Sneak peak BOS class

I’m getting ready to start a BOS series over at The Pagan Mamaon facebook but you get a sneak peak at my current books 🙂

Poetry Month Sandra Cisneros (a banned book?!?!)

All Things Book of shadows (part 2)

Today lets talk types of Books, or I should say “books”. There are many ways to keep your own book so today I am going to share with you all of the versions I keep.

This is one I am holding on to right now but it is not mine. It is a Coven book and so everyone contributes to it and can take it and copy or add what they like. We decided to do it in binder form just because it is easiest.

My DOS (stolen name from Elfkat!) or at least all my computer files that pertain in any way to the spiritual, magical me. If you look closely you can see the folders are arranged just like the pages of this blog. Book of Days, Book of Flora and Fauna etc.

Which of course brings up this blog. I named it this for a reason 🙂 This is a public book for me. I share all parts of my life. As I move through the time I add more and more making this book bigger and better. Plus I get to share other people’s works which makes it way better. Everyone has different talents and I don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

My physical Book of Days and day planner.

My pretty book. This is the one that sits on my Altar and then one with all the pretty pictures in it. I have talked a lot about it previously but I want to revisit and re-edit some of that now.

I started this current book because the book was given to me by my then student. She had made a beautiful book with one like this and so I thought there is not time like the present to make one.  I looked at some online and at the other ones in my library and decided that drawing is not my forte. I had also just learned about soul college and liked the idea of that. I also (like almost every witch I have ever talked to) Liked the Practical magic Spell Book.  Which I thought I remembered had layers of pages. pages stuck in or put on top of other pages.

With that in mind I started making this book. It didn’t matter if I made a mistake because I could just cover it up. Every layer and every mistake was part of me and since this was a book of me not matter what I did it would be perfect.

After I had done some work on it and started showing it to people I started hearing “oh its and art journal” to which my response was to google art journal. Wow are they pretty!  Feel free to google away, but I will be sharing some really good pics and tutorials tomorrow.

That brings me to my last book.

This was a practice type book. I would just put in what ever I felt at the moment with very little rhyme or reason. So I have decided to turn this in to a true art journal.

That is it for today. More on art journals tomorrow 🙂

 

Made It Monday Book of Shadows

For Today’s Made it Monday I am sharing my Book of Shadows. Now I use My Book of Days for many things( you can see that here and here)  and I use My Book of Shadows too. For one my Book of Shadows (BOS) just makes me happy. This may sound crazy but I think no matter what religion or path you have you might like to make a BOS, even if you call it something else. It is really a users manual of sorts a personal spiritual instructional manual. I have had several over my many years as a witch but this is the first art type one. I love the process of picking what speaks to me and making this book a reflection of me.  so without further adieu…

 

 

 

small little rant

Today is Tuesday Day of Mars and so at one time I thought I would use it as a warrior day. A day to champion causes or in my lesser moments through  temper tantrum rants.  Today is a lesser day and I have a rant.

Todays rant will be brought to by The Green Wiccan Book of Shadows by Silja. First let me say that my dear aunt gave me this book. She did this because she rocks. She knows I have an interest in Wicca saw the book at a coffee shop thought of me and bought it and sent it to me. Super thoughtful and sweet. The book itself is not that bad. It is fairly basic 101 type stuff.  It’s not great either. In fact I can think of many ones I would rather read. I am not sure who her intended audience is. Though I suspect it is someone who knows nothing about Wicca or paganism.

I was putting up with the simplistic explanations and the fact that it is not what I would consider a Book of Shadows because while it says it is Wiccan it talks very little about the religion as such but focuses mostly on spells. Love, Luck and Money etc. This is of course one of the things that annoys me most. focus on the dramatic as opposed to the spiritual relationship. Now say if we were going to talk about magic then frame it that way. That is like saying we are going to talk about Christianity but never mention God. Then I read the descriptions on the different types of paganism. Now this actually made me mad.  To be fair  I will say my bias I am a kitchen witch. I know you know that about me but I thought I would make that clear before I quote the book

“Hedgewitchery Sometimes Called Kitchen Witchery, Hedgewitchery is probably the closest we come to the medieval “wise woman” type of witchcraft, in is not a well -defined path but that is precisely what makes it popular! People following this path concentrate on the craft aspect of witchcraft, seeking knowledge from different traditions, their ancestors, and people close to the local energy, such as farmers and the elderly. They often do not bother with the more ceremonial aspects, such as casting circles and wearing robes, and while some worship specific deities, may just believe in an undefined Higher Power and that “Everything is magic and magic is in Everything!” It is a great path for beginners still trying out different ways of working , and suits the solitary witch perfectly”

No it is not a well-defined path. But just because someone says do it this way doesn’t make it better. In fact some people (yep me) might say that to use your own brain to  contemplate, meditate and figure things out for yourself is much better then simply reciting what you have been told. I don’t think it is true that people who follow this path are more craft oriented as opposed to spiritual oriented. In fact again I find the opposite true. If you are going to practice a spiritual path I feel like it matters what you do in the day-to-day much more than what you do once a month. In fact just about every witch I know is a type of hedgewitch because even if they do practice with a coven they are still self sufficient human beings and they don’t hang up their relationships with their Deities with their ceremonial robs. Which brings me to yes pretty much all of my fellow hedgewitches that I know at least have specific Deities they work with. Personally I find this whole thing bumkis I have been practicing for over 20 years and I think it is a good path for anyone. Yes it is fun and powerful or can be to work with a group, but the heart of your spiritual practice is you.

She also states that “Dianic is the feminist version of Wicca” Really? because I pretty sure that I’m a feminist and I’m not Dianic. “Shamanism with fewer rules and traditions then the others practices of shamanism are often solitary, meeting Occasionally to exchange experiences” Maybe she should acquaint herself better with say all of South America for starters. Has she not seen the rich traditions of the American Indian?  Honestly this makes my head hurt, fewer traditions! ba!

What a surprise when you get to her chosen path “Celtic” She describes it as “This tradition is Earth- and nature based, and strong in the religious aspects of Wicca” What pray tell are the other Wiccan traditions?

And this folks is what really irritates me. This “there is only one true path” thing is so annoying to say the least and frankly stupid. We pick the path we walk, we are all different ergo it would make sense that our paths would be different. When did we become like this. I have many a time seen posts about someone is too fluffy bunny and inevitably the responses go like “well some people re too fluffy bunny but some people are to dark” right the perfect combination is you. This always reminds me of “Anyone driving slower than you is an Idiot, Anyone driving faster than you is a maniac.”

I could go on but I’m going to reel it in with this last though,t can we just please stop with the judging and the I am better than yous. Please, lets listen to what people say without jumping to judge. Like I said I have been practicing for a while and I still feel like I learn more every day. I feel like I can learn something from everybody. I wont care about your label or try to put you in a box and I ask the same of you.

Egypt books.

This month we are studying world cultures. Not really studying as being exposed to. To that end Little got these two books on Egypt from the library. Going along with my less is more theory I figure that since she is two she can check out two books.  The first book I did not care for and the second was pretty good.

This is the book I didn’t care for. In some ways it was much to old for Little as the last half seemed to get in the methods of embalming. What really irritated me though was that after the first half of the book they had talked about 4 Gods (though not really in a correct manner) and never once mentioned one single Goddess.  By the time we got to the mummies I was over the book and it got put down, never to be picked up again.

This one was much better. For one it has a lot of repetition which is good for Little’s age. We read it several times and Little seemed to like it. She had lots of questions about different pictures and often got hung up on the picture of the Lion. From there she would decided that either the lion was getting her or she was a Lion and she would run around the house and roar which was really adorable.

She also did some art work with an Egypt theme this week. that is to say she scribbled with various crayons on some sheets I printed out. I will share some pictures of that tomorrow.

My Book of Days

This is a very special post for me. This is a project I have been working on for quite some time.  For a long time I just turned it over in my mind, this way and that. Trying to examine all the angles and see how it might best be done. As you know for my post keeping tabs on life I need to be organized. It is not that I am a naturally organized person, it is that I am a naturally forgetful person. Or more to the point I have what I call grasshopper brain (mind jumps from thing to thing) which can overwhelm me and leave projects half done.

So I have my homemakers binder and my journal book that I wrote about and I have my Book of Days. The basic idea of this must have started with our Thanksgiving Book. This is a binder that make me look crazy, but lets me oh so prepared for Thanksgiving. It has in it the menu, the recipes, the shopping list and a ton of other information. I bring it when I shop and everyone stops me to look at it.

So this is what grew from that. It is my Book of Days. It contains all the special information I need for each moth, with extra chapters for Birthdays and other holidays. This book is mine and so it is made just for me. Because of that it has a very pagan feel to it, but I think people of all faiths or no faith of all could make a book like this and be really happy about it.    Even though it has been growing in my mind it is just recently that I have started to commit to it in written form and so this is under construction. Have a look, take what you like and ignore the rest.

The first page is a lovely print out of the dates for the New and Full moons of each month. I got this from here

I then have tabs 1-20 with the months in order from 1-12. I will be showing you #6, June, though it is pretty much the same for the other months. Before you ask the pages are pink because I had a ream of pink paper left over and wanted to make use of it.

The first page of June has the information on June and how it got its name. I happen to be a big fan of History and Lore and the “whys” of things” The two sources I like best for this information are The Farmers Almanac and Wiki.

This is followed by information about the Moon of the month. Some of the information in here is from my knowledge, some is from the Farmers Almanac and I also like Witcherywordpress and  The Domestic Pagan for information.

The next section is the decorations/ altar/ nature table section. I have ideas here for the items that will be on display. I of course have an Altar for me and we have our family Altar over the fire place. Little also has a nature table on top of her shelf in her room. If you are not familiar with nature tables (as I was not until recently) they are quite adorable ways to teach children about the seasons (turning of the wheel) and the natural world. I suggest you google waldorf nature table images. So many adorable ones out there.

Next up is again History and Lore of the holidays of the month.

Then comes Family rituals for those particular holidays.  This next part I am going to change and I will talk more about it a minuet, but it is a section for meal ideas.

Next up the theme of the month. When Little was a few months old I came up with themes for each month that would grow with her and help develop her character. I no longer keep her information on themes in her own binder. I keep it here in my book of days and also in her craft box. As you can see June theme is Food. I feel strongly that children (and adults) should know where their food came from and the work that went into getting it to their table. We make different foods, we visit markets, we cook together and visit farms and fields. last year I did foods with the letter of the day ie. June 1st was A and 2nd was B.  On this page though I have ideas for books and toys to pull out for the month..

Next up are pages of  Activites. I actually have two pages but I am only showing the first one. these again are my own creation as well as ideas I got around the web. If you follow me on Pinterest you will see I have boards with each season so some of the summer pins are represented here.  I also got quite a few from witchery. I quite like this site for ideas. Even if you don’t agree with her path its worth a look.

This next page is the menus for the 3 celebrations of the Month. Besides Fathers day and Midsummers I try to have an end of the month celebration that has to do with our theme.  This page is followed by recipes that I need to make the items on the menu.

Here brings me to my change. I also like to have a sheet of meals (though mostly dinners) that we eat a frequently during this month. followed by recipes if needed. So the meal section you saw before has already been adapted to fit this. The lovely thing about this book it is that is always changing and growing to fit our family’s needs.

So now that I have all this information how do I use it?

I pull my binder out at the end of each month and use it to fill in my pages of my homemakers binder, for the following month. Activities and themes get written into Little’s lesson plan. Field trips get planned, and written on the calendar.  Meals get written into my menu planning section. Holidays and celebrations get marked on the calendar, and the coordinating of other people begins. Books and toys get changed out. I do sometimes pull it out on Sundays like today and fill in blanks if I have any in my week, and also write in new ideas.

If you like this idea and you want to start one

I recommend a binder. That way you can add things as they come across your path. I might also just think about what categories are important to you and your family or lifestyle.  You can even start by just taking some blank binder paper writing the month and category at the top of the sheet and listing things on it that pertain. As I said mine is till under construction and I am kind of going through it month by month and filling in more details as  that month unfolds. If you have something similar or if you make one I would really LOVE to see it. Please share.

Friday Five Things I love (Little’s books version)

Last week I was doing my Friday five products and I kept thinking about all the things I love for Little  All of these images are taken from Amazon and no I don’t get any thing if you buy them.

This is a beautiful book. My grandparents got this for Little maybe before she was born. It is one of the books that I read to her every night before bed.  I have also bought it for two of our little friends because we just love it that much. The second book we read is Good Night Moon. Which is just a classic.

Speaking of Classics of course we love Where the wild things are.

This again is an amazingly beautiful book. My cousin got this book because he is a fan of Neil Gaiman. He didn’t know who the book would be for and when we announced we would be having a girl he sent it out to us.  I honestly love everything about this book and I sometimes consider getting a tattoo of the three trees in the book.

last but not lease is Clink

A cute book about a robot who makes toast and plays the polka. The pictures are both futuristic and retro at the same time and the story is a good with a good lesson.

As you know I just love books and so we have so many. If you remember I tackled our books and ended up with these two baskets.

The above books are all in the “special books” basket. The ones we love so much we read every day.