Long, long, ago when I was just starting out with my pagan-based spirituality, one of my favorite things to do every year was to go Llewellyn crazy. Llewellyn is the most popular publisher for New Age books and every year they put out a lot of products that are based on having a magical year.
This year I decided to treat myself to Witches’ Spell-A-Day Almanac, Sabbats Almanac, 2017 Witches’ Companion, 2017 Magical Almanac. My word-for-the-year is Magic so I definitely wanted to begin incorporating those concepts back into my life and I figured that these would be great reminders to DO THE WORK, plus a little bit of nostalgia. So here’s my little review of the Llewellyn’s 2017 Witchy books after about a decade away!
Witches’ Spell-A-Day Almanac
The Spell-A-Day Almanac is probably the one that I would recommend the most out of the bunch. It’s created by 15 different authors so there’s a lot of diversity in the pages. It’s broken down into 365 sections for each day of the year. Each day gives you a color of the day, an incense of the day, what sign the moon is traveling through, and then your daily ritual/spell/meditation.
What I Don’t Like: Some of the spells and rituals require materials you probably don’t have. Some of the materials are a piece of garnet, flying a kite, a Swarovski aquamarine pendant that you hang from a willow tree, sculpting clay – you get my meaning – so you can do one of three things. A) Read ahead and make a list of supplies for each week/month. B) Choose not to do that spell. C) Get creative.
I didn’t have garnet so I took it as an opportunity to bless a different stone. The kite was about letting Air give your wishes flight – so I just incorporated that aspect. You can make a lot of these spells work by honoring the essence of the theme, and that’s what I do.
What I Love: I’m a Deborah Blake fangirl so I’m always happy to come across her work. Her little spells are just the kind of thing I’m into. There were some really lovely spells and rituals for January. The Spell Box is probably my favorite and is the project for January 1st. Instead of making it a box to hold spells, I took a small box, wrote down my intentions, and then added herbs and crystals that would help energize those intentions.
Sabbats Almanac
The 2017 Sabbats Almanac has lore, rituals, crafts, and recipes relating to each of the Sabbats and is great for someone that doesn’t already have established traditions for each of the holidays.
What I Don’t Like: I would have liked for there to be more ritual ideas. There’s usually only one or two per Sabbat and most of them are a bit more elaborate than what I like.
What I Love: The recipes all seem fairly easy and as someone who is not culinary, I appreciate that there are recipes I’m capable of. I also like the crafts a lot. Most of them are fairly inexpensive and Beltane Bath Bombs? Yaaas!
2017 Witches’ Companion
The 2017 Witches’ Companion was a little bit disappointing to me, it’s been forever since I purchased one and I forgot that it’s just full of articles by different authors. There’s still a lot of good information but I wanted something a bit more intensive. The articles are separated into different categories: Community Forum, Witchy Living, Witchcraft Essentials, and Magical Transformations.
What I Loved: The Witchy Living section was great. Lots of magical things right up my alley. My favorite was The Witchy Household by Cassius Sparrow which had a lot of info on how to clean and organize with magical intent.
2017 Magical Almanac
The Magical Almanac is full of articles by different authors but I found myself really liking them. It has an almanac section with holidays and full moons, and then a calendar that shows correspondences for each day of the year.
What I Don’t Like: The almanac section is right in the middle of the book (at least in the kindle edition). I wish it was either in the front or the back.
What I Loved: Coffee Magic! A lot of the articles were on topics that were really interesting and unique. I liked that they were separated into categories by Water, Air, Fire, and Earth. There’s a really good article on Empathy and Magical Work
Thanks for sharing your reviews. :) The Witches’ Companion sounds good, especially the Witchy Living section.
I’ve had a Sacred Journey journal a few times but last year there wasn’t one and this year I decided to try the Llewllyn Sabbats Almanac. I like it so far. I normally celebrate the sabbats by making food and drink but this is giving me some more ideas for celebrating in other ways.