The court cards are a common snag that tarot readers run into. One of my besties has been reading tarot for longer than I’ve been alive, and they still have issues with the courts. This book provides an interesting new take on the court cards, and how to approach them.
Basically, Robertson personifies the court cards into individuals, with wants and goals and jobs to do and advice to give.
I think this makes them more approachable than just listing the common meanings and expecting people to memorize them, or using the list as a reference tool. At the end of every chapter, Robertson has a tarot spread that uses that court persona as the basis for a reading.
I don’t think this is a beginner’s book, per se; it’s for anyone who’s having trouble interpreting the court cards. I’m going to offer it to my friend, see if they gain any clarity with this new approach.
3/5 stars, only because not very much of it stuck in my head. It’s a good thing I take notes.
Know going into this that this is his second book. I have not read the first one, yet, but I liked this one enough that I’ve decided to get the first book.
I enjoyed this book for a few reasons. The first is simply because John Beckett’s day-job is engineering. As a person who loves sciences, it still feels rare to find an author of spirituality books who is also deeply involved in science. And he’s honest in his writing about how that came to be and how he makes it work.
“Paganism In Depth” did not fill a need, but it did give a framework and methods of approaching building your own spiritual path… Which is another reason I enjoyed this book; it’s not a detailing of all the author’s practices, but is more a broad description of his polytheist practices and why he does things in this way.
The full title is “Paganism In Depth: A Polytheist Approach” so Beckett goes into detail on why his paganism is “polytheist, ancestral, devotional, ecstatic, oracular, magical, and public” and what each of these means.
It’s hard to say what the best part is, because most chapters have something quote-worthy, but there were two parts that I think have had the biggest impact on me. The first was in Chapter 1, wherein Beckett describes how to build & evaluate your Model of How the World Works: a continuously updated living model that’s open to new input and new interpretations. The second was in Chapter 7 (Divination & Oracles), where he says that divination is more like headlights than a map:
Divination will show you where a given path or course of action is likely to take you, but it’s up to you to determine if that result is good or not.
Cha. 7 – Divination and Oracles
This is not a beginner’s book. This is an intermediate book intended for those who feel called to go deeper into their spiritual practices, to go off the maps and into mostly-uncharted territories, and leave markers for those who come after us.
Here there be monsters. Beckett discusses those monsters in Chapter 12.
I get the seasonal catalogs from Llewellyn (dangerous, I know) and I had marked “Honoring Your Ancestors: A Guide to Ancestral Veneration” as something I wanted to read before I listened to the 3PAAC review of it. 3PAAC had good things to say about it, so it was definitely in my book order last December.
This is a very practical guide for those starting an ancestor veneration practice, interspersed with personal stories of how ancestor veneration has impacted the author’s life.
Vaudoise is very clear in the introduction that, if your Tradition already has an ancestor practice, you should follow that tradition first and use this as a supplement with your teacher’s blessing.
There is a lot covered in this slim book (207 pages); I have three pages of notes in my smallest handwriting, which would probably turn into 10+ pages if I typed them up neatly. I might have put the chapters in a slightly different order, with Healing Ancestral Trauma after the practical chapters on building an altar, making offerings, and prayer. I found the chapters on mediumship particularly interesting, as I’ve been getting occasional messages from my ancestors over the last year or so. The last two chapters are about magic and spells; her stance on the ethics of magic, especially when calling on ancestral power, jives pretty well with how I feel about it:
Whether you like it or not, whether you mean to or not, you are harming others all the time. And yet, the world does not collapse in a fit of despair.
Cha. 10, pg. 169
It was occasionally a bit awkward for me when Vaudoise casually referenced Christian / Catholic parts of her practice. I understand that she includes those practices in her ancestor veneration because her Italian ancestors also had those practices and would recognize them. I’m half Polish, and the Poles have been Catholic for approximately the last thousand years… but I need to do a lot more research on my ancestors and their beliefs before I can decide what I’m comfortable including in my practice.
I’m going to stop here, so I don’t spoil the whole book, but I highly recommend reading it. I think I’m actually giving this 5 out of 5 stars, as my uncomfortableness with Christian practices is a me-problem, not a book-problem.
The Wheel turns and Ostara has come (and gone). The spring chorus is in full swing; between the frogs and the birds, there is no quiet anymore. It’s occasionally safe to crack open a door or window. Flowers are coming up and blooming. And I’m considering taking the winter gear out of my car, it’s taking up half of my trunk-space.
Background
Ostara is the modern name for the Spring (Vernal) Equinox. In the northern hemisphere, it’s around March 20-22; this year it was on March 20. Ostara was named after Eostre, an early Germanic goddess with associations of Spring and Dawn. We really don’t have much historical info about Eostre, so most of her modern correspondences are UPG (unverified personal gnosis): bunnies, eggs, robins, etc.
The Christian holiday around this time is Easter (notice the similar names?). Fun fact, the date of Easter is always the Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. So depending on the sun and moon, Easter could be within a few days of Ostara, or it could be almost a month later.
Correspondences
I’m not going to go too much in-depth with correspondences, as there are a million resources for finding these. And all of the lists are different. Here’s the ones I use:
Colors = stronger & brighter pastels
Nature = eggs, bunnies, spring flowers, young meat, bees, hummingbirds
Thematic Ideas = equal day & night, balance, renewal, fertility, migration, end of hibernation
Ways to Celebrate
Here are some ideas for celebrating Ostara:
Food
Eggs (Devilled eggs are my favorite, but also egg salad, fried eggs in sandwiches, eggs in Ramen…)
Take a walk around your neighborhood to observe the flowers
Stock up on allergy meds for The Pollening
Picnic (if it’s warm enough)
Spirit & Magic
Start your garden seeds
Fertilize houseplants
Spring cleaning
Wash windows
Take insulative plastic off windows
Put winter gear back in storage
Egg carton altar
Wash, dry, & crush eggshells for Protection
Ostara this year fell on a Saturday. The weather was nice, and I met up with a witch friend at a local garden center. We spent over an hour looking at everything, cooing over the tiny plants, and bemoaning that we’re broke witches and can’t buy all the plants. I did buy a tiny African violet, a tiny succulent, an air plant, a Venus flytrap, a pack of oatgrass seeds for my cat, a small birdfeeder, and a small bag of birdseed. It only took the squirrels about three weeks to figure out how to raid the birdfeeder, a la Mission Impossible.
Later that night, I visited that witch friend and her pagan husband. We had a fire in their firepit, and had devilled eggs, roasted turnips, and homemade burgers for dinner. We drank from drinking horns. I got home at midnight smelling of wood smoke.
Then they called me at 12:45 am saying there were vaccine appts available and I needed to get on that! So I did. And that’s how I got my vaccine appts. My second dose is later this week, and I’m very excited about being able to hug my dad again.
I’ve since also picked up more potting soil and some larger pots, as my spider plants refuse to calm down and apparently need to be repotted again. We’re up to four baby-runners this year, and I still need to rehome the babies they grew last year!
I’m working on some low-key plans for this summer, as it’s anybody’s guess at this point which events will actually run this year. And I appreciate working from home still, as both my new birdfeeder and the neighbor’s flowering magnolia tree are visible from my workstation / dining table.
We’re over a year into the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s not going to go away unless everyone does their part. That means wear a mask when you go out, and get vaccinated when you have the opportunity. You know why polio and smallpox aren’t a big deal these days? People got vaccinated.
As a woman who has deliberately and consciously chosen not to have children, I’ve felt that the “traditional” triple goddess archetypes of Maiden, Mother, Crone were… Limiting? Confining? Proscriptive? They’re tied to and based on reproduction. I’m past Maiden, I am not becoming a Mother, and I’m not old enough to be a Crone, so where does that leave me?
“Jailbreaking the Goddess: A Radical Revisioning of Feminist Spirituality” presents a new & unique goddess model, one that’s not based around the ability to procreate.
The book contains Journal and Action prompts, for reflecting and putting ideas into practice.
Allen’s fivefold model explicitly states that anyone can embody and honor any of the five goddess archetypes at any time. The first half of the book details the five archetypes: Femella (the Child), Potens (Woman of Power), Creatrix (Creator of Anything), Sapientia (Woman of Science & Art), and Antiqua (the Ancient One). I totally dig this, and have already started shifting my perception of Goddess and how the things I do are honoring one or a combination of aspects.
The second half was a very wordy treatise on “Reweaving Our Magicks,” and covered topics like consciously creating community; Power, Authority, & hierarchy; building relationships with the Divine, including how to study a deity from another culture without appropriating; and how to create rites of passage. I agree with most of the messages in Part 2, but the language she used feels like a poem or a prayer, flowery and passionate, rather than instructional. For example, in Cha. 13 Allen states that “you owe the land you’re standing on reciprocity”, which is true, especially as I’m a descendant of early colonial settlers, but she never explains or gives suggestions on how to do that.
I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. Had Part 2 not disappeared into a haze of verbosity, causing me to have to reread the entire second half of the book and take notes to have anything stick in my brain, it would be 5/5. This is an incredibly unique and mind-opening approach to feminist spirituality, and it makes the Goddess more accessible to those who reject the tri-fold reproductive model.
Imbolc is February 1, coinciding with Candlemas. While it is still excruciatingly cold (at least, in New England it is!), the days are getting noticeably longer. It’s no longer dark before I get out of work! And the angle of the sun is getting higher, evidenced by the light through my deck door no longer blinding me in the afternoon while working.
Background
The deity associated with Imbolc is Brighid, a Celtic goddess of healing, smithcraft, and poetry. She was adopted into Christianity as Saint Brigid, which I believe is where Candlemas came from (though don’t quote me on that!), as both fire and water are sacred to her.
The Cailleach is a gaelic winter goddess, an old woman who goes out to collect firewood on Imbolc. If the weather is clear, she’ll be able to gather lots of fuel and winter will last awhile longer. If the weather is gross, she can’t go out to gather, so she’ll run out of fuel sooner and winter will end.
I forget the exact etymology, but the word “Imbolc” has to do with ewe’s milk. This is the time of year when ewes (sheep) begin lactating in preparation for birthing their lambs. Fresh milk was a lifesaver, after a winter of dried & preserved foods which may be starting to run out.
Correspondences
I’m not going to go too much in-depth with correspondences, as there are a million resources for finding these. And all of the lists are different. Here’s the ones I use:
Colors = white & pastels, and fire colors
Foods = dairy products, breads, lemons (for the returning sunlight)
Themes = lengthening daylight, Brighid’s three domains, purification, fire & water, renewal, coming growth, new beginnings
Sleep by the fireplace, especially as a sleepover with storytelling
Visit a local dairy farm & buy local dairy products
Start planning your garden, or research local farm shares
Go ice skating with friends
Spirit & Magic
Scrying with fire or water
Ritual cleansing of your space
Honor Brighid — make a Brighid’s Cross, write poetry, practice a craft, make candles, etc.
Make room in your life for coming growth and abundance
Take baby steps toward your goals
Enjoy a source of heat (hot yoga, hot spring, hot tub…)
February is a really difficult time of year for me, so even though I can see the increasing daylight it’s hard to feel excited by it, or by anything, really.
For Imbolc this year, I baked myself a low-sugar cheesecake (and ate the whole thing myself), and attended via Zoom A Feast of Lights, a winter celebration organized by EarthSpirit, a local pagan group. It was my first pagan gathering that had classes to choose from, and my first multi-day pagan event. I convinced three friends to split a household registration with me. I enjoyed some parts and was completely bewildered by other parts. I’m watching their website to see if their Beltane Zoom-gathering will be similarly affordable.
Please continue wearing masks and maintaining social distancing. I know many places in the US are reopening, against the advice of Science, but if we’re not careful we could have another surge of the more infectious strains of Covid, and any progress we’ve made would be lost with more pointless deaths. Through vaccination, there is an end in sight, but it’s not here yet.
I had been eyeing this book on Llewellyn’s online catalog for some time. You know how sometimes you’re just idly browsing and you come across something that gives you an internal zing like, “That. I need that.” — This was one of those books that gave me a zing. Pro Tip: Follow your enthusiasm.
“Of Blood and Bones: Working with Shadow Magic & the Dark Moon” is a good-sized book, about 6″x9″ and almost 300 pages. While it wasn’t quite everything I was hoping for, it’s certainly more than anything else I’ve found so far. I haven’t come across anything else quite like this.
This is a heavy book, not physically but mentally and emotionally. The entire first section of the book is devoted to shadow work and what the author calls “the dark moon current”. Blood & Bones is jam-packed with information and things to think about.
Not gonna lie, I cried several times while reading this book. Winter is a difficult time for me, especially February; My familiar’s passing three years ago was traumatizing for me, even though I knew it was coming. There were some chapters of Blood & Bones that just brought all of that right back, though Holly’s death was also the event that got me interested in the nitty-gritty side of witchcraft.
As stated previously, I haven’t seen anything else like this before. The author discusses the proper way to clean bones, safety measures for using blood and other bodily fluids in spellwork, and how to use a bone oracle, and includes spells and crafts at the end of every chapter. I especially appreciate this book because it’s so rare to find a published author that embraces cursing as a valid option, and is willing to discuss in detail all the gross, dark parts of ourselves and of life in general.
I would give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars. She includes a bibliography, recommended resources, and a spell index that lists about twice as many dark spells (banishing, cursing, breakups, revenge, etc.) as light spells (love, money, protection, new beginnings, etc.). One of my close friends has already purchased this book because I wouldn’t stop talking about it.
Yule is the Winter Solstice (December 20-23), the time of shortest day and longest night. It’s dark & cold, with a decent chance of snow. There are many (many, many) celebrations at this time of year, in cultures around the world, so most everyone is having some kind of party in December.
Background
The word “Yule” comes from Old Norse “jol“, which referred to a 12-day festival that started on the solstice. Some mythologies have a Sun god being reborn at this time of year, which jives with the increase in daylight.
Correspondences
I’m not going to go too much in-depth with correspondences, as there are a million resources for finding these. And all of the lists are different. Here’s the ones I use:
Caroling, especially visits to assisted living & nursing home facilities
Gather with your loved ones
Gift giving
Donations to shelters
Spirit & Magic
Wake up to greet the dawn
Stay up all night with burning candles
Yule log
Bayberry candle magic (“A bayberry candle burned tip to socket puts luck in the home & gold in the pocket” though be warned: Bayberry candles are the drippiest candles I’ve ever had the misfortune of using.)
Luminarium – putting out milk jugs or paper bags (weighted with sand) with candles to line driveways & walkways
Nature walk to collect bits for decorations
Research solstice traditions of your ancestors
Journal to reflect on Thematic Ideas:
What cycles have you completed?
What do you want to grow with the sun?
What darkness have you gone through?
For Yule 2020, I took the day off from work & used the time to donate blood to the Red Cross. After lunch I went to visit my sister & her kids, and stayed until the kids’ bedtime. We had dinner, and my sister & I read some tarot; One of her girls was very enthusiastic about trying to play Concentration with my tarot cards. I gave them their yule gifts and they insisted on putting on their footie jammies right then & there.
I also used the week following Yule to burn my bayberry candle, as both the sun & the moon were waxing then.
My holiday decorations this year consisted solely of a string of lights hung on my dining room wall with masking tape in a pentagram shape. My roommate stated that they weren’t interested in putting anything up and I would be solely responsible for packing the decorations up afterward, so one strand of lights it is! The lights are still there (in late January) and likely will be until Ostara.
Samhain is the final harvest festival, taking place October 31. (I apologize for taking so long in posting this, as it’s now January, but a lot was going on around Samhain and writing anything was not on my radar at the time.) By Samhain the weather is noticeably cooler, with less daylight. There’s crunchy leaves on the ground and I delight in the swishy sound they make when walking through them.
Background
The word “samhain” is gaelic, meaning “summer’s end,” and there are different, regional pronunciations: “sow-in” in Ireland (the most common way I hear it said), “sow-een” in Wales, and “sav-en” in Scotland. (It’s “pumpkin spice” in the US.) I pronounce it the Scottish way, as Mercedes Lackey spelled it “Sovvan” in her Valdemar books and I read those religiously in my teens.
This is the time of year when the veil between worlds is thinnest, and spirits and fae can visit our realm with ease.
Correspondences
I’m not going to go too much in-depth with correspondences, as there are a million resources for finding these. And all of the lists are different. Here’s the ones I use:
Colors = black, orange, dark red, purple
Nature = gourds (esp. pumpkins), root veggies, winter squash, apples
Thematic Ideas = death, crossing the veil, ancestors, spirits, protection, the fae folk, spooky season, mortality, we all die eventually
Ways to Celebrate
Following are some ideas to celebrate Samhain:
Food & Drink
Anything pumpkin. For savory, I suggest dinner in a pumpkin; for sweet, pumpkin juice.
Anything apple. Apple pie, apple crisp, apple cider, apple sauce, apple butter…
Food of your ancestors: family recipes, something cultural, an ancestor’s favorite dish
Have a Silent Supper and invite your ancestors to dine with you
Community
Visit your ancestor’s graves
Take a walk through the local cemetery, reading moody poetry
Tell stories about those who’ve crossed over
Genealogy research
Work on your Living & Last Wills; Check local regulations on making them legally binding
Participate in local Trick or Treating (obviously, not during pandemic)
Spirit & Magic
Carve a jack-o-lantern for protection
Host a seance
Make an ancestor altar
Watch spooky movies
Journal to reflect on thematic ideas (above):
Are you becoming a good ancestor?
How do you want to be honored & remembered after you die?
What lessons have you learned from your ancestors?
My plans for Samhain 2020 were a bit unusual, in that I attended a (socially-distanced, outdoor) wedding. Two of my good friends got married in a local cemetery. It was short & sweet, and I cried through the whole dang thing.
I was originally planning to actually write up my Wills, because PANDEMIC, but I didn’t actually get to that. I have, however, had conversations with my closest friends about my wishes should something happen, so at least someone knows.
I went to the cemetery down the street and visited my paternal grandparents’ grave; My maternal grandparents are buried at a cemetery at least 40 minutes away, and I didn’t get there this year. For dinner I made pierogi, with onion & cabbage (I’m half Polish).
With Election Day literally around the corner from Samhain, I asked the ancestor-spirits of the Founding Fathers to watch over our election. I know that I have some ideological differences with the Fathers, but the ideals that this country was founded upon were in grave danger, so I asked them to make sure democracy was upheld in a fair election. (Side note: Ancestor spirits are not required to be your blood relatives.)
Spooky Season is my favorite. I bought 4-5 pairs of Halloween earrings on clearance in the days following Samhain. And I got to wear my witch hats (if you count my black top hat, I’ve got four).
For more information on various spirits & ancestors (and really, more information in general), I highly recommend the 3 Pagans and a Cat podcast. They have revitalized & reinvigorated my pagan studies over the last six months (I started listening in June), and I love everything about that podcast.
And seriously, for the love of all that’s holy, wear a mask.
Herbal magic is one of the topics in witchcraft that I want to study more. I would like to be able to do things like whip up a spell jar without having to cross-reference five different resources. I spent a long time comparing different herbal books, and it’s rough when I don’t want recipes, I want herbal profiles and correspondences.
Ellen Dugan is a Master Gardener, and I was hoping that her practical experience with plants would mean she’d know her shit. I was actually unable to finish this book, despite it being a fairly slim volume. I read the first two chapters, and that soured me so much that I skimmed the rest and decided it wasn’t worth my time.
Long story real short:
This is not the book you’re looking for.
There are a select few points that Dugan makes early on that I agree with, mostly about general correspondences like seasons and the phases of the moon and maybe some color references. … But that’s it.
It turns out that I have strong philosophical differences with the author. And I can’t emphasize that enough. Dugan takes a very hard stance on Harm None, Threefold Law, and Positive Magic Only, and presents it like this is The One Way to do things and if you go against these tenets then you’re a bad person who’s going to Witch Hell or something. Nowhere in the book did it say that she’s Wiccan, not even in the About The Author. She also never gave a disclaimer like, “This is what I believe, do some philosophical reflection to determine your own stance.”
Lady, if I wanted to be told what to do and what to believe, I’d go to church. (No offense meant to any readers from an organized religion.)
Additionally, the four chapters with the actual herbs are Love, Health, Protection, and Prosperity (Positive Magic Only, remember!), and the small handful of herbs in each chapter only get tagged with that one correspondence. I know for a fact that most herbs have multiple uses, so this was less than helpful.
The only reason I’m giving this book 1 star out of 5 is because she gets bonus points for both an index and a bibliography. I would be more upset had I paid full price for this slim volume; as it stands, I’m writing off the $10 as a loss and going with a different author next time.
The Book, The Tree, & The Flame 