Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Shopping Pilgrimage

Since it was a holiday week-end, I decided to take a day off to relax and go visit my local area-of-many-witchy-stores. It only takes me an hour to get there, but I hadn't been in more than a year.

In addition to the little spell candles I was looking for (you know the ones -- they're less than an inch thick, come in every color of the rainbow, and burn down quickly) I found two books. I tend to be overly picky about pagan books, as there is so much shallow garbage out there, so I was a bit surprised to find two books that called to me. One is The Heart of Wicca, which I've heard good things about. While I don't identify as Wiccan, I am certainly Wicca-derived, and it should be very interesting to read a treatise on the deeper aspects of that path.

The other - and far more surprising - book is Seasons of the Witch by Patricia Monaghan. I first picked it up hoping for something about the wheel of the year, and found a volume of poetry oriented to the turning seasons. I was wary at first, but the poetry is good. I mean really, actually, truly good. I'm still amazed by that, which I find sort of sad. I mean, pagans are a talented, creative bunch; why I am so surprised to find a really good book of Goddess poetry? Is it that the loudest, most visible pagans also tend to be the least well-developed, and thus produce half-baked work, while those who allow their craft to mature and develop tend to keep to themselves more? That's the most likely explanation that I can think of.

I strive to someday contribute to the body of work produced by the latter group. I can only hope that I will be as successful!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi...I'm really glad to have found your blog. This is a great post and I think I'm going to check out those books you mentioned.
How cool is it to have a town close by with so many Pagan/Wiccan shops?

Suzie Ridler said...

Thank you! I am always looking for new spiritual books and these sound great and you're right, there is a ton of junk out there. I'm glad you found them and hope that you contribute your writing and ideas one day to something like that, that would be perfect for you.

I added a couple of links to previous posts I wrote about doing cleasings. It's very basic. I just go in with a candle and say I'm a child of light of the God & Goddess and banish all negativity from my home. Then I sweep out the energy with my besom. I usually do a pentacle on my front door to seal it. It's also good to go around your house with salt afterwards as a way of warding out the negative energy. In the summer when I don't want to use heat I use a homemade brew of sagewater with salt. Whatever feels right will work!