Faerie Woodland Altar Cloth

Detail of altar cloth—Francesca De Grandis

I’m posting this here instead of Etsy bc I’m so in love with it that I have to show more pics of it than Etsy allows and share my process a bit.

Click pics to see em full size and un-blurred.

You can skip process to get to Product and Purchase Info.

I am 99% sure this silk is 12 mm Crepe de Chine, it is gorgeous stuff! (It is a new scarf, but I accidentally discarded its label!) It was white until I used low-immersion dying to create a lyrically textured backdrop for my hand-painting. I cannot get good nuf shots to show the yummy rosy-beige and texture the dyeing provided, but it is kinda mottled.

This silk is luminous.

Starting the painting

 

 

 

 

See the pic below: I did the painting with a very fine paint brush—trance-painting. I went to a yum-yum world doing it.

Adding metallic paint

When almost finished painting, I was upset because I thought I might have to keep it for moi, bc it spoke so to me. But I often feel that way, then let go of the piece.

This thing is so long I couldn’t get a good full-length shot of it; this pic shows it across my sofa-bed; it will look great spread full out on a long altar or with its ends draping off the edge of a smaller altar.

Finally, I knew it’s not mine, and was ready to release it to its owner, whoever that might be! I’m happy it has so much magic I can send into the world. I will take even more joy in this altar-cloth knowing it is in someone’s home. And I do not have room to HOARD MY ART, LOL! Plus, I need to earn my living.

Part of the altar cloth. Do you need an altarcloth that will lend beauty, grace, and Faerie magic to any altar or ritual?

I can let go of this piece, I can let go of this piece . . . Oh, it is often hard to let my art go! Heh, when setting the dye I painted with, I was tempted to keep the piece again. But it doesn’t belong to me, I’m only its creator, it belongs to someone else, I know.

Detail of altar cloth

Product and Purchase Info: Update: This item has sold. (That is why there is no longer a PayPal button on the page.) But for the record: $129, plus $4 S & H. 100% silk, 66 X 13.” I am 99% sure it is 12 mm Crepe de Chine. OOAK, original design, painted freehand, initialed and dated by artist. Hand washable. If this item calls you, grab it. I’m almost constitutionally incapable of repeating my designs.

I can only ship within the U.S. And guess what?  I made a purchase button, I made a purchase button, I am so proud of me! Now when I want to share my process with friends, I don’t have to post half of it all over again on Etsy.

Update: This item has sold. (That is why there is no longer a PayPal button on the page.)

Thanks, everyone, who “liked” this project on Facebook while I worked on it!

Part of the altar cloth

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Sacrifice, Not Self-Hate


Christ asked that each of us make sacrifices to serve others, not that we crucify ourselves on a cross of self-hate. When loathing yourself—for example, insisting that your actions are never good enough—you are self-involved. Your pain may be so immense and deeply rooted in abuse from others that you do not see self-hate as self-involvement. I am not trying to make you feel even worse about yourself; healing the agony of self-hate can require years of work and many different tools; have compassion for yourself about your suffering and how difficult it might be to overcome. And one of the many solutions needed for moving past self-hate is to reach past self-involvement—reach past yourself, outside yourself—to serve others. This will not take the place of other methods that you yourself need to see your own beauty—e.g., finding your self-hate’s origin. But no method replaces reaching out past self to serve. And, ultimately, your healing may never be complete without self-sacrifice. This solution tends to make no sense, especially to someone who has made unhealthy sacrifices in the name of service. Unhealthy sacrifice is self-involvement. Reach.
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Sprinkling Faerie Dust on Breakfast. Powerful reading that is short enough to fit into your day. Available only from the author: https://www.etsy.com/listing/114317006/sprinkling-faerie-dust-on-breakfast

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How to Tell If Someone Is a Grownup


How to tell if someone is a grownup:
Treat them like a peer.
Honor how extraordinary they are.
If they angrily respond
“You can’t power trip me,
you’re not my mother!”
they’re not a grownup.

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

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What Is a Direct Spiritual Transmission?

Eagle and Iris in Great Darkness. Available as a limited first edition print. For more info, click on the picture.

I have been asked more than once “What do you mean when you say that you give direct spiritual transmissions?”

I can’t give an “official” definition of direct spiritual transmissions because I do not know how anyone else does it. However, someone told me that the name for what I do is “direct spiritual transmissions.” I can describe what I myself do. Though perhaps, as you will see, a better way to put it might be that I can describe what I am.

It feels important to add that it’s taken me a lot of years to come up with the words for this. It has always felt more important to be and do than to name. Much as I love words, mine have been more focused on helping folks be and do than on proclaiming who I am. In fact, had I been looking for identification instead of being, I might never have found my gift of the ability to give transmissions.

A transmission: I go into a state whereby others benefit. I do not do anything to you. I do not inject you with energy, I do not even dust off your aura. I feel it would be unethical and dangerous to go about rearranging people. Not to mention arrogant to presume I was someone who should do so. Besides, I have enough on my hands just bit by bit changing myself, slowly over the years. And i do not give these spiritual transmissions on the false assumption that I am better than others, because i am so far from a perfect being that it makes me smile, in good humor at myself. I was simply born as a human good luck charm. I do not know why the Gods chose someone as flawed as me to give this gift to. But people are transformed big time in ways they want when I am in that state I mentioned.

Francesca De Grandis, 2012

The transmissions happen naturally when I teach, lead ritual, or spiritually counsel. But I also give spiritual transmissions in and of themselves.

I hope this helps you know what I do/am. More important, I hope it explains what I do well enough for you to choose whether it could benefit you. So that we can be fully ourselves rather than distracted by defining ourselves.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Healing is always available. Check out https://www.outlawbunny.com/2012/04/24/distance-healings-of-body-and-spirit/

Occasionally, I offer group healings, a good option for anyone, including folks with less income. To receive notice of group healings, go to https://www.outlawbunny.com/newsletter/

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“Do what you feel in your heart…”

Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, damned if you don’t. —Eleanor Roosevelt

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Fellow elves, witches, wanderers, druids, Unitarian Universalists, and other star-dusted mythic travelers, start each day with Sprinkling Faerie Dust on Breakfast. Only available from the author. Buy it here: http://etsy.me/W5GJs4 Thank you!

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I Love DIY So Much (DIY Religion?)

I love DIY so much. For me, it is not just about arts n crafts, I do and teach DIY religion. (Okay, now that I’ve said that, you know some sleazy publisher or author is gonna steal the line, and there’ll be a book called “DIY Spirituality” within a few months. And it will be the same ol’ quickly written junk, argh. Okay, end of tirade.) Anyway, I love DIY, so I wish I had time to blog about all the stuff I do, bc I love sharing the journey, but, heh, then I would not have time to do it, LOL. Good grief, I was only going to post pics of the wreaths I just finished. But got off on a tangent re DIY. (Can you tell i am a bit manic? Was trying to do a quick post, nothing about religion or sleaze, just two pics and a few sentences about them, but I got overrun by my own brain! To quote Buffy, “You have too many thoughts!” Someone should tell me that!) Now to my originally intended post:

I harvested grape vine from my yard a few months back, and made 5 wreaths and 5 swags. I also dried hot peppers. This weekend, i made tiny wreaths with some of them. (Note how tiny by comparing to penny.) I feel so good to have done this. For one thing, it helps my   homesickness for California, where hot pepper wreaths are common. If it is useful info for ya, i used a glue gun to attach the peppers, and used thin wire to hold the wreaths themselves together. I have two more wreaths and four swags left to ornament. Happy DIY to ya!

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Beloved Fellow Seeker, Thank you for your spiritual journey, because I can’t grow spiritually alone.

I wrote a book, out of gratitude for you and love for you: “Sprinkling Faerie Dust on Breakfast: A Daily Reader for Busy Parents and Their Children . . . and for Any Way-Busy Person.”

Spiritual reading that fits into your day and supports travelers of any spiritual path.

Only available from the author. Buy it here: http://etsy.me/W5GJs4 Thank you again!

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Haiku

Picture Poem, Francesca De Grandis

Into the winter,
I lack words for my feelings.
But I do trust them.

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Beloved Fellow Seeker, Thank you for your spiritual journey, because I can’t grow spiritually alone.

I wrote a book, out of gratitude for you and love for you: “Sprinkling Faerie Dust on Breakfast: A Daily Reader for Busy Parents and Their Children . . . and for Any Way-Busy Person.”

Spiritual reading that fits into your day and supports travelers of any spiritual path.

Only available from the author. Buy it here: http://etsy.me/W5GJs4 Thank you again!

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Writer’s Silly Gratitude Moment . . . with Cat

Scroll down for a silly gratitude moment: me waving proofed index pages around (good grief! But I was happy, plus I like sharing my writing process) after I finally finished proofing galleys. My cat helped!

And the book is available now! Click here.

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Revised Back Cover and Cute Kitty Pic

Hiya, ok, I created more white space. It took finagling, so most of the changes are subtle. But they made a huge difference, at least to me; the overall visual flow seems to evoke magic, though maybe I am deluded after all the hours I’ve spent on this. And if that flow is there, maybe I didn’t notice it before, objectivity is so hard.

I also fixed the paragraph that I was worried might seem bio instead of book description (it starts “Mystic and poet,”) and fixed a few other things. Still need to proof it against the original text file. I wish I could put the blurbs in a different font but all the ones I tried did not work.

I put up this newer version below in case anyone still wants to give feedback, which I would love. Old publishing saw: The more eyes looking at it, the better.  Below the cover is your reward: Another pic of my cute kitty.

Oh, the back might not make sense if you haven’t seen the front, which is here.

Unproofed back cover. The cover does not have a gray border, I put that there to distinguish it from the rest of the blog.


 And I am now going to eat lunch, woohoo! Thanks!

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Updates re My Book, the Fundraiser, and My “Authorly” Life

Hiya, the fundraiser brought in a total of $675, for which I am crazy-grateful. I feel such love for and from everyone who helped! I hope the gratitude I expressed to each of them (privately) conveyed my enormous appreciation. I’ll enjoy makings the talismanic art promised to donors of $100 or more, though I have no time for that til the book is back from the printer—I want to do the talismanic work really well for them.

Help proofing galleys (yes, she is sitting on top of
them, completely covering them).

Worked on the back cover til 1 a.m. yesterday. It is the weekend now, and I worked on it more today. But hopefully it is finished. What you see below is unproofed. Tomorrow, I’ll proof it against the text file, plus have someone check it for problems I might have missed re text, art, layout, or anything else—so if you see a glitch of any kind, please speak up. If you see no glitches after looking carefully at it, please speak up! Also have to proof galleys, etc., tomorrow, so the book can go to the printer Tuesday, yes! I do not know why I continue to think that someday publishing a book will be easy, LOL, but I love musing with my Muse, despite all. And I won’t have to work full-time this weekend, which is good.

Sitting on galleys, but is too cute for me to move her. So I have to take a break. Kittens are good teachers.

Okay, scroll down to see back cover, I worked hard so want to share it, and would love feedback—good, bad, or indifferent about any aspect of it.

Oh, the back might not make sense if you haven’t seen the front, which is here.

 

 

 

Unproofed back cover. The cover does not have a gray border, I put that there to distinguish it from the rest of the blog.

Woohoo, reserve your copy, this is a limited edition. And now I’m gonna go make a hamburger for dinner. Yes!

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