Anything-but-spooky is how I would describe this workbook, meant to be utilized alongside Blake's The Eclectic Witch's Book of Shadows. Charmingly illustrated by Mickie Mueller, the Companion is clearly meant to be USED.
Ten chapters -- Herbs, Stones, Candles, Crafty recipes, Divination, Gods and Goddesses, Invocations and Quarter Calls, Spells, Magical Recipes, and Correspondences -- collect our information through questions, activities, and ideas, with plenty of space and areas for us to add our own knowledge.
From the first exercise (Pick Three) in which we choose three herbs for a specific energy, work with them, and then write about it in detail through to the last (a coloring page cleverly hidden after the About the Artist page), the Companion is wonderful. I feel like if you can think of an exercise or piece of information you want to explore, it'll be somewhere in these pages.
Blake is a no-nonsense writer, with a practice firmly grounded in a tangible practice. Long-time practitioners likely have their own versions, but will nonetheless enjoy coloring in the illustrations and perhaps using the Companion to organize the information they've collected over the years. Newcomers will get a lot of information as they build their Book of Shadows.
Each page is a delight!
~review by Lisa McSherry
Author: Deborah Blake
Llewellyn Publications, 2024
pp. 192, $17.99
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