A Year with the Trees
Shamanic Power Quest
Enroll by July 7, 2021.
We’ll gather via teleseminars—group meetings by telephone. Just dial your phone to attend.
This will be the fairy witch’s ancient magics—both enchanted and down-to-earth, with rituals to reach spiritual, worldly, and mystical goals.
We’ll do practical spells for abundance, wisdom, serenity, joy, pleasure, ease, and more, using the ways of our ancestors. We’ll also enliven and celebrate our Fey nature.
Like the ancient Druid, we’ll draw on the various powers of the year:
Monthly Moon Rites * The Old Lunar Tree Calendar * Sacred Trees Rituals * Eight Sacred Fairy Holidays * Life Based in the Annual Solar and Vegetative Cycles * Healing from Gaia * Healing for Gaia *
Here are explanations of the above fairy witchcraft powers, all of which are part of every year’s passage:
1) Monthly Moon Rites
Based in the Lunar Tree Calendar
The ancient lunar tree calendar has thirteen months instead of our modern twelve. The ancient calendar month is measured by the moon’s cycles–its waxing and waning.
Each moon cycle holds a special power: lore tells us the moon’s magic is different every month of the year. We’ll use the special magical power of each month’s moon.
2) The Druids’ Sacred Trees Rituals
Every tree offers us particular enchantments. E.g., birch has different magics than oak or rowan. In the lunar calendar, each month has a corresponding tree, whose powers come forth especially during that moon cycle. Our yearlong mystical journey will be empowered by the specific enchantments of each month’s sacred tree.
The Welsh expression, dod yn ôl at fy nghoed, which means “to return to a balanced state of mind,” translates literally as “to return to my trees.” The trees will bless us with their wisdom, peace, healing, beauty, and magics, to help us reach our life goals and fulfill our spirits.
3) The Eight Sacred Sabbats (Pagan Seasonal Holidays)
We’ll perform rituals for the eight Sabbats of the year—eight Pagan holidays that are sacred to the Fey Folk.
Each of these days is a crux of magical power—a spectacular moment of power we can draw on to cast strong spells.
4) Life Based in the Annual Solar and Vegetative Cycles
We’ll honor the seasons—as opposed to only the Sabbats—drawing on the year’s solar and vegetative cycles, both ritually and on the earthly plane.
These cycles are alive in our own beings. By harmonizing with the seasons, your cells will harmonize with each other, creating spiritual and physical health, strengthening intuition and other magical powers, and letting Gaia enchant your life to bring your deepest wishes into being.
Solar magic, the magic of the annual vegetative cycles, and Sabbats rituals go deep into the Mysteries of our relationship with the old fairy Gods.
The yearwheel magics I’ve discussed can be woven together as a whole, which we will do. In that weave, these Fey enchantments come together into an astoundingly effective journey into prosperity, peace of mind, and other spiritual, mystical, and worldly needs.
How We’ll Weave Year Wheel Magics Together
I had visions of the cosmos, in which the various year-wheel magics—lunar, tree, solar, vegetative, sabbats—weave together as a whole, instead of being held as distinctly separate parts, which is the more common understanding. The visions showed how this weaving had been designed by the Old Gods, and how I might use Their design when I channel rituals.
Our rituals throughout the year will be this weaving of the lunar, tree, solar, vegetative, sabbats—to create a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. It’ll be the truly Pagan experience our ancestors lived; we can really be of the earth, be with the earth, and live with the Old Gods by our sides.
This weaving will also provide an opportunity for powerful healings of—and from—Gaia.
More benefits from weaving the year-wheel magics together:
Our Heritage as Children of the Old Gods
We are fey-touched. Starlight runs in our veins. The fairy Gods are our ancestors Who still want to walk with us today.
Our heritage as Their children is abundance, wisdom, pleasure, and ease. Our heritage is the fulfillment of our life goals and strength in our magic, bodies, and spirits.
The year-wheel’s natural patterns are the living presence of the Gods’ magic and love for us. My careful integration of the various year-wheel powers will help you live in tune with and enjoy the year-wheel. Thus, you live more fully in the Gods’ care that They may empower you to reclaim your heritage. In other words:
Oppressors have tried to rob us of our divine legacy. In our twelve-month quest, we’ll reclaim our inheritance by living in the old calendar. We’ll embrace the powers of the Old Ways that our Gods want for us. So mote it be!
To be in harmony with the year’s turning, we’ll not only use the aforementioned yearwheel magics, but also a sprinkling of
* Herbal Enchantments
* Kitchen Magic
* Animal Totems
Using herbal, hearth, and totemic rites according to seasonal cycles will help integrate the yearwheel’s power and its rituals even more deeply into our lives.
My shamanic approach helps you honor your whole self, so you, for example, don’t have to choose between being an artist or a psychic, a logical thinker or an intuitive, a responsible family member or a mystic, but can be both.
You’ll find that our year with the trees, by weaving different styles of magics together, will help you live in the weave that is the entire cosmos, an experience that in turn will unite your many aspects and help you fully express them. This year-wheel rite nurtures all your powers and honors all your emotions, ideas, and other facets. Imagine such happy fullness of being!
I am a fairy Druid, refusing to let my spirit be subdued. This journey will uphold me and my fellow travelers. It can deliver everything this post promises because my ceremonies are carefully constructed and well-rooted: our shamanic journey will use material I channeled over decades. The year-long rite will draw on a lifetime of developing shamanic theories, techniques, and liturgy.
In the ‘80s, I taught that the yearwheel is more than the eight Sabbats. I believed in going beyond the Sabbats to honor each, entire season and live according to that season. My students and I celebrated both the Sabbats and the whole year’s wonders, as will happen in the upcoming yearwheel group.
In the ‘80s, the term year wheel was mostly used to refer to the Sabbats exclusively. That felt so wrong to me, when the whole year’s wheel offered such special blessings as part of its turning. My year-wheel ideas, practically unheard of in modern Paganism, were met with resistance, not by my students but by the larger Pagan community.
I am 70 years old. This event is one of the culminations of all my years of teaching and of living as a Pagan. I have so many innovative yearwheel magics and theories to weave together into A Year with the Trees.
I’ve wanted to offer A Year with the Trees for decades, but the time never seemed right. Special thanks to three of my dear initiates who told me what would be helpful to them in their shamanic journey right now. They and another of my fellow travelers illuminated my mind and heart; I knew the time had come.
A bell rang out from faery, and I knew I must lead this yearlong rite—oh, to thus live in the love of the Old Gods made manifest is pure joy.
This yearwheel journey has three powerful parts:
1) Our Circle Meetings. The group meets via teleseminars—group phone-calls. To participate, just dial your phone.
Beginners will be taught what they need to take this journey, but the material will be rich enough for the most advanced practitioners.
We’ll work in old-style oral tradition, allowing immense headway quickly. Enrollment is limited to 16 people, so we can perform ceremonies that can only happen in a small group, and so each participant can receive individualized attention, should they want that support.
A shamanic journey is personal. Traditional shamanic circles include the chance for individualized attention, which tailors the journey to you.
2) You receive spiritual transmissions, in every meeting.
Spiritual transmissions are an ancient Faery Faith method that deepens the experiential nature of the lessons, increases the serenity, power, and safety of your shamanic journey, fosters personal growth, and adds good luck to your life overall.
3) I commit to my students. Part of oral tradition is the teacher being available. You can phone me, should you have a concern that’d take too long to address during class or that you prefer to discuss privately.
Choose to be in one of two groups:
* One will meet Sundays, noon to 1:00, EST, starting July 11.
* The other meets Mondays, 6:00 to 7:00 pm EST, starting July 12.
Both groups will have 43 meetings. We gather in ritual together once a week, usually for seven consecutive weeks, after which we break for a week or more, before another seven consecutive weeks.
Breaks will be the weeks of August 29, September 5, October 31, November 21, December 19th, December 26, January 2, January 16, March 20, March 27, May 22, May 29.
Reserve Sunday noon or Monday 6 PM, depending on which group you choose, on the weeks of July 31 and August 7, for makeup sessions in case I am unavailable for some of the planned sessions.
A year might seem like too much of a commitment, but the schedule isn’t overwhelming. Meetings will span 55 weeks, with 12 weeks off. During the holiday season, weeks won’t always be consecutive, so you have time for holiday celebrations and obligations. January’s schedule is lighter too, since many individuals prefer January be somewhat laid back.
Full cost—for 43 meetings, direct spiritual transmissions, and one-on-one private support should you desire—is $200 a month. Your carrier might charge you for the phone calls into the rituals.
Enroll securely with PayPal. After giving your phone number and choosing the Sunday or Monday group, click the Subscribe button to make twelve automatic monthly payments of $200:
Upon payment, your place is reserved. No refunds. However, if you choose to drop out at any point, cancel your subscription, and I won’t expect further payments.
A few days before the first meeting, you receive event phone number and other details by email.
For more information or to discuss scholarship, semi-scholarship, trade, or a payment plan other than the subscription, phone me.
Join me on this quest for power, visions, and fulfillment. Align yourself with nature’s beauty that you may draw on it to embody your values and goals and know your worldly, spiritual, and mystical strength.
Wee witchling Francesca De Grandis, 1961
Francesca De Grandis is the best selling author of “Be a Goddess!” Her work couples Goddess mysticism with practical magic and a down-to-earth philosophy. Raised in a traditional Strega family tradition that has Celtic shamanism in its heritage—the family is originally from France—she practices an ancient European witchcraft that is a form of fairy shamanism.
A mystical event is not a substitute for medical care by a trained physician, psychiatric counseling, or other therapeutic treatments. Participants are personally responsible for the consequences of their voluntary participation.
