Astro-Housewitchery: Book Of Shadows & The Solstice

Zero Degrees of Cancer is the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere & the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. The former is Litha and the latter Yule. The shortest and the longest nights of the year respectively.

Los Angeles: Saturday 20th Summer Solstice at 22.46

New York: Sunday 21st Summer Solstice at 1.46 am

London: Sunday 21st Summer Solstice at 6.46 am

Sydney: Sunday 21st Winter Solstice at 15.46

They are great Pagan turning-points & the time when the veils between the worlds thin so that your perceptions are amped right up. Ghosts too, obviously.  But this post is actually about the Book of the Shadows – an old name given to the book that YOU write, entirely for yourself about any occult interests you may have.

Basically it is a journal in which you record dreams, your thoughts re dreams, psychic flashes, the results of Tarot card readings & then later – a follow up analysis, astrological ideas and predictions, Feng Shui notes, mensturation dates if you like, your moods, essential oil & herbal potion recipes…all things magic. It is a fantastic aid in learning astrology as you can note down events & emotions around certain astrological events (such as your Venus Return or this weekend’s Mars-Venus conjunction) and compare it with what you predicted would occur.

It’s a good idea, i.m.o. to get a beautiful & ornate book – unless you are worried it will be read by another, in which case disguise/hide it. It’s most fascinating to read through a few months later & realise just how stunningly accurate dreams et al can be, even though the message may seem too esoteric or just irrelevant at the time. By realising and better understanding how the cosmos/your subliminal mind talks to you, you develop a beautiful style of magical thinking.

Personally, i destroy my old ones, once i have grokked the info within but other peeps keep theirs & make them more like recipe/spell/wisdom books…perhaps to pass on later.

BTW: the Pentagram/Pentacle is just an ancient symbol of Venus/Aphrodite/Ishtar/Oshun