Francesca De Grandis AKA Outlaw Bunny ran from the Fey Folk for a long time, but finally underwent a rigorous seven-year shamanic training, earned a degree in Shamanic Studies at New College of California, and founded The Third Road tradition of Faerie spirituality. Her theology, ritual, and liturgy are taught globally through oral tradition and written text.

She earned the dubious distinction of becoming a full-time professional witch, possibly one of only five in the States at the time. Then, in the early 90s, the Goddess told her to also use media to teach witchcraft (meaning that, instead of paying her way solely through her services as a traditional shaman, she started to get paid a bit for writing about shamanism.)  Her books Be a Goddess!, Goddess Initiation, and Be a Teen Goddess! are part of Third Road.

As a priestess-poet who passes on her work orally, and as a published author, De Grandis has been a pivotal influence in the literary and spiritual culture of both Goddess and earth spirituality. Many poems that De Grandis developed as her teachings—rituals, liturgy, meditations, and lectures, all of which were often presented as prose—have anonymously entered the oral and written literature of earth-centered and Goddess-centered spirituality. So have her innovative magical techniques.

After leaving the music business and stand up comedy routines for a contemplative life, she remembered music and humor are part of her spirituality. She indie-produced her award-winning album of original songs, Pick the Apple from the Tree, a classic cited by Sagewoman as an album that every pagan should own.

She is also the authentic, the original, the amazing and death-defying purveyor of Crazy Sage wisdom—come one, come all, join the Chaos Circus. 

Outlaw Bunny started playing folk music in Boston clubs at age fourteen. She’s toured the U.S. performing. She also creates talismanic visual art, and has taught creative process to newbies and pros in a variety of artistic fields, for over two decades. She believes we’re all artists, given the right support.

De Grandis avoids formulaic approaches. Her groundbreaking material draws imitators and starts trends. That’s not her intent. She doesn’t even stick around to cash in. (Silly, silly shaman.) She moves on to her next innovation. A lot of it happens solely within oral tradition, because it can only be conveyed orally.

She says, “I have Multiple Sclerosis (or something. Still trying for diagnosis). Illness = housebound. At least physically. But I live in myth. Between the worlds. I live in Faerie.

“The primary influence on me as a shaman and guide is the World Tree; I channel the better part of what I teach.

“Raised in a European-based shamanic family tradition, I’ve looked for material that resonated with it. Thus my study with Faerie shamans (which I discuss elsewhere, giving me space here to dwell on other history). It also led to long-term on-the-job training (mom was a gifted psychic who read tea leaves and playing cards), including a couple of years at Curios and Candles, an old-fashioned dusty musty occult shop. It specialized in Southern Spiritualism. (That is what some called it. Others called it hoodoo or American voodoo. I hope to blog about discrepancy in magical verbiage. Please come back to read it.)

“I wanted the best possible shamanic training, so that I could help people as much as possible. I thought of how, for medical students, thorough training includes interning in hospitals. I thought about how the modern world has no shamanic internships, but knew a job at this shop would provide one.

“This front lines work had me counseling everyone from art students to mothers of pregnant teens, cancer survivors to Christian ministers. (Congruent with Southern Spiritualism terminology, we who worked there were not called psychics or witches. The sign in the shop window said "Spiritual Advisor." Similar practitioners might call themselves root doctors.) This job added to my working knowledge of folk magic.

“I have explored various traditions and disciplines looking for the heart of magic and love, the core of spirituality and human workings. It is found many places and many ways. For example, poetry that is not overtly spiritual still quietly echoes the Divine. The Gods touch all poets. Yes, the core of reality is found many ways.

“As to lyric that is overtly spiritual, training as a poet has been pivotal for me; my personal magical style includes dialectic between down-to-earth witchery and head-in-the-clouds myth, rather than academic perspectives. The Goddess gives me spontaneous lyric in the middle of teaching a class, poesy to target the specific needs of a student or the group as a whole.

“My eclectic approaches tie together and feel as one. The full-time long-term shamanic training I did, plus devoting myself to fulltime work as a professional shaman, provided time for in-depth study of several traditions, channeling new techniques and paradigms, and careful integration of all that into effective magic and a coherent cosmology. My study was not academic but an experiential training of a practitioner’s skill sets and their underlying reality.

“So the material I teach was—and continues to be—constructed over time. This is not a quickly thrown together bunch of notes, no jumble of things someone read from books. It is thoughtful powerful curriculum. Being a guide is what I do, what I have given my life to.

“My search for the core is matched by my ardent efforts to construct curriculums that help others find what is core to their own reality. E.g., the Muse gives me poetry, but I help others experience mysticism and magic their own way, through physics or cooking or whatever. I do not adhere to the modern idea of a standardized shamanism. The workings of the cosmos are so specific in their innumerable details that a scientific view supports each person having their own otherworldly style.

“I tend to get students who are eclectic. I teach in ways that support that. Other of my students focus on one style. Good! I teach in ways that support that. For one thing, identifying as a specific sort of pagan can help someone know the unique myth that he or she is. (But if someone claims their lineage or style in an alienating way, announcing, 'I am different, better than you, you less knowledgeable infant,' it is bad mojo! Good Lord! Ego-feeding trends are innately didactic and fundamentalist, which limits mystical perception.)

“My search has me using the terms witch, shaman, pagan, priest or priestess, and the like synonymously a lot of the time. Ditto, magic, mysticism, meditation, cooking, bowling…

“Be assured that this does not imply a mandate, is not an ignorant insistence that my verbiage applies to anyone but moi. Language should be one's own, and mine results from and reflects only my personal experience and path.

“If you want to angrily debate this or anything else I do: Count me out. Constant explanations made to assuage attackers play into the attackers' hands, because it becomes an apology for the mystical, which destroys the mystical. It also wastes precious time needed to serve God and community, and to dance between the stars.

“A sincere reason for explanation or dialog is exciting, and I happily respond. Often, my work is best conveyed through oral tradition; at such times, I’m available by phone. 814-337-2490. 

“Much of how I do things could be ripped apart by intellectual rhetoric, proving my verbiage and approach imprecise and incorrect. For me, it is a precision, one worked out over many years as a shaman—I am 62 now. It is a precision that fosters magic, myth, and lyric, which is where I want to live. I'm very careful in my choice of words and in the development of paradigms. I urge angry debaters to apply your fine minds to constructing your own good life. Attacks cannot change me or cheat students who are drawn to me, because the Faerie Queen and her army have my back. At her request, I teach the luxurious wondrousness that is Her love and magic. She loves bards!

“My oral trainings cannot be learned from a book. When I write books, I write books. When I teach orally, I teach embedded within a long lineage of oath-bound oral tradition, which started in my infancy, learning magic con leche.

“My search for essence, for core, and for my own myth, has taken me many places, in various realms, far too many to tell on a website or even a book. It would take years to share. But the above is a good start. I hope to share more here in blogs or class announcements.” 

Francesca’s early life was alternately escaping (so she thought) and chasing Faeries. The latter led Francesca to become a musician working in clubs. Until Faeries turned the chase 'round and kidnapped her, to create a traditional spiritual healer. She learned that, when she runs from the Fey, they catch her. After 25 years in San Francisco, Francesca ran to the Fey Folk—or perhaps was kidnapped by them, again!—and relocated from urban S.F. to live with trees and sylphs in northwestern rural Pennsylvania, one of the hidden power spots in the U.S.

Continuing to teach her various styles of earth-based mysticism through international teleseminars (group phone calls), Francesca also teaches curriculums about the spirit of art and the art of spirit. Her down-to-earth spiritual counseling is done by telephone for people all over the world.

The page about classes on her other site has more about her history’s impact on her teachings. At the top of that page, click on “The inner resources I bring to Another Step.”

More about her life in the arts here. 

Copyright Francesca De Grandis. All rights reserved. No part of this publication -- this web page and the site's other pages -- may be reproduced in any manner without written permission. Copyright reverts to author.

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