The Book of Shadows

The Book of Shadows 

  I was looking at my Facebook today (a pastime I think I need to cut down on significantly if I’m to become more productive and achieve my desires of being a better person), when a friend posted a picture of these leather bound books.  They came in a variety of colors, the leather was molded to look like skin, with contours and wrinkles, and in the binding on them had a single glass eye set in to a spooky looking mound of leather.  It was pretty amazing work, and all I could think was “I’d love to make one of those into a Book of Shadows.”

   The goth kid in me, long since retired, had a fit of happiness at the thought.  Opening that book during ritual, having it sitting on the shelf with all of my other books on Wicca, showing it to my pagan friends; it all sounded so cool.  But then I realized I have a BoS and I like it.  I’ve had it for some time.  In fact, due to my addiction to pretty journals, I think I have about a half dozen books dedicated to becoming a part of a many section BoS, because I was convinced one book would never hold everything I thought I could write about the path I walk.  One book was going to be for herbs, one for spells, and one for rituals.  One was going to be filled with Goddesses, prayers to them, offerings, notes, and correspondences.  It was all so grand an idea.

   However, I’ve come to realize that a Book of shadows is more than just a random collection of ideas you try to organize.  It isn’t a collection of every little thing you learn on your journey.  It is more important than that, and less precise.  You should choose carefully what you put in your BoS because its something you should cherish and fill through your whole life.  Maybe it will spill in to another book, or maybe it won’t.  Maybe it’ll be on a computer (sometimes called DoS or Disk of Shadows, back when disks were used.  I guess now it’d be a Thumbdrive of Shadows?) or in a lined journal, or on a collection of hole punched pages.  Maybe you’ll illustrate it or maybe it’ll be written almost completely in poetry.

   There is no real structure needed to make a BoS that means something to you.  It doesn’t need to look impressive, or be enormous, or have any special organization.  You’ll know where each article you write in it is, and over time, using it as a ritual tool will become second nature.  That’s what’s important about a Book of Shadows.