Seasons of the Witch: Celebrating the 8 Wiccan Festivals of the Year

Seasons of the Witch: Celebrating the 8 Wiccan Festivals of the Year by Duff, Gail. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781569753361.

Each chapter in this book is devoted to a Wiccan festival, its meaning, and ways to celebrate it. The advice operates at two levels: spiritual and personal as well as celebratory and communal. Wicca is a nature-based religion and uses natural change as its guide. This book shows spiritual seekers how to ritualize their lives throughout the seasons, acknowledging external and internal change. For example, Yule in December is a dark quiet time, when you think about the past year and year to come, hold old and new together as the light shifts, and think personally about how to let go and move on ? a contemplative time, with recommended meditations from the book. On the celebratory side, this book tells you everything you need to know to create a festival for you and your friends. It describes traditional foods, art projects, songs and group activities. Instead of a Halloween party have a celebration of Samhain (November 1), where you make mulled cider and black, moon-shaped almond honey cakes, hang a traditional eight-spoked wreath of woven wheat straw and gather around a bonfire to cast off things about yourself you do not like by burning symbols of these things.