Review: Bloom & Shadow

Title: Bloom & Shadow: Earth and Moon Spellcraft for Growth, Love, Life, and Beyond
Author: Elohim Leafier
Publisher: Independently published
Date: October 2, 2025
Pages: 405 pages   

When this book was first published in January 2016 as “Wicca! Lobe & Soul: Teachings and Experiences About Love, Life and White Magic,” Elohim Leafier was just finishing college. He was feeling “the extreme limitations” of the Wiccan coven he had just left and maintaining his Afro-Caribbean background as he published all the rituals he had done up to that point. 

In the ten years since then, he has met witches and wizards from different practices and places. He has since studied and been initiated into other witchcraft traditions. He has now cast thousands more spells and written four more books. His practice has gone in a new direction while finding his own path. 

“Bloom & Shadow: Earth and Moon Spellcraft for Growth, Love, Life, and Beyond” is the revised, updated and expanded guide to living cyclically. Readers are introduced to a magical path blending “grounded Earth-based traditions with the intuitive power of Moon-centered spellcraft.” It has practices to grow and bloom, and rites to honor decay and embrace the shadow and its wisdom. Old traditions and folklore are paired with practical applications. 

Part I covers many aspects of witchcraft: history, traditions, sabbats, tools, and guiding principles. Part II introduces readers to tarot, moon, candle, and Celtic magic, in addition to a grimoire with more than two hundred spells, rituals, and amulets for love, protection, luck, money, and more.  Creating an altar, activating tools, and exploring covens are among the subjects covered in Part III. 

This book is a useful resource for seekers from all backgrounds; it covers all the basics to practice the Craft – a sacred path, Leafier stresses, that welcomes all. The writing is clear, directions are detailed, and explanations throughout the book serve to dispel any mystery that might arise about why something is being done. The details Leafier shares from his own spells and rituals bring a sense of intimacy. The more I read, the more I respected his ethics and appreciated the respect he has shown for the many traditions he has drawn from and highlights for us to use. I was reminded that witches have always been rebels and the outsiders, and that walking this path is an act of resistance and the reclamation of personal power.

About the author:
Elhoim Leafar (the urban Shaman) is a tarotist, dowser, astrologer, palm reader, and magician – born into a family of magical practitioners from Amazonia, Venezuela. With more than twenty years of practicing, he has been initiated into different paths of sorcery, including “Espiritismo Tradicional Venezolano (Venezuelan Traditional Spiritism),” “Candomble,” and “Lucumi/Santeria.” Leafar blogs and is a regular columnist for international and national publications, working about witchcraft, astrology, spirituality, and Neo-Paganism. He offers virtual and face-to-face classes at various events and venues throughout New York City and New Jersey. Find him at www.elhoimleafar.com. Follow him on Insta/twitter: @elhoimleafar.

About the Reviewer:
As an eclectic solitary practitioner, I travel the country in a converted school bus and share magick with those I meet. Find me at https://thewitchonwheels.com/ and on Facebook.