What Does Your Shadow Know?
You can read it like a book.
Today as I was going through some of my old Books of Shadows I found a spell I did to get a book deal that I totally had forgotten about. What’s more the spell worked! I’d called upon a power popular in hoodoo – St. Expedite – whom I’d worked with several times before (once to have my bags returned to me that were lost at the airport, and another to find a lost dog - worked both times, fast!).
This is why we keep Books of Shadows! If I wouldn’t have written that spell down, what would I do when it came time to sell another book?
If I hadn’t written that spell down, not only would I have forgotten my special relationship with St. Expedite, but I also would have forgotten an example of powerful magic. If you don’t write your spells down (especially if you have ADHD, comme moi) you may not recognize or remember just how effective your magic is. And if you forget how powerful your magic is, it’s easy to harm yourself with it.
By harm, I mean use your magic without realizing it to reinforce unhealthy beliefs about yourself.
Ever since the Between the Worlds podcast episode where I interviewed psychologist and creativity expert Dr. Diana Rivera (click the link below to listen), I’ve been percolating on what she said about taking your creativity seriously. My creativity is largely expressed through my writing and through my magic, so much changes for me when I remember to take it seriously.
When I take my work seriously, I don’t procrastinate and avoid doing it. I apply more rigorous methodologies, and practice more nuance in what I’m doing and saying. I’m more attentive to detail and evocative with my use of language. I also find that the more seriously I take my work, the more authentic and original my work becomes.
It’s important to remember that your work matters.
I’m saying this partially because often in my private practice with my clients one of the things I commonly see holding people back is that they don’t take themselves or their work seriously. I don’t mean they don’t take their jobs seriously (IMO people take their jobs wayyyyy too seriously), I mean their true work. The reason they’re here, the thing only they can make, the special ingredient that only they have that the earth needs to bring out Her greatest flavor.
People (often) don’t take their work seriously, and as a result, they don’t make it, they dilly dally about it, they half ass it, they don’t expect anyone to look at it, they don’t allow themselves to think big enough about it, and they crumble when they’re criticized about it because they take other people’s opinions about their work more seriously than their own.
If you’re reading this email, then you also need to remember that your witchcraft IS your work.
Witchcraft is a means of transforming what is within you by bringing it out into the material world and working with it in the form of objects, chants, sacred symbols, and ritual gestures.
If you have a Book of Shadows, you will see that, over time, your witchcraft really does change who you are. You WILL become more powerful.
You WILL cast off the yoke of external authorities and believe in yourself. You WILL be able to discern your intuition from your anxiety, and your familiars WILL lead you in the right direction, if you pay attention, and you practice.
But all of this takes time.
Seriously, I have Books of Shadows going all the way back to the 1990s, and I’m often still circling around the same themes in my work. There’s always more to do, we can always find a crack in the cave floor that will take us deeper into the Well of the Mysteries.
Anyway, I have lot’s more I want to say about this but I am going to save it for…
…the Book of Shadows workshop I’m holding for Yearly and Founder’s level subscribers this Sunday.
We’re going to be talking about:
The history of Books of Shadows
How to make one
What to include and what not to include
Troubleshooting and problem solving
Strategies and prompts to get you started
AND we’ll be doing a ritual to consecrate your Book of Shadows for magical use.
Please Bring/Prepare:
A basic altar including salt, water, incense, and a candle
EITHER a beautiful binder stocked with paper OR a blank notebook that feels special.
Pens or other writing implements, and acrylic pens (if you have them, not mandatory)
When: 1/7/24 11am-12pm PST
Where: Zoom (link will be emailed to Founders and Yearly subscribers a few hours before the workshop starts)
Hope you can join us! It’s going to be so much fun!
Please note this workshop is for Founders and Yearly subscribers ONLY, as is the upcoming Radical Witchcraft series (because workshops take a lot of work and time to put together, so that’s what feels fair to me).
To update your membership to Yearly or Founders level, and/or become a paid subscriber, click the button below.