Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Rip, yes!!!!

>so much truth and spirit in the folks that see those particular
trappings and walk away

And for that reason I write interfaith books as well as Goddess books
(I just haven't had the former published yet.)

>What is that trait, spiritually speaking -- the one who travels
between worlds?  How can someone embody that trait in a healthy way?
What are some of the pitfalls?  (and, of course, hee, hee, is the
answer contained somewhere above?)

I think that trait is a commitment to love, and to fun, and to
mischief. The desire to celebrate life and serve others. It takes a
certain amount of mischievousness to constantly shift from one aspect
of your personality to another. (All these aspects are real and not a
facile camouflage of a person with no core being.)

We can embody that trait if we let go of superiority or smug
judgement. As soon as we judge someone else, we cannot shift into a
shared world with them in order to love them, celebrate them, laff with
them, serve them. (Boy, some of this stuff I am writign is going into
my new book!)

A pitfall: I had a long road before I fully honored my multifaceted
self. For years I just thought myself unable to focus on one thing. Now
I bring all those assets together.

A pitfall: inability to acknowledge the usefulness of consensus
reality. In "Goddess Initiation" I talk a lot about how independent
thinkers, mystics, people who create their own life styles, and the
like, often can't come into consensus with others. I am guilty of this
myself.

An example I use in "Goddess Initiation": mystics often create their
own personal sets of images, even their one language. Which is great
until one of them says "Green" yet another hears "blue" and a fight
ensues. 

Which is funny, because we create those private images and personal
languages in order to find an "essence", then hotly defend them as
*trappings.* Luckily, we humans have the capacity to laff at ourselves!
  

    
I am not sure my last paragraph was clear: let it instead read

"Which is funny, because we create those private images and personal
languages in order to find an "essence", then, in our anger, turn them
into mere *trappings* by a hot-headed, paranoid defense of them.
Funny! Luckily, we humans have the capacity to laff at ourselves!

However, this hot headed defensiveness comes usually from being
injured, from, for example, being mocked for or shunned for our
eccentricities. I hope the tools in "GOddesss Initiation" help heal
those soul wounds so that we can better come together with like minded
cosmic wanderers.
  

    
E-mail from Stephen Mathis:

Francesca,  it got precisely to the heart of the issue.  Having spent
year in the christian world, including several years as a pastor, I know
the deadening effect the theological purity has on spiritual growth.  I'm
drawn to the Craft because it goes far beyond the linear constraints of
theolgical thinking, and causes me to dive deep.  It's an understanding
that does not easily fit within precisely determined categories.  I think
that's why Fairie Wicca is so compelling, there's a wildness about, utter
freedom, but also discipline and responsibility.
 
Stephen Mathis
  

    
>wildness about, utter freedom, but also discipline and
responsibility.

it sounds like you read the essay I mentioned a few posts ago that
describes The Third Road :-) 

And since The Third Road is about embracing opposites, or about
following a path tangential to opposites: then though I talk about form
not ruling us, the exact opposites is also true. Form *must* rule us.

We must honor form because it is part of the moment, part of physics,
part of life. Eg without the form of skin and bone, the body falls
apart and falls in a heap on the ground! 

Another eg: on the one hand we need the freedom to proudly think for
ourselves and create our own reality. On the other hand, we need the
automatic and ongoing practice of humbly listening to others' input --
this consistent practice is following form because we do it even when
we don't feel like it. Without this form, we hurt ourselves and others
because we hadn't created the built-in response to consider humbling,
challenging input such as 'Hey, you were thoughtless to your son just
now!"
  

    
Thank you, Francesca, that is very helpful!

I now actually have your book and am reading it, and I agree that it
"seems different" than a typical self-help book (as was discussed
above, starting around <130.21>).  

For one thing, you're not selling me anything.  You never bother to
use your entertaining voice to try to convince me you've got something
I really need, that I'm less of a person without.  Or leading me to
believe this will do the work for me.  Or enticing me to do this
instead of the work I might be doing.

Instead, the tone is something like, "Ever tried this?"  "oh, you
liked that -- here's what else you can use it for."   

My analogy is that you're like a cook who comes over to visit, talks a
lot, has a twinkle in her eye, looks around my kitchen, doesn't
criticise, asks maybe, "what do you want to cook?"  I don't have to
believe you invented cooking, or that I am a worse cook than you for
having invited you over.  We just go to it, and, along the way, as you
show me this'n'that, stuff happens, fun things get cooked, and I end up
with a deeper relationship to food and maybe a few other things too.
  

    

   BTW, anyone who wants to read Francesca's book would be very well
advised to *NOT* accept the offer of a free one but instead just buy
a copy from your favorite retailer (online or off).  The WELL staff
_supposedly_ sent one to me on October 24th but there's been no sign
of it -- normal mail delivery every day since then except Sundays but
no book.  So save yourself some time -- and put a few pennies in this
wonderful lady's pocket -- by buying the book.


   Francesca, how well do you think the book would be received by
someone who knows very little about neo-pagan beliefs but is generally
friendly to what s/he does know?  I'm thinking about gifts to a few of
my friends, who generally know that pagans and wiccans are good people
and (for example) not interested in devils or demons or whatever the
latest fundie-Christian propoganda says -- but who don't know details
yet.  Is this accessible to someone at that level?
  

    
OT, Bob, the same thing happened with the copy of American Gods; I got
it about when the topic ended. If you're due a free copy of
Francesca's book, go ahead and buy one, and if the other comes, gift
someone.
  

    
Rip, thank you for those kind words. <blush>

Also:
>For one thing, you're not selling me anything.

That cracks me up. Laff out loud!!!!!!! I've been criticized for being
a ceaseless self-promoter. But you get it, you get me. What I am
selling is *you* to yourself. And I am very enthusiastic about it!
People mistake that for self-promotion. 

I constantly  let folks know about my services as a writer, shamanic
counselor  -- I counsel folks all over the world by phone -- and
teacher, because I know these services really help folks, and I really
really really want to help folks. But I *can't* help if folks don't
know my services and books exist.
  

    
Wow, my head is swelling since I've been doing this interview with
y'all!

Rab, bluntly: My first book, Be a Goddess!, (BaG) went into 12
printings in three years. Sales figures clearly show that non-pagans
were reading it. Lots of them. 

I got mail all the time from BaG readers who had never read a book in
the genre until they read mine. They write me that they didn't read
this stuff but mine is "not scary" or "not flaky" or "down to earth" or
"practical."

Then I wrote Goddess Initiation,(GI) and used what I had learned
writing BaG to make my material even *more* accessible to non-pagans.

And I did my best to make the material accessible to novices and
relevant to real people and their actual lives.
  

    

okay - i've been out of the loop for a few days, and will now go back and
read all 40 or so responses (what prolific posters here!) and see where this
discussion has been, and what direction it seems to want to follow.
  

    
it is kind of confusing to follow everything. is it possible to dedicate one
or more threads to the discussion of issues within the book?
  

    

Francesca,  I have-but-haven't-yet-read BaG.  Is it divided into monthly
exercises/lessons like GI?  And why 13 months?  Were there 13 lessons that
needed imparting, or did it just work out that way, or is there some deeper
reason transparent to this mortal?
  

    

slippery (jillmaxi!)
  

    

I think I've been inspired to ask another question here...

Francesca, who are you, really?  :)  How did you end up writing these books?

(wow.  actual *interview* like questions!)
  

    
>      it is kind of confusing to follow everything. is it possible to
dedicate one or more threads to the discussion of issues within the
book?

I aim to please. But help me figure out how to do so:

In my mind everything we are talking about is related to the book even
when I am not stating it as such. EG: If I am speaking my opinion
about how to do shamanic training, that is how it would be done in the
book since the book is a curriculum I created.

However, since this is not working for you can you make specific
concrete suggestions as to what we can change? Or maybe your suggestion
of threads is such. What are thread?
  

    

I don't think threads will work in this context, FdG.  Threads are like what
we
in the Well think of as Topics w/in a Conference.  Our interview *is* a
thread,
as it is a topic w/in the Inkwell.vue conference.
  

    
BaG, Sherry, was fifteen weeks. One lesson a week.

!3 months is a good amount of time for profound transformation to
occur in one's life and for a serious magical and spiritual training to
actually take place. Ditto fifteen weeks.  "profound transformation"
in the sense of practical, real change in one's everyday life that
makes one a happier, more fulfilled, more capable, more loving person.
  

    
Oops, in an earlier post, I wrote "!3 months" meaning "13 months." I
hit an exclamation point instead of a 1.

Who am I? A spiritual brat who argues with God constantly but whom She
nevertheless picked as a spiritual leader -- go figure; I never would
have agreed to being a leader, it just happened somehow. 

I'm also a loner who created an international community without
meaning to. 

I'm a spiritual outlaw, a lover of movies with martial arts and/or
lotsa things exploding. I'm a walking good luck charm -- sit next to me
and your life improves!

I love Victoriana, am a fabulous cook, and am 5' 8" &3/4", cute, and
love long strolls on the beach, watching the sunset, and romantic
dinners, wait, this is not a personal ad! Its an interview! What was I
doing?!! 

I write books because I have a gift for, as one of my students put it
"Organizing the unorganizable. " Unorganizable in the sense of the
material I write about, and the folks who will do what no ones else
instructs them to, but who will for some reason do what I ask of them
when they sit in my classes or read my books. 

I write books for the other spiritual brats who are trying to handle
this complex life because I have a gift for complexity and know we need
solid answers instead of glib nana.  

As a loner who has struggled to be "a part of" I have learned lessons
about that so I share them in my books. 

The main thing though is that I am a healer, that is my goal in
everything I do.
  

    
huge transformations afoot...and i haven't even gotten much into the book.
relationship with great promise seems to have ended...any good spells for
healing/letting go and all that? i just went up on my roof and threw rose
petals to the wind, petals given to me by her (as roses;)). hate these sad
lessons.
  

    
I am sorry that you are having to go thru sad lessons. I mean, I
*know* we have to do that, and that we learn from them and get happy.
But I am still sorry you are hurting.

As to letting go, etc: Rose petals on roof: great!

As to more transformational rites, not to worry: you're doing one! The
book is one big transformational ritual. Deep yummy lasting
transformation. The lessons one after another help you let go, heal and
grow.
  

    

Francesca, I would love to know what brought you to where you are
now.  How did you become a shaman?  Was it your intention to seek that or
did you simply arrive there on your way to somewhere else?
  

    
Hi all, can't catch up now, so I don't know what I'm *not* responding
to, but I have a new question:

In the book, Francesca, you strongly encourage readers to do all the
exercises in order, and at the pace you lay out -- i.e. over 13 months.
 I'm sure many a curious reader will browse, dip in, ignore or miss
this suggestion.  Can you talk a little about what the benefits of
heeding your advice may be?
  

    

yeah.  What (keta) said.  Not that I would consider skipping around...
  

    
Linda, I was kidnapped by Faeries! 

I was a musician playing in major clubs, then all of a sudden I am a
professional shaman instead. (Though my music, I discovered, is part of
my spirituality, so I write music still, and record it, and have an
album out of Goddess music, oh yeah, we talked about that in an earlier
post, never mind.)

I suspect a lot of people *fall* into shamanism. They may not even
call it by that name but just be led into the underworld of their
being, and emerge with magic in their hearts.

Rip, Sherry, if you study ballet you do your plies for a while before
you try to do leaps. Thus you leap well, leap uninjured, and fly high.
Wheeee! I want my magical mystical athletes to be strong, powerful,
safe and fly high! I also know that this series, done as given, will
change the cells of your being til you're happier than ever before. And
maybe happy for the very first time. Sound good? <--- Jeez, this
sounds like a sales pitch, but you asked what the benefits are! :-)
  

    

Hey Francesca, how do shamans deal with it when they make mistakes,
or do you ever make mistakes?