Ivo Dominguez, the inimitable witch and astrologer, is the lead author of Llewellyn Publications’ Witch’s Sun Sign series. They’ve been releasing the books, one zodiac sign at a time, in 2023 and 2024.
These small format books are fun and also packed with profound information, each written by Dominguez in partnership with one lead witch, with contributions from other leading lights in the pagan and witchcraft communities. (There are too many to list here but they include Mat Auryn, Christopher Penczak, Madam Pamita, Stephanie Rose Bird, Laura Tempest Zakroff, and Devin Hunter, among about a dozen writers per volume.)
The variety of contributors underscores a point Dominguez makes right up front in the books: The widely known lists of qualities for each zodiacal sign do not resonate with everyone. Yet, the importance of one’s Sun sign should not be overlooked. “Your Sun sign determines the source and the type of energy that you have in your core,” Dominguez writes. “The ruling planet for a sign reveals your go-to moves and your intuitive or habitual responses for expressing that energy.”
Witches, perhaps more than non-witches, are reluctant to be categorized, and yet they often do so, Dominguez notes. “In the process of claiming the identity of being a witch,” he writes, “it is common to want to have a clear and firm definition of who you are. Sometimes this means overidentifying with a category, such as water witch, herb witch, crystal witch, kitchen witch…. It is useful to become aware of the affinities you have so long as you do not limit and bind yourself to being less than you are.”
Though these are introductory-type astrology books focused on Sun signs, each volume has sections pairing the Sun sign with the twelve possible Moon signs and the twelve possible Ascendant signs, showing how, right off the bat, no one fits into just one of twelve categories. For each sign, there’s a bounty of information as to correspondences: plants, stones, places, how to work with the ruling planet of each sign. Each volume has one of kitchen witch Dawn Aurora Hunt’s recipes. Each volume has a section on what sets Sign X off and how to recover. Examples: Sagittarians hate being lied to or ignored. Do not try to force a Cancerian witch to finish a project. Each volume has teachings on how to work with and blend the elements. For example, the Aries book includes a water ritual for fiery witches.
As a Cancerian Sun person, I turned first to the fourth volume in the series. (I also peeked at the volumes for my Moon and rising signs.) Cancerians’ focus on food, feelings, family, and history inclines Cancerian witches toward crafts of intuition, psychic ability, ancestor work, and kitchen witchery. There’s a remedy for healing an upset stomach and a Comfy Home Spell for Traveling Cancers. I think I’ll take this book with me when I have to leave my crab shell for an upcoming vacation!
Each volume ends with a Spirit of the Sign Guidance Ritual. Dominguez writes that the signs are, “powerful and complicated spiritual entities.” They are “twelve forms of human wisdom and folly… twelve styles of human consciousness, which also means the signs are well-developed group minds and egregores.”
The mysticism of each zodiacal sign (as well as each planet) is encoded in a symbol called a glyph. Each glyph is a set of teachings in its own right. The various configurations of lines, circles, half-circles, and squiggles form a multi-layered symbol. One of the things I love most about these books is turning to Dominguez’s magickal insights for each glyph. The Aries glyph, for example, is usually described as looking like a ram’s horns. Aries is the cardinal fire sign. Its mantra might be: get out of my way. Dominguez’s take, though, is that the glyph for Aries, the first sign, “can also be interpreted to be a seed sprouting with two leaves burgeoning,” as “Aries is the desire of life to come into being.” He sees Aries as “representing a fork in the road.”
Dominguez’s teaching for each zodiacal glyph is to meditate on the symbol, “as a sigil to call or concentrate its power… to open the gates to the elemental realms.” Meditating on the astrological glyphs can become part of a life-long practice.
That’s what has me concluding that the volumes in the Witch’s Sun Sign series have a double nature. On first sight, these lovable small books are light, fun, and would make great gifts. Look inside, though, and these volumes are serious practice guides, each one a gold mine. This is no surprise given the depth and mastery of Ivo Dominguez and the community of contributors he has gathered for this series.
~review by: Sara R. Diamond
Author: Ivo Dominguez and colleagues
Llewellyn Publications, 2023 and 2024
About 225 pages each
