February 20th, 2017

I had a fun time tonight over at the campus craft shop hand-making paper; one of my friends is an RA, and she set it up as an event for her floor. We weren't using any particularly fine techniques, but it was cool to learn how to do, and I think my sheets will make a nice addition to my Book of Shadows.

The craft shop had a pulper to grind up fabric and paper scraps, which were submerged in water. Then we took forms with mesh across them (deckles) and dipped them into the slurry; pulling these up creates a thick, goopy mess of future-paper on the form. We had the option to add in bits of string, decorative fabric, or seeds, and there was also a little bit of spray-dye, so I spritzed mine with blue. Then you have to squeeze and press the water out of it, all while being careful not to tear the wet paper.

It has to dry overnight, which means I can't pick it up before tomorrow at the earliest, but I am excited to see how it came out! I've always wanted to try paper-making, so this was a good experience. I'm not sure if I'll reserve all of it for my Book of Shadows, but I definitely will set aside a sheet or two for that purpose.

Paper-making can be done in the home, but I've never done it myself, and therefore do not have much information on the subject. That being said, additives like pigment, essential oils, petals or seeds, and etc. can all be used to personalize paper for spiritual and magickal uses. I'd love to try it again sometime - perhaps that's a summer project!

April 24th, 2016

Had a busy but good day today, part of which involved heading over to the Gaia House for a few hours, to enjoy a reception for the artists who have work in the Pagan art exhibit which has been on display there this month. We enjoyed coffee, lemonade, and an assortment of little snacks, and generally were able just to hang out and chat.

My painting, with description, that I've had hanging up.

A collection of paintings, all by one lovely individual.

A series of nature photography, all by another artist.

Triple Goddess painting by one of our more Norse-inclined practitioners.

These two photos, by SIPA director Tara, have a rather interesting story. They were taken on vacation while visiting a haunted potter's field of unnamed soldiers. Apparently, just after these were taken (on actual film, not digitally), it started to storm, so obviously there was not enough sunlight to cause lens flare (the white patches on the photos are just glare on the glossy paper; the orange is actually present). Also, these were the only two photos on the whole strip of film with these strange colors, so it couldn't have been water damage. As such, Tara's thought is that she caught some spirits on camera. The one in the top photo actually even looks humanoid.

Me with my painting.

Hand-made grimoire.

Set of runes.

And just for good measure, this is the spiral garden I helped build last spring. As you can see, the plants are pretty well-established now. The sage and kale really took over, so that's pretty much what's growing at this point.

January 14th, 2016

I've been doing some tarot work the last few days. After seeing some ideas floating around on the web, I decided to do a spread to look at each month of 2016. It was... a bit of a trip, I'll just say that. There's a video up on my YouTube page talking about my results a bit more if anyone's interested, but in the meantime, I'll just put down a few suggestions in case anyone else would like to give it a go.

For starters, I recommend you have a journal. If you already have a tarot journal, or a grimoire/BoS you write in regularly, that would work. Otherwise, I suggest either getting one, or if nothing else, writing down your results somewhere you won't lose them so you can refer back later. I plan to reference mine throughout this year.

Feel free to set up your reading however you would normally. I personally like to put out a reading cloth and a crystal, and then cast a Circle, but that's just me. You could burn incense, play some music, meditate first, or whatever else speaks to you.

I went with a pretty simple spread. I just asked, "What do I need to keep in mind for the month of ___ in 2016?", shuffled, and drew a card. I repeated this for each month, reshuffling every time, but you could also just shuffle once and put down 12 cards simultaneously.

From there, it's a pretty simple matter to interpret each card for every month, and figure out how your year is shaping up.

As an addendum, I will say that my reading threw out a lot of reversed cards. I know not everyone reads reversed meanings, but I do, and that to me was suggesting that there's still a lot of blocked energy in my field to deal with, so I did another reading today to figure out the causes.

Essentially, I drew one card to look at the overall problem, and then I drew one card for each reversed card I had in my original 2016 reading, to determine what was blocking my energy in those months.

Also, while I did this with tarot, this kind of a reading may actually be better suited to oracle cards, if those are something you use.

January 11th, 2016

I won't be home for Imbolc, but I decided yesterday that I wanted to update my altar anyway, so that the energy would be more in tune with the current season. It was still set up for Lughnasadh when I got back in December.

I put a bunch of my herb jars in the center to charge (mint, rose petals, lavender, and yarrow), and then decorated with flowers and candles. I'm also using some pillow cases on top of my altar cloth; they're mostly plain white, but my great grandmother embroidered hummingbirds with flowers along the edges. 

My usual BOS is at school, so in its place, I have a small notebook sitting out on the left side which has sabbat and esbat rituals copied in it. 

I always feel like Imbolc is hard to decorate for, but I actually rather like how this is looking. As always, I'd be happy to hear from any of my readers regarding suggestions for amendments to my 

September 26th, 2015

It was a little surreal to just sit and relax this afternoon after being in a constant state of motion all week, but I did make myself take some time to recharge. I ended up doing a page in a Japanese brocade-pattern coloring book that my mom sent me in the mail.

Complex patterns like this, as well as mandalas and similar, are great tools for active meditation; that is, if you find it difficult (as I sometimes do) to calm your mind just sitting still, then coloring is a good way to center and focus while still doing something.

Now, I wasn't doing this as a meditation today. Instead, I sat watching some YouTube videos by other Pagans and just generally trying to expand my knowledge base. Still, in the future, I may very well use it as a meditative technique. I may also cut up a page or two and paste smaller drawings into what I've decided to call my Scrapbook of Shadows, especially if I need decorations for pages on Shinto deities, practices, etc.

A Brief Stroll

It's been really hot here the last few days, but it finally mellowed out some, and I decided just to walk around a little before going back to my room after dinner.

There's a small drainage creek behind the dining hall where I did a few rituals last year, so I walked down there to visit. There were a ton of frogs! I never actually saw one because they moved so fast and were so well-camouflaged, but they were jumping all over the place, splashing the water. 

On the way back, I also happened across this - squirrel fur!

I wanted to pick up a piece for spell work or to put in my Book of Shadows, but it looked like it might have had bugs on it, and I didn't have a plastic baggie or anything to scoop it up in. If I remember, I might see if I can find some tomorrow morning.

September 6th, 2015

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos on my day off, and also did quite a bit of work on my "Scrapbook of Shadows". Here's what I was working on.

I added some more decor to my Celtic tree month pages. We have some holly trees by my residence hall, so I picked one up and pressed it. The other lead is a piece of ivy from our garden at home. I'd like to add more to this still, but this is what I've got at the moment.

Here's the last Celtic tree month page. It definitely needs some plant samples, so I'll have to either find or draw some sometime. The right page is adorned with packaging from a bar of soap I got at Fairy Fest a few years ago. I added a tiny feather I found coming back from brunch this morning, and also wrote in a summary of how to make a magickal hand wash as demonstrated by Ashera Star Goddess on YouTube.

I have these pages mostly covered up because a lot of the information is pretty personal to me (not that you could read it, anyway, as blurrily as my laptop took these photos), but these pages were about my power animal, or patronus, the Hummingbird. 

Here's a detail of the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird I drew in the corner. 

I also put up another video today, talking about how I got into the Craft. If you're interested, a lot of it is things I haven't talked about much on here. 

Scrapbook of Shadows

I continued adding to my little BOS today. I really like how it's developing. Here are a few sample photos. Sorry about the blurriness; the light quality in my living room could stand to be improved.

First, my book blessing pages. On the left, I glued a tag one of my mom's friends made me a long time ago. I wrote a short incantation on it invoking the elements to protect and guard my book. The right page is occupied by an "ancient Egyptian" blessing used on the show Babylon 5 which always resonated with me: "God be between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk." Cursory research is inconclusive on whether or not the blessing actually is Egyptian or if the show's writers simply made it up, but some sites anyway cite it as being from the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Authentically Egyptian or not, I find the words to be powerful ones.

On the next two pages is a prayer to Athena which I found here. As I am currently developing a relationship with Her, it seemed appropriate to include a prayer to Her first thing. I also glued in a tiger lily petal, and a sunflower petal, both from our garden.

Long-time readers may remember the posts regarding the Celtic tree months I did several years ago. I collected a lot of information, but it never made its way into my working BOS. Today, I dug up those posts and summarized their contents. I also took some leaves belonging to the trees under discussion and pasted them in. The birch leaf was wide enough that I created a foldable insert for it so that it would not cover up my writing. I also used a crayon to do some leaf rubbings on the right page, but the thickness of the paper stopped that from working very well. The tree month section spanned several pages, but those aren't finished yet, as I'll be adding more as I come across trees of the right varieties. 

Seven new pages today! That's pretty good, I think, and I like how they're looking!

August 16th, 2015

While looking for some other things upstairs, I stumbled across a little BOS my Aunt C gave me when I was six. It's a black volume which she personalized with inserts on the inside cover. When she gave it to me, I only vaguely understood the intended use, so mostly I scribbled all over it. The scribbles, however, were done in pencil, so I was able to erase them and now I can actually use it, after like 13 years. Perhaps there's some significance in that, now that I think about it.

This evening, I decorated the title page. I think I'll use it as more of a spell and prayer book, as opposed to a formal BOS with ritual instruction and the like. Maybe one day I'll even show it to my Aunt.

On the left page, two triquetras frame a pentacle. Below, an insert reads:

Presented to:

{Name}

From:

Aunt C

Yule of 2002

Across the bottom is a triple goddess symbol made of Celtic knotwork, with a Tree of Life in the center.

On the right page, the alchemical symbols for air, water, fire, and earth go across the top. In the middle, another inset reads:

Book of Shadows

What Witches Need 

In Order To Be Witches

{star}

On the bottom is a Green Man face. 

I chose to use the fuchsia as it matches the color of the names which I mostly erased from the photo above. 

Now I'm working on the next two pages, which will hold a sort of book blessing. I am interested in trying to make a sort of scrapbooked BOS (a Scrapbook of Shadows?) - I've seen some beautiful examples, but never really got around to doing anything to that effect.

August 12th, 2015

I had quite the scare yesterday. The USB stick I was keeping my BOS information on all of a sudden decided to fail, and I couldn't open the files on any device in the house. All of my music, pictures, documents, and PDFs were on it.

Luckily, my dad was able to run it through a data recovery program which extracted all the files. The one thing it did, though, was change all the titles to gibberish, so I had to spend several hours today and yesterday going through almost 400 items, re-naming all of them. Frustrating as that was, I think it also gave me a new appreciation for all of it. I found songs I'd forgot I had, along with documents I hadn't opened all summer.

Needless to say, everything is now backed up on multiple platforms, and I'll be getting a new drive ASAP.

July 17th, 2015

Cite your sources, kids.

No, really. I've spent something like ten solid hours digging through books trying to find all the places where I had gotten info for my Book of Shadows. 12-year-old me couldn't be bothered to write any of that down, and now 19-year-old me is going batty trying to locate the original authors of rituals, spells, etc.

Obviously, one should never take copyrighted material and publish it on the internet unaltered whilst claiming it as one's own. But even if your BOS is only ever going to be seen by your eyes, trust me - sooner or later, you'll want to know where you found something. And when you've read enough books, the number of possible sources gets a little overwhelming. Keeping track of source material ahead of time makes things so much easier down the road.

I just started adding footnotes to my pages. If something was from a book, I noted the title and author. If it was from a website, I noted the username and URL where it could be found. It's simple, and doesn't take up much space. It's also quick, provided you aren't trying to do it all at once seven years after the fact.

There's still some I haven't found yet, so I guess that means I need to make another trip to the library.

July 13th, 2015

I've been productive this afternoon! After months of just sort of thinking about it, I finally got up the energy to consolidate all of my Pagan files to a single jumpdrive.

I got a 8GB USB for free at school, and figured that would be sufficient for my purposes. I had typed up my Book of Shadows several years ago, so as to ensure that things were spelled correctly, formatted neatly, and etcetera. Today, I moved the BOS folder over from another, smaller drive (which is, incidentally, held together only by tape and a prayer), and also typed up some new spells I found.

Then I got all my Pagan tunes transferred from yet another drive, and am in the process of downloading some more.

I also found the font which I'd used on my original BOS pages and downloaded that .zip file again so that I could continue using it.

And last night I discovered a link to Dark Books Magic Library which has over 1,500 public domain manuscripts on the occult, Paganism, magick, Wicca, etc. You can download them all for free (although she also includes some reviews for books which are still under copyright, so those can't be downloaded). I've been stocking up interesting ones in yet another folder.

June 1st, 2015

Well, I hadn't been anticipating going to the zoo yesterday, but that's what we did, and thus my other plans got rather derailed. It's alright, though. I always enjoy getting to see the animals.

~~~~~

This afternoon, I would like to take some time to discuss my notebooks, and what I use them for in my Craft. In the picture, one can see two Alice in Wonderland notebooks, spiral-bound. There is not much which outwardly distinguishes either one; in fact, they are entirely innocuous, the sort of thing that any young person might own. 

Almost any Pagan living with (or even frequently visited by) unsupportive family finds themselves subject to trying to hide their practice. I myself accomplish this by keeping my altar in my closet, and making sure that those things I have visibly around the house are common enough to not raise any eyebrows. Granted, I have it better than many, and my solutions may not be suitable for those whose housemates are especially invasive of privacy, but that's a topic for a different post.

The point I am slowly working my way toward is that while my BoS stays in my closet, with its triple goddess and stag head imagery, I can carry either of these notebooks around anywhere and no one is any the wiser. 

The blue book on the left hand side is the one which I just filled up on Saturday, after four years of sporadic use. Started in August of 2011(about a month before I made this blog, actually), it tracks things like:

• Psychic experiences
• Pagan events or festivals I attend
• Feedback on rituals
• Specific notes on spells and their results
• Research (including first drafts of all of my crystal posts)
• Tarot spreads and notes on accuracy
• Contact information for Pagan stores, artists, etc.
• Other miscellaneous Craft-related info

In short, it is a record of my life as a young adult Pagan. I wish I would have thought to start one when I first became interested in my religion, but I was never very good at keeping a journal growing up. The second notebook only has one entry so far, but it will serve the same purpose.

Spreads like this allow me to clip in business cards, highlight relevent information, doodle altar layouts, design sigils, and etcetera. I found over time that writing in pen is the best option, as pencil has an unfortunate tendency to fade. Also, I do record the dates and times of all of my entires. I have considered adding in notable astrological info, but ultimately never bothered.

Other ideas I would like to try sometime include adding stenciled headers, marking a page with a specific oil or perfume, or including bits of herbs left over from a spell or ritual.

Something that I've had a great deal of success with in other applications is writing in code, particularly when one is concerned about somebody reading what you've written. I like Futhark runes myself, as I memorized them in my childhood and therefore have an easy time reading and writing them. Also, I figure that most people are not interested enough in my writing to look up the translation and decode it. That being said, one could always simply invent one's own alphabet if one were particularly worried.

Whether you already keep a journal or are interested in starting one, I hope that this little explanation of my own inspires your work, or at least was mildly interesting. I'm always looking for inspiration myself, so by all means share your own journal if you have one!

December 10th, 2012

I'm rather bummed out today; after taking Japanese for three years, my class was supposed to visit Japan for two weeks next summer. However, they only had 10 people (including me) turn in the money to go, so they were forced to cancel it. Hopefully I can still go the summer after my senior year, but in the meantime, it's disappointing.

In other news, I cleansed, consecrated, and blessed my Book of Shadows today after finishing up with typing the information yesterday. It's all pretty now, and I'm really happy with it!

Mt. Fuji (富士山)

December 9th, 2012

So, today I finished a month-long project to type out all the information in my Book of Shadows. Now I don't have to worry about trying to read poorly spelled rituals in unintelligible handwriting from when I was 12. Instead, everything is well-organized in a pretty, easy-to-read font with color-coded highlighting, black-and-white graphics, and clean paper that wasn't dug out of the depths of my backpack. What a relief!

November 7th, 2012

Well, I regret to say that Samhain was something of a let-down this year. Between work and family obligations, I never had the chance to do a nice ritual like I had planned. I did take some time last weekend to work on typing my Book of Shadows, though. I had hand-written the whole thing, most of it when I was 12, and I finally got so sick of all the spelling errors that I decided to type and print it, complete with some lovely Pagan fonts that I downloaded for free at www.dafont.com. If you go to the website, under the Dingbats heading is the "esoteric" subsection; they have a bunch of zodiac fonts, along with several that are more specifically Pagan. I've also been working my way through a couple books on different religions. I just finished two, one on classical mythology and one on Buddhism. Now I'm reading a text on Japanese mythology, which is especially interesting to me since I'm learning Japanese in school. I've got one to go after this, about different symbols from different cultures. After that, I'll have to raid the library again!

The above is Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess. She is holding a snake and a burial sculpture of a female shaman. To learn more about this depiction of the Goddess, visit the GoddessGift website.

July 5th, 2012

Happy 4th, er, 5th of July! I largely spent yesterday's holiday cataloguing a plethora of new Pagan music in my Book of Shadows. I like to keep a list of my favorite songs at the end, so that if something terrible were ever to happen to my computer, I have a hard-copy backup list. Then we went to see some local fireworks and ate home-made ice cream. Mmm...

~~~~~~~~~~

It occurs to me that while there are many instructions available on the internet for setting up one's Book of Shadows (BOS), there are substantially fewer on how to personalize it, and really make things your own. As such, here are some tips that can be used alone or en masse, where personalization of the BOS is concerned.

• Handwrite everything. Yes, it can be time consuming, especially if you type faster than you write, but the more time that is put into something, the more meaningful it will be. Handwriting also leaves your personal energy signature on the pages, imbuing them with a little bit of you.
• Make use of font, sizing, and other formatting options. Some people just can't go the handwritten route, and that's okay, provided that what is typed isn't just copy and paste. Take the time to bang things out on the keyboard, and then use some simple formatting tools to make pages well organized and attractive.
• Make the cover matter. If you intend to buy a pre-made BOS, make sure that the page layout is pleasing, and take a good look at the cover. It should either be visually pleasing to you, or should give you the option to adapt it if you aren't satisfied. If you're like me, using a three-ring binder, the front cover likely has a pocket allowing you to insert anything you want. Get creative: consider pictures, drawings, paintings, prints, printed images, collages, etc. 
• Add pictures. You don't have to be a brilliant artist to add images to your BOS - that's what a camera is for! Photograph rituals, altar set-ups, your first robe, new tools, any gatherings you may go to, etc., and add these photos to the appropriate pages with a bit of glue or tape.
• Color-code. One of the most successful decisions I made in designing my BOS was to color-code it. I chose to highlight titles in green, tools needed in a spell or ritual in orange, and things to be spoken aloud in yellow. You can choose any colors you like, and can certainly highlight additional things if you feel there is something else you ought to draw attention to.
• Doodle in the margins. One way to add a little glamour to an otherwise text-coated page is to add small, meaningful drawings in the paper's margin. If you have instructions for a spell to draw love, for example, that requires some symbols of love, one could draw in stylized hearts, cupid silhouettes, roses, and/or doves. Just make sure things don't get too crazy - you need to be able to read the page, after all.
• Use colored ink. If a page is focused on a prosperity spell or chant, consider inking the page in green pen, or printing it in green, if you opt for the typed style. A friendship spell could go pink, a section on astral travel purple. 
• Include examples. Whether you are writing the names and uses for plants or the recipe for an awesome tea you tried at your coven-mate's house, using a physical representation of that item in your BOS can help jog the memory and make the pages more special. Pressing flowers and leaves between the pages of a heavy dictionary for a few days can leave them ideal for insert into a BOS. You could slip in that tea bag, a knotted cord or other spell-leftover, or even a baggie of ingredients if you so chose.
• Use page protectors. This isn't so much a tip for personalization as it is for protection of your personalization. It can be really upsetting to go to the work of making a page stunning, only to ruin it by spilling candle wax all over it. Prevent such damage by using clear page protectors, which are inexpensive and will take the brunt in the wax spill, not the page.

I hope I have inspired some creativity where the BOS is concerned. Enjoy the making. Remember: all acts of love and joy are my rituals.

"Pagan"

So, Hazelnut sent me this picture earlier, and I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. I may copy it and put it in my BOS.