Book recommendations, reviews, and musings.
Disclaimers: I was given this book in exchange for an honest review and I’m reviewing the 2021 revised edition.
The Witches’ Key to the Legion isn’t for the beginner witch. Let’s be clear on that before I continue. I am not advocating that anyone dabble in this topic if they don’t have a strong magical foundation to draw upon.
If you dabble without the basic skills established in your practice, well, caveat emptor…
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The year is winding down and starting up again as the days start getting longer again. Even with the gradual shift, it will be a while before we really start to notice it, which means we have plenty of time to burrow into our cozy reading spots and curl up with a good book or 6.
Even better, if you’re an avid reader like me, it’s a great time to do a recap of your reading year and set some intentions for the coming year.
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Before I begin, I want to say that I appreciate how much energy (emotional and physical) goes into writing a book. I’m not trying to tear apart the author in making this review. I do think that they do some lovely things in their book and I’m so glad to see how modern books are really trying to unpack what previous generations did in terms of appropriation and overall white supremacy.
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Have you ever been struck by an author’s words to the point that it feels like they’ve spoken a truism that you need to sit with and unpack for a bit?
When was the last time that you gave yourself time to really take time to reflect on something an occult writer wrote and how it fits into your world view?
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Disclaimer: I was given a free advance digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review. The book and oracle cards are scheduled for release on Nov 2022.
Overall impressions: I liked it and would consider buying it/recommending it to others.
Details: this book and oracle deck are a collaboration between 2 women (Laura Zuspan and Rae Diamond). The book, written by Diamond, is meant to accompany the 52 earth based oracle cards drawn by Zuspan, The digital version of the book is lovely – muted greens and browns that are soothing and grounding. I can only imagine how beautiful the book itself will be. The book starts out with an overview of Zuspan’s and Diamond’s partnership and the aspirational focus that motivates the project and insights in the deck.
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Sigil Witchery by Laura Tempest Zakroff explores the practice of creating art based sigils. It considers the ways we use art to symbolically represent the world around us and how that same symbolism can be applied to making sigils. While the overall result is the same, in that practitioners are creating an abstract image sigil, it is unlike the more common language based sigil structures used in magic because it starts with artistic symbols and weaves them into a new abstract talisman.
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You know how you know there’s a problem but how you don’t realize how big said problem is until you really dig in and examine it (or in this case, just look at it a little more closely)? For me this is the representation and participation of BIPOC in pagan publishing.
I’ve always had this underlying concern about access and representation in religion. I ultimately walked away from Christianity because it left me with too many questions of this nature.
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My Year in Books is a custom on Goodreads, a social media platform that focuses on discussing, reviewing and recommending books.
I began the year with the intention of reading a fat stack of used-bookstore finds on Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. Nope. Life happened and I decided to distance myself from the Buddhist community I’d been hovering on the edges of.
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occultivated.com 