I’ll admit that the first thing that struck me about this book, and the thing that made me not want to read it, was the font selection. That may seem like a minor thing along the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” lines, but it really makes a book difficult to read. The goal seemed more “let’s be all mystical!” and less “let’s try to get more people to read it.”
That being said, there is a lot to recommend about this book. It’s got a small-ish basics section at the beginning (about eighty pages, only about a quarter of the book) with some decent diagrams and hand-drawn line art and some basic correspondences that someone could use to create or adapt their own rituals if needed.
The rest of the book is a series of solid, if basic, rituals. There are discussions into all eight Sabbats. There are rituals for esbats and some information into when and why to celebrate them. There are even some meditations for specific events near the end. They’re well-written, without being too over-the-top and overly worked. They’re evocative and would work well in most group settings.
My biggest beef with the content is the same murkiness that I feel most pagan authors fall into: they forget that this isn’t a one-sided faith. The selected meditations at the end? Drawing Down the Moon. Four different Charges of the Goddess. Very little is mentioned outside of the bulk of the rituals about the God or anything to bring understanding about Him as well as Her, and nothing at all that I saw outside the ritual structures.
As I said, it’s a good, solid book. It’ll stay in my collection and be something in which I can find inspiration for writing and conducting ritual. If it had felt a little more inclusive, I would probably have enjoyed it more and would probably recommend it more.
~review by Jeremy Bredeson
Author: Silver Elder
Moon Books, 2011
330 pages
