May 24. Reserve Sunday June 14, same time, for a makeup meeting, in case I’m unexpectedly unavailable for one of the planned sessions.

Full cost for three ceremonies, three weeks of direct spiritual transmissions, and one-on-one private support is $250. Your carrier might charge you for the phone calls into the ceremonies.

Enroll in both groups before midnight April 15 to save $100. Your total cost is $400.

Use the drop-down menu to select one of three enrollment options. Then pay securely with PayPal:

Upon payment, your place is reserved. You receive course details—e.g., the phone number to dial to participate in meetings—by email. No refunds. To discuss payment plan, trade, scholarship, or semi-scholarship, or if you have other concerns about the event, call me.

We are not powerless under the brunt of society’s force. Crisis can affect every part of our lives, but together we can move past trauma to live more fully, with confidence, creativity, personal authority, wholeness, and joy. Don’t go it alone or with negligible support. Join tribe. Enroll now.

“Thunderstorm” Energy, Overt Power, Gentle Magic, and Subtle Magic

Posted on October 9, 2019 by Francesca

Huge positive changes can happen stat when you combine overtly huge powers, “thunderstorm” energy, gentle rites, and subtle magic.

As a young witch, I studied with a guy who’d acquired extremely powerful rituals, which he taught indiscriminately, to whoever attended his classes.

By and large, the energy of the rituals slammed into and through his students, frying their circuits, and opening pathways to demons.

A few of the rites were okay per se, but they didn’t suit the energetic structure of all his students. Such rites were an energetic torrent the unsuited body/psyche could not withstand. For them, it was like being shelterless and hit by a thunderstorm.

The collection of rituals as a whole was also disastrous. Along with the aforementioned problems, the body of rites, as well as the cosmology on which they were based, bit by bit instilled a subtle grandiosity and an, equally subtle, lack of moral accountability in the individuals who did this training. They started hurting people around them, badly.

The grandiosity was partially caused by students acquiring a specific ego structure that can be a temporary means to get through a certain part of a shamanic training. In the case of the aforementioned teacher’s students, that ego structure became a permanent fixture, turning into grandiosity—e.g., self-importance, overestimation of one’s psychic perceptions, and sense of entitlement. This further fueled the students harming people, often completely unaware they were doing so.

Furthermore, that specific ego structure that I mentioned as helpful is suitable only to certain individuals, temporarily. Even the brief period those individuals experience this ego-state is risky.

Most of the errant teacher’s students didn’t realize their immense problems stemmed from the lessons. The power coursing through them was exhilarating, seemingly proving they had found something that really worked. Plus, they saw immediate positive results in their lives. But these improvements were short term and part of a process more destructive than beneficial. The “buzz” felt during the rites became a drug, keeping improvements in their lives and in their psyches at bay, instead of creating forward momentum.

While studying with the teacher and in the years after, I witnessed his students fall prey to drug addiction, suicide, and more.

Here’s another reason most of the students didn’t spot what was happening: society as a whole portrays brute force as the most effective—and actually only real—means to an end. E.g., many individuals consider the acquisition of wealth and resources through both warfare and ruthless business practices to be norms humans must resort to, if they want success in life. This portrayal becomes internalized by some magic seekers, making them believe being buffeted by life and by their magic is the basic state needed to move ahead.

Not realizing the source of their new problems, the students figured they were at fault, and just needed to work harder at the lessons. After all, the teacher boasted about his lessons’ power—his demeanor, tone of voice, and words exuding, “Ooh, look how dark and mysterious and dangerous we all are. We are real witches, not like those pretend witches.”

Later on, I became the go-to person, when one of that teacher’s students fell apart. For example, I was at a Pagan festival, and someone came into my tent and said, “Francesca, so-and-so did a blah-blah-blah ritual with their teacher last week, and now is completely falling apart. She’s a mess, can barely speak. Can you help?” I took care of her. I even had to do an exorcism on one of his students.

I was raised in a shamanic family tradition. I was already teaching witchcraft and working professionally as a psychic, when I went to study with this deluded teacher. So I had a different perspective from his other students, as well as the ability to psychically see the damage caused.

Surprisingly, the harm he caused was a good lesson for me. Though I could manage the energy he was teaching, I came to see that managing it and wanting it as a lifestyle were two different things. I knew the energy wouldn’t be healthy for me long term (aside from a few bits here and there).

Seeing how this energy adversely affected those around me also affirmed that witchcraft is not one-size-fits-all. I committed all the more to my approach as a shaman:

You see, I neither heard nor read anyone mentioning that energy could fry a person’s circuits, or that some seemingly benign energies can open pathways to demons. I neither heard nor read anyone mentioning a rite needing to suit the energetic structure of the person doing the rite. I neither heard nor read anyone mentioning rites, and the cosmology on which they were based, subtlety instilling grandiosity and lack of morals. I neither heard nor read anyone mentioning a specific ego structure as a means to get through a certain part of shamanic training. And so on. I developed all these theories myself and, with no one else mentioning them, it would’ve been easy to have mistrusted myself. But the problems caused by that errant teacher’s lessons proved my theories to be sound. And, as I said, I committed all the more to my approach as a shaman:

Many lessons I teach, and spells I do for my community members, are gentle yet effective. Their immense power is often subtle. My students/clients report miraculous improvement in their lives. The changes are long term. When appropriate, I teach and perform rites that run overtly powerful energy, or energy I liken to thunder; the two types of energy are sometimes one and the same, but not always. (The thunderlike energies taught by the aforementioned teacher were, by and large, not healthy for anyone. But there are wondrously beneficent thunderlike energies.)

I am gentle with myself energetically. Yes, dynamic power like thunder is great. Yes, power is everybody’s birthright. But there are many forms of “thundering” power and not all suit everyone. And some are tied to demons. (I don’t risk hanging out with anyone who thinks they can safely play with demons.) I run only the thundering powers that suit me. I teach only the ones that suit the specific individuals attending my classes. When needed, I meet with those students one-on-one, to teach them additional powerful rituals tailored to their particular energetic makeup.

Gentle is a big power and just as dynamic as “thunderstorm” magic. Gentle powers are among the strongest. Subtle powers are also among the strongest.

So, though I can run more overtly huge powers, ditto “thunderstorm” magic, and both are a large part of my practice, I need to use gentle and subtle powers just as often.

The proof is in the pudding: my students’ success in their professional and personal lives demonstrates what happens when gentle and subtle magics combine with more overtly powerful and “thunderstorm” ones.

Sometimes I feel like the spells I am doing to improve a given area of my life are getting nowhere. Then I try to remember that, often, change takes time and happens in incremental steps. When I do this, big change can arrive all the faster, perhaps quite soon. This is a smarter course than spells that slam energy at me.

Small progress adds up to big progress.

Big changes can be happening, even when I don’t see them.

A therapist once told me you might not notice a big change in yourself till a year after it has happened. Wow!

Big external changes can be well underway, but I won’t notice.

And, as my students and I can attest, huge positive changes can happen immediately when you combine overtly huge powers, “thunderstorm” energy, gentle rites, and subtle magic.

So mote it be! Goddess, thank you.
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Peaceful Prosperity Now! So Mote It Be!

Posted on February 22, 2019 by Francesca

For me, prospering financially, emotionally, and spiritually requires fully engaging in life, not backing off from whatever’s occurring. Being human, I readily forsake the moment, but if I move into the now on a somewhat consistent basis, abundance comes, accompanied by serenity. One of my blocks to being in the moment is finding glory in self-pity. I try to avoid it, even when things are at their worst, because self-pity makes my defeat more likely. For example, when we thought I had only months to live, trying to avoid self-pity and instead committing to the moment and being of service to it allowed triumph; now I have another 20 years in me.

I want to feel my life is of epic proportion. However, I don’t want to create that feeling by constantly dwelling on my problems, making them grow in my mind, so that I view myself to be an abandoned, struggling hero.

Mind you, my problems are constant. Some are dire. And, as is the case with many individuals, there are ways I am an abandoned, struggling hero, who should be widely admired and is, instead, viewed as complaining about nothing. (Has this happened to you?) Stories of my heroic achievements despite great odds have been stolen to be portrayed as someone else’s, usually one of the very people who tried to block my goals. (Has this happened to you?) I don’t want to ignore any of that.

I do not want to dwell on any of it, though, with the gorgeous self-pity in which I, too readily and too often, indulge. Goddess, please help me not use atrocities perpetrated on me as an excuse to indulge in self-pity. Compassion for myself is not the same as the glory of self-pity.

I want a life that feels huge from the joy I experience, my awareness of my accomplishments, a commitment to live in reality good or bad, and the attempt to be fully who my Gods made me. I’m grateful my Gods give me the ability to constantly do the things cited in this paragraph. I want to do them more. More! Living myth is an ancient magic, one of the most powerful spells I know. It has not prevented all my misfortunes. Tragedy is part of life. However, living myth has made enough differences that my existence has been filled with beauty and abundance, instead of being a tragedy as a whole.

I imagine many people, like me, feel huge one moment because they’re living fully, kindly, and gracefully, and the next moment feel huge from having mesmerized themselves with a self-pitying tale that, even if true, is self-damaging when recited over and over to oneself. (There are times when repeatedly telling the same story of a problem is part of a healing process. That’s not the sort of repetition I’m referring to here. … If you view existence panoramically, a constantly repeated, self-pitying tale is part of a healing process, but the panorama might have to provide such a widely sweeping view that we’re looking at that self-immolation in the context of a healing process that happens over several incarnations. Or, if looking at a single lifetime, every detour from healing and empowerment is part of moving toward that healing and empowerment because every step along the way to health is needed. But I want to avoid as many detours as possible, which means being honest with myself about how self-pity derails me, damages me, and makes me feel powerless so that I am deterred from taking action to stop other people from hurting me.)

I want a life that feels huge and abundant because I face problems as if I have a sword in one hand and a tea cup in the other. I’ll deal with the problems with sword or tea cup, depending on which is most suited to the problem meeting me. If I only use the sword, I’ll hack away 24/7 until my life is shredded to ribbons. Sometimes, I can best solve a problem by sitting down and savoring a cup of tea.

I want to be a mythic, mystic, enchanted servant—to the Gods, the Tree of Life, all its inhabitants, and my oh-so-flawed-yet-perfect-and-beautiful self.

I will have peaceful prosperity now! So mote it be!

Note: if you don’t see how my above thoughts are related to having peaceful prosperity or having it now, trying to figure that out is a shamanic ritual. Even spending two minutes trying to figure it out will move you toward peaceful prosperity, whether you can find your answer or not. I’d love to hear from you about how that goes. If you already see the relationship between this essay and peaceful prosperity now, and apply it in your life, please tell me the results.

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Escape from Cruel Situations Can Feel Impossible

Rage, Despair, and Grief Are Gates to Power: I Am Stardust

I Am Stardust and Faery Power. I Release Everything Else

A Nomadic Mystic Traveling Across Faerie Realms

Is a Spiritual Home an Illusion?

Honoring the Ancestors: The Man Who Raised Me

Ancestors Who Were Oppressors

What Is Ancestral trauma?

Ancestors if You’re Adopted

Honoring the Ancestors: William Stafford

Additional Material

Magical Overview of
The Virtual Pagan Monastery 2023

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

Rage, Despair, and Grief Are Chances to
Be a Goddess (or Other-Gendered Deity) Who Has All Powers

Rage, Despair, and Grief Are Gates to Power:
I Am Stardust