Guest Author - Fiona Blackwolf

Now that you have your Book of Shadows it is time to decide what kind of information you want to keep in it. Bear in mind that the information that I share is from my own tradition and perspectives. There are many other styles of Wicca and others will do things differently.

The Book of Shadows is one of your most important tools. It is a place for you to keep track of the information that is important to your magical work. A Book of Shadows is not a journal. While it is appropriate to put notations on some of the pages to remember things that worked or didn’t, thoughts and feelings are better kept separate. A journal kept specifically for reflecting on your experiences and feelings about magical workings is sometimes called a Book of Mirrors.

The Book of Shadows is more like a reference book for your personal path. Because it is personal, it is generally information that is only shared with people you trust completely and it is rare that the actual book will ever be loaned out. Often people keep their Books with the intention of passing them on to someone else at some point, this is one reason why you may not want your intimate thoughts included in it.

So what kinds of things should you include? Here is a general list of the type of information that you might want to include:

~ Ritual outlines and descriptions including intent of the ritual and possibly the moon phase, astrological notations

~ Magical workings & Spells including moon phase, astrological notations, etc.

~ Tables of Correspondences for the elements, herbs, stones, colors etc

~ Information on the Sabbats

~ Information on the 13 Moons, cycles of the moon, moon lore

~ Sacred texts such as the Charge of the Goddess, the Wiccan Rede

~ Magical Recipes for foods, incense, etc.

~ Information on Gods & Goddesses

~ Meditations

Now that you have some idea about what to include, the next big question most people ask is “How do I organize it?” Organization is the main reason some folks are so fond of the “disk of shadows” or 3 ring binders.

How you sort your information is really up to you. I know of some people who include an index in the back or a table of contents in the front. Others lightly mark the pages with a pencil to reserve them for specific information. In my personal Book of Shadows I opened to random page to determine where a specific section began. Again, keep in mind that your book will be individual to you and needs to be organized however you are comfortable.

No matter what you put into your Book of Shadows or how you organize it, you will find that it will become an important part of your magical practice.