Book Review – Celebrating Wiccan Spirituality: Spells, Sacred Rites, and Folklore for Each Day of the Year by Lady Sabrina
“Celebrating Wiccan Spirituality: Spells, Sacred Rites, and Folklore for Each Day of the Year”
by Lady Sabrina
Published by New Page Books
Published: 2003
Pages: 319
Available at Amazon and elsewhere in paperback and Kindle editions.
If you’re looking to make your craft a daily part of 2018, this is a book for you. Take a magickal journey through the year with holidays, folklore, festivals and customs from a wide variety of cultures. Some are internal pagan practices while others are secular in nature.
Beginning with January 1, Lady Sabrina covers each day with everything from simple reminders to more elaborate spells and rituals as the wheel of the year turns. It takes advantage of the changing astrological configurations and energies.
After a brief introduction to January, with its magickal theme and correspondences, January 1 starts off with New Year’s Day – the deities associated with it, and instructions for making an amulet to attract happiness and prosperity in the coming year.
January 2 talks about the day set aside in ancient Egypt to honor the goddess Isis, the Queen of Sorcery, the Mother of the Moon and Life of the Nile. The magickal activity presents an Isis Protection Spell.
January 3 explains three things the day is dedicated to: Paris’ patroness St. Genevieve, the dear dance and weather forecasting.
January 4 presents the Sacrifice to the 7 Stars, the day ancient Greeks honored Callisto, the moon Goddess who loved was by Zeus and bore him a son. Wishing to hide her, Zeus changed her into a bear, later shot by Artemis who placed her among the stars. Instructions for making a willow wand, and a prayer to use it when needing flexibility and accommodation are given that day.
January 5 is the Eve of the Feast of Epiphany. In Italy, the 11th day after Christmas is dedicated to the fairy Goddess Befana. In much the same way children now put out stockings on Christmas Eve in the hopes Santa Claus would fill them with gifts, children of long ago would put out stockings in the hopes Befana would fill them with presents while adults would write their wishes on pieces of paper and toss them in the hearth where they catch fire and float up the chimney, granting the petitioner’s wish. The day’s activity is a hearth blessing – incorporating a broom, a length of cord and a white three-wick candle.
For January 6, Lady Sabrina presents King and Queen Buttermilk Clove Cake as a magickal activity to celebrate the Epiphany of Kore from the Greek tradition.
January 7, Saint Distaff’s Day, is an example of an inauspicious day. It was not a saint’s day at all, but a jokingly marked the day women returned to their distaffs of unspun wool.
Days bring spells, prayers, rituals, crafts, details about deities, meditations and other activities as a way to celebrate the day. You can begin any day of any year and reuse the book every year, making for a daily practice.
In the appendixes are suggestions for Sabbat celebrations and six pages dedicated to correspondences, making the book a general reference as well.
Lady Sabrina is an initiated Priestess of the Wiccan religion and the founder of Our Lady Enchantment, a Wiccan seminary. She published three books before this one, including “Reclaiming the Power- The How and Why of Ritual Magic,” and two more after it. Her most recent is “Witch’s Master Grimoire: Encyclopedia of Charms, Spells, Formulas and Magical Rites.”
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About the Author:
Lynn Woike was 50 – divorced and living on her own for the first time – before she consciously began practicing as a self taught solitary witch. She draws on an eclectic mix of old ways she has studied – from her Sicilian and Germanic heritage to Zen and astrology, the fae, Buddhism, Celtic, the Kabbalah, Norse and Native American – pulling from each as she is guided. She practices yoga, reads Tarot and uses Reiki. From the time she was little, she has loved stories, making her job as the editor of two monthly newspapers seem less than the work it is because of the stories she gets to tell. She lives with her large white cat, Pyewacket, in central Connecticut. You can follow her boards on Pinterest, and write to her at woikelynn at gmail dot com.