There is a joke about grimoires in the magical community, it goes something like, “I bought this gorgeous book to be my grimoire, but it’s too beautiful to write in.” It is funny because it is just about universally true. I have multiple BEAUTIFUL blank journals that have been untouched for years because I could never write anything worthy enough for its pristine gold gilded edges. Today’s book has made me reexamine everything I thought I wanted from a grimoire.
“The Green Witch’s Grimoire: Your Complete Guide to Creating Your Own Book of Natural Magic” by Arin Murphy-Hiscock delivers. It. Is. Complete. Try as I might, and I’ve given it a LOT of thought, I cannot come up with any angle or component of grimoires that Murphy-Hiscock might have missed. The title says, “Green Witch” but let me say, unless you are a magic practitioner that actively hates nature, anyone can use this book.
The first part of “The Green Witch’s Grimoire” is a journey to try to decide what your grimoire is going to be. What kind of paper will you use? How will the pages be held together? What will you use to write in it? Will you want to carry it with you? Do you want multiple volumes? Will it have sections? Templates? An index? Do you plan on incorporating samples of natural things? Will it be decorative, functional, both? There is a dizzying number of things to consider, and I’m fairly sure Murphy-Hiscock things of every last one.
The second part of the book discusses options for how to use your grimoire: journaling, writing spells, copying important information from research, cataloging the results of divination, as a mission statement, and obviously more.
I obviously love how thorough Murphy-Hiscock is in this book, but what I love the most is how she emphasizes there is no right way to create and use a grimoire, and that there’s nothing wrong with deciding you don’t like what you created and start over again.
You can learn more here.
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