#grimoirechallenge

Finally back with another grimoire prompt! Sorry for the delay, the last couple of weeks have been pretty bad. First I got really ill, and then my wife got REALLY ill and ended up in hospital on Thursday with kidney sepsis, pyelonephritis and bilateral pneumonia. She came home today finally, so it’s been a bit of a journey. 

This entry is about correspondences! I’ve seen many grimoires with very pretty pages filled with correspondences. I don’t have that in mine, but that’s because I have been around for a while and I know the ones I use by heart. However, I decided to find an area I didn’t know so much about, and make a correspondence entry.

I settled on the planets (and the sun!)! It was a lot of fun to make this one. The last three planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are a bit difficult to find correspondences for in the classical sources because they didn’t actually know about those planets back then! 

So that is the ‘assignment’ for this prompt. Pick a correspondence theme that you know little about, some ideas are herbs, crystals, planets, colours... and write down what can be connected to each thing. 

The whole idea is to learn something new so don’t cheat! Pick something that is new to you ;) I decided to make mine on an expandable page for double the fun!

I’d love to see your results, so please share! Post the results, and show me how it goes! I’ll track the tag ‘scandi-priestess’ to keep an eye out!

Welcome to Grimoire Prompt Number Eight!

For me the written word has always had an immense power, which is one of the reasons I write my own poetry. I also love reading poetry by other authors, and not many things can give me such goosebumps as a really evocative poem. 

I also love how some poetry can call up a really magic imagery, and so this entry is about finding a witchy poem that you like, and then illustrate it in a manner you see fit and include it in your grimoire!

Poems can be used as prayers, or even included in rituals to create atmosphere and/or honour the gods. 

Now, the poem that you choose has to be witchy for you, so whatever that is, as long as you feel it is suitable, is perfect! 

I chose one by the mother of modern witchcraft, Doreen Valiente, who has written some absolutely stunning poems. 

I decided to illustrate the poem I found with a graphite sketch on some coffee coloured paper, and glue it into my grimoire. =)

Here is the text in a digital version: 

She passes through the village street As evening shadowsfall. The full moon climbs the winter sky, the trees are bare and tall.

What is the secret that they share, shadow and moon and tree, And little laughing breeze that makes the dead leaves dance with glee?

The know their kin. The owl cries his greeting out to her. Now the last house and garden’s past, The Down’s ridge rises bare.

A climbing moonlit path she sees, That was a trodden road Ere conquering Rome or Norman proud o’er Downland ever strode.

It leads to where, beneath the turf, the outlines she can trace of barrow and of sacred ring that mark the Old Gods’ place.

The moon rides high. The years roll back are with her garments shed. Naked she dances out the ring first wrought by hands long dead.

The blood leaps wild within her veins, as swifter spins the dance. Her wide eyes fixed upon the moon, Her senses rapt in trance.

And though no feet of flesh and blood walked with her to that ground, she knows she does not dance alone That magic circle’s round.

-Doreen Valiente

I keep getting goosebumps reading it! 

Already time for Grimoire prompt number six! This prompt is about an expandable pages. Expandable pages are fun and I feel super witchy when I unfold them. I decided to do a ‘quartych’ (like a triptych plus one extra panel!) with the four phases of the Goddess: the Maiden, Lover, Mother and Crone.

This is how it looks when the pages are non-expanded. The pretty paper is a fabric paper with golden glittery swirls that I glued onto the outside of the quartych. 

Partly unfolded in both directions. 

And here are some images of each panel in a closeup! Which means they are actually bigger on the monitor than in real life, so hence slightly pixely. 

The Maiden

The Lover

The Mother

The Crone

You can of course make an expandable page with anything. The reason for it is to dare to step out of the confines of just sticking to the page. The Grimoire is a place of development, and if you need to go outside the edge of the page to do so, make it expandable! 

To me the full moon stands for the ultimate feminine: intuition and working with all that which is flowing underneath the surface.

A large part of being a witch, for me anyway, is to tune in and connect to the moon’s energy. Soon there is a full moon coming up, so I wanted to make a full moon spread in my grimoire. Later I will make spreads for the other moon phases too, because you can harness the energy of each phase depending on what you want to work with. 

So the full moon is the phase when the moon is at its fullest. Some people say that it is only the one day when it is 100% full, but I count the one day on each side of that day too as full moon, so for me it is for three days. That gives you plenty of time to work magic or simply honouring the amazing power of the moon. 

To work on this for myself I wanted to make a devotional and informative entry in my grimoire of what this energy means to me. As usual I’m not that into long lists of correspondences since I have them in my head, but I have added a little bit that was of extra interest to me. I love essential oils for example, so I wanted to expand my knowledge into that area. I am planning to make a full moon perfume as well, perhaps at the weekend when the moon is in fact full. 

For my spread I wanted to have art and poetry as well, and I have to say I am happy with the pages that I created! =D In fifty years time I will enjoy leafing through them haha!

The image to the left I painted with acrylics on some pastel paper (you take what you got at home!). The picture doesn’t really do it justice, it glitters and stuff in real life =) 

On the right, I have used a foil sticker at the bottom and the flower row is a decoupage die cut. Honestly, the decoupage die cut sheets are amazing for decorating your grimoire! You can buy some from Hunkydory, for example. This one is golden and the purple in the middle of the flowers are like little ‘gems’.

When it comes to the spells I have written:

Basically any apart from banishings. A good focus is a spell for a thing or a project coming to fruition. This is the perfect time to set your intentions and then bring them to realisation by harnessing the awesome power of the full Moon.

My next pages are about some further information, and also essential oils that can be associated with the full moon. I have used gold foil stickers here too! =D Love a good sticker. 

These are my last pages for this entry, so it’s a coffee coloured paper I have glued into my grimoire, and it contains a poem I have written about the full moon: Dear mother moon I call to you. You whisper in the skies above. Your pull on my soul is strong and true And it sings out in worship and love. The sight of you is my dearest view, And you wander with the purest grace plucking my heartstrings with gentle fingers, Your presence like a lover's perfume that lingers, And your light like a latticework of silver lace. 

Your stunning visage is mirrored in the lake. Your glittering disc is all I am seeing, In the silence you leave in your wake, And your wisdom infuses my being With every prayer and devotion I make. I feel you like a kiss to my face. Surrounded by your luminescence My heart is filled with your very essence. I give myself to your embrace.

So that’s my full moon entry! Yours can of course be whatever you wish it to be. If it is correspondences, artwork, poetry or just your thoughts on this phase of the moon. As usual there are no rights or wrongs, just what means something to you!

Grimoire Challenge - Prompt Two: Illustrate the Wheel of the Year

Last week I was making an entry in my Grimoire about working with a Tarot card, and challenged you all to do the same. I’m by no means done with that work, I still have a lot to learn from the Empress, but this week is a different challenge!

Being a Wiccan, my year follows the eight sabbats as well as the esbats, and I wanted to make an entry with the Wheel of the Year in my book. This is how it turned out! I have used associations that are relevant to me to depict it. If you feel like doing this challenge, feel free to borrow, or use the ones that ring true for you! There are no right or wrong ways, it’s just about illustrating your year.

It forces you to think about what the sabbats mean to you. 

For me this was also an act of worship, to create some Wiccan art for myself, and I enjoyed it so much! 

So, if you decide to jump on the Grimoire train, I’d love to see your results! 

The idea for this prompt was mostly for fun to begin with, but I really enjoyed it and it sort of turned into an act of worship.

I find the Theban Alphabet (see image above for the key!) a bit pretentious to write in, but it does look very cool and ‘magical’, so I thought it would be a fun prompt. To begin with I was just going to write something silly like a limerick with it, and then whoever deciphered it at whatever point in time, could have a laugh. 

However, as I was working on the background for my pages, this didn’t feel right anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for humour and frequently laugh in rituals and so on (reverence and mirth!), and the Grimoire can absolutely be a place where you include humour, but on this occasion, I wanted it to be more serious all of a sudden. 

So I chose another phrase, and settled on:

The Goddess is part of you - always remember to have faith.

I thought that if someone deciphers this in the future, whether it is an initiate who has inherited my Grimoire, or someone who finds it somehow as a historical document (how cool would that be?!), then this phrase would have a meaning to them as it does to me. 

So that is the prompt and challenge for this week!

Make an entry in your Grimoire, using the Theban Alphabet. You don’t need to illustrate it of course, that’s just what I like to do. 

GRIMOIRE PROMPT THREE: MAKE AN ENTRY ON IMBOLC AND WHAT YOU ASSOCIATE WITH IT

It’s that time of the week again: another Grimoire Prompt coming up for you guys!

At the moment (at least in the UK), spring is around the corner. More specifically, IMBOLC is around the corner! I love this time of year, when things are starting to grow again. Imbolc is an amazing sabbat (I’ll be writing a post about it as well), and I challenge you all to make an entry in your Grimoire about it! 

You don’t have to draw anything, just make an entry about what Imbolc means to you, and what associations you have to this sabbat.

Here are a few of mine (along with the snowdrops above!):

The goddess on the picture is the Goddess Brigid. She is an awesome goddess, and is associated with healing, midwifery, fire and creative power (among other things). So I drew an image of how I see her, and glued it into my Grimoire.

So, take the time and make an entry of what Imbolc means to you. There are no right or wrong answers here =)

I loved to do this, because it really makes me think about the essence of this sabbat. I’ll be posting prompts for all the other sabbats as well over the year. 

So, if you decide to jump on the Grimoire train, I’d love to see your results!