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Upcoming Event

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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:

StarSwirl31) 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.

StarSwirl32) 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.

StarSwirl33) 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:


Options
Pls give yr phone number.




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.

Ancestor Work

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Ancestor Work:
Mom’s Holiday China

HlidyPttrnThe above plate is in the pattern with which my mom set holiday tables during my childhood. I forget our day-to-day pattern, but this one stuck in my mind.

As a child, I thought the dish pattern was tacky, but it remained a nice memory. Mom acquired complete settings for at least 10 people, obtaining the pieces one at a time by going to the movies. I love that Toni went to such lengths to add beauty to our home, not letting lack of income thwart her.

One of my brothers got the dish set when Toni died. I would not have used it.

But recently, I searched online until I found one dish in the pattern—just one in her memory and in reminiscence of her passion, amazing kitchen skills, and elegance—elegance I now see in this plate to some degree, and that showed immensely elsewhere.

Rest in peace, Toni. You were a model of exuberance, devotion, otherworldly flight, and competence both culinary and professional. You were also a true lady, in every positive way I use the word lady, including how the Goddess infused your spirit and your magic. Thank you for being a living example for all parts of my day, including my kitchen witchery.

… Later: The more I use the plate, the more beauty, elegance, and grace I find in it. I don’t know if that is objective. E.g., perhaps the grace I notice is a projection of my mother’s gracious maneuvering amidst the immense challenges of her life. She found reason to laugh and give, no matter what.

In any case, to snap the above photo, I had to wash the dish, since I’d eaten lunch from it. Handling the dish with soapy hands, I experienced more of its elegance, this time on a tactile level; the china felt so nicely made despite being a movie giveaway. I wonder if my mother loved handling it.

BYABar4

Bickering, Community Service, and Self-Awareness

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Part two in a series on supporting newcomers (and oldtimers) in your spiritual community. May, 2013. Part one is on my other site, at http://www.outlawbunny.com/2011/06/14/welcoming-newbies/

A woman phoned me to inquire about my classes. That’s not unusual; I teach oral tradition style, so feel I should be available by phone if someone wants to ask about my work.

She immediately said that very few pagans are hard-working in their spiritual efforts. This is not unusual, either; I hear that sentiment plenty.

After addressing her community critique, I tried to move the conversation past it, but she kept returning to the issue. She is not someone for whom I’d be a good teacher.

It is only human to bond with someone new by denigrating others. But it is a tendency I try to avoid: While it feeds the ego of the two people bonding (they get to feel superior to everyone else in the world), it keeps them from getting any actual work done. I mean the sort of work that happens in my classes: for example, self-examination, self-care, nurturing of ability to serve community, and building shamanic skills. No, I am not the teacher for her.

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

The fool is about love. Fool, tarot card, Francesca De Grandis, 12-03

When first working as a spiritual counselor in an occult shop, I received a pretty big shock. I’d been guiding folks in a private practice, mostly by referral. Suddenly I was thrown onto the front lines. Someone would come to the shop to consult with me because their daughter had just died. Or their 14-year-old son had gotten somebody pregnant. Or their husband beat them.

I went home and threw out my lofty new age abstractions. I threw out my Celtic cross spread, at least for most of the shop appointments. (For those of you who don’t know the spread, it makes for a complex lengthy session.) A lot of these shop sessions were only ten minutes long. After that my boss pressed the buzzer: Time’s up!

I sat in my home and started coming up with very fast spreads that would tune me into the heart of the client’s issue(s) and the essence of the advice they needed. I compiled a list of community resources: contact information for women’s shelters, teen crisis counseling, etc. I honed my inner skills more than ever so that I’d sense a client’s needs stat.

I was a working minister.

Decades later now. As then, not all my work is with trauma survivors. Often, I help people with more “everyday” concerns,” as well as train folks in shamanism, other esoteric skills, creativity, and marketing. But I’m definitely always on the frontlines: in community, with a busy schedule of counseling and teaching.

I mention being a shop employee and my ensuing work because: I’ve rarely gotten involved in pagan debates; I am too busy! Mind you, I discuss my work with other front-line ministers who can help me polish my shamanic skills, not burn out, and otherwise address my work. But I do not want to be criticized because of theoretical issues that have little basis and are thrown on the table by angry people with no understanding of what I am really up against on the ministerial front lines.

When we’re busy looking at our own faults, polishing our own skills, taking care of ourselves, and serving community, we don’t have time to unnecessarily criticize people.

Criticism is appropriate sometimes. Each of us needs to be held accountable by community. And healthy debate is joyfully welcomed in my classes because fresh perspectives rise.

The sort of criticism that I’d like to see less of is the endless picayune bickering that seems to produce little. Hmm, well, it produces swollen egos, draws the limelight, hurts sincere seekers whether newbie or oldtimer, and silences timid souls. Important sidebar: It hurts the newbies not only because they feel rejected but also because it encourages them to behave in kind.

Even as an oldtimer, I can feel hurt and invalidated, when people get so riled up and so angry and bitter; and behind their words is the statement, “I am better than you, I am better than you, I am better than you.” And behind that statement is their primary one: “Go climb in a hole so that your sincere efforts don’t shame me any longer.” This can be devastating to newbies who are ardent seekers with hearts wide open!

Those kind of arguments and the comments of that person who phoned me are also tantamount to saying about the person being criticized, “You are the ‘other.’ You are ‘one of them,’ so you are not as worthy of love and respect. I do not have to treat you with caring and decency because you do not have the same vulnerabilities as me.”

Now, if this post ends now, my mental meandering amounts to me just being another superior jerk. But I am going somewhere productive (I hope):

It felt important to paint a recognizable picture of high-handed community strife and its outcome for three reasons:

1) If you avoid insane community debate, you still might be uber-critical of other pagans (or someone else) within the confines of your own mind. When I find myself doing that, it’s time for a good look at myself. Internal criticism (perhaps a running commentary on the superiority of others, lol) has the same impact on me as it would were I voicing it online. Same impact, dude! I might be avoiding looking at my own errors or avoiding responsibility, to either community or self.

Feeling superior is more comfortable than looking at my own faults. And superiority can, oddly enough, make me feel safer than self-care. And superiority is safer than getting out into the world to try to make a difference. You avoid the endless, high-handed criticism of I-know-better-than-everyone-else idlers who are likely to pursue you once you try to make a diff in the world.

2) Angry superiority is what many newcomers first see. Or we might meet newbies with a subtle version of the same thing. I want to make a practice of examining myself for this. For example, is my ego playing out in a more subtle manner? Goddess, when someone inquires about my work, keep me humble, welcoming, self-aware, and focused on love and service. Goddess, at all times, keep me humble, welcoming, self-aware, and focused on love and service.

3) If you are afraid of getting into the pagan community because of what you see, now you know i see it too. You are not alone. Please realize there are people who do not bicker. We aren’t as vocal because we’re busy living. If you ask the Universe to guide and inspire you, you will find us.

And, with us, you can work and dance and celebrate the Gods. Because we are pagan to the bone. Heathens, celebrating the stars, the earth, the seasons, ourselves, and each other.

You will find us. We are here. I am like you.

Meeting Lady Olivia Robertson

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

FOInitiationB

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

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

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

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

With love, Francesca De Grandis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOInitiationA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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