The Evolution of a Book of Shadows

Published September 22, 2008 | By Juniper

The Evolution of a Book of Shadows

There is often a lot of understandable concern about newbie, and young, pagan’s Book of Shadows. Indeed, there is a trend to have a BoS filled with page after page of info printed off the Internet. Many “old timers” worry that the handwritten grimorie painstakingly filled with personal notes and research may be going the way of the dinosaurs. I thought, as a Pagan in her late twenties, I might share a little about my own BoS.

I was born in 1980, in Canada.

There was a computer in my kindergarten class, but that was still a bit of a novelty at the time. Typing class started when I was in the 2nd grade (handwriting rather than printing started in 3rd grade). By the 4th grade, major projects, reports and essays had to be typed and printed, and spell-check was used to correct grammar and spelling. In 6th grade we switched to math done nearly entirely on a calculator. By 8th grade nearly everything was to be typed on the computer. By 12th grade pretty well everything HAD to be typed and printed and our bibliographies at the end of projects often listed more websites than books.

I was luckier than most children in my generation, as I had a mother with a love for literature. I was the only one of my group of friends growing up who had a recent set of Encyclopedia Britannica at home. I was reading at a university level at age 12, while most of my classmates barely struggled through the required reading material for school. Reading material that was mostly on a computer screen rather than in a book.

My point is, my handwriting is unreadable and my printing looks like the scrawl of a child, because I stopped handwriting as a child. My spelling is deplorable, even if my vocabulary is not. I am much more skilled at researching online than I am using books. It has been a few years since the last time I laid my hands on an encyclopedia that did not come on a CD, with a built-in search engine.

I began walking my spiritual Path at the age of 14. From about the ages of 14 to 18, my BoS was 70% photocopied from books and other people’s BoS (the internet was still fairly new at the time) and about 15% printed material found online, 10% beautiful drawings and illustrations and 5% hand written notes, poetry and original stuff by me. But then, I WAS a teenager, and one who grew up in a world where handwriting things had gone out of style. The cover for my BoS was very plain, as I was in the broom closet at the time.

From roughly ages 19 to 23, my BoS began to develop in a much more personal and intellectual manner, not unlike my own development as a young adult. Out went much of the photocopies, though some were hand copied and put back in. By 23 my BoS was 10 % photocopies, 50% printouts from online (ah the heyday of Paganism breaking out into the internet), 10% illustrations, and 30% painstakingly hand written notes, prayers, research, poems, thoughts and ideas. My BoS now took up more than one 3-ring binder, so an Herbal and Grimoire were born. All three were leather bound, the leather hand burned (with a wood burner) with fancy spiral designs on them.

At 25 my main ritual BoS had an accident, much of it stained or destroyed by the spilling of a large cup of earl grey tea. And shortly after, my Herbal took a tumble while hiking and wound up partially submerged in a swamp.
Today, My BoS takes up five, 2-inch, 3-ring binders. The kind that are nylon and zip up, keeping the contents safe. I also have much of its content in plastic sheets!

There is my Ritual and spiritual BoS, my Herbal, my Grimoire (which has the least amount of pages in it), my Misc (for any oddball bits and pieces) and my Old Stuff. Old Stuff is full of papers that are partially damaged, not used that often anymore, or anything I feel is wasting space in the more “working” Books.

As of writing this my BoS is about 50% hand written, which is pretty good for someone who was taught to type, not write growing up, and 45 % printed from a computer. However, most of that material is still original work and notes (etc) BY ME, it is just typed. The stuff I really want memorized or that it very meaningful gets slowly and painfully handwritten, the rest is comfortably typed. I still do have some pages that are copied from other sources, but I know as years go by, more and more of that will find its way into Old Stuff. What illustrations survived are still there, in fact, my Herbal has many drawings of plants, and even some photos. And the covers of my waterproof binders are painted with mandala like designs.

What this rather long and possibly not very interesting essay is trying to say is:

Understand that things are different now, that kids are taught to type, not write. If it bothers you older generations so much that we type and need a calculator to do math, change the school curriculum and/or change how you teach the Craft. Spend some time at home with your kids and Craft students working on their handwriting, researching, and spelling skills, because they do not teach that at school any more.

Understand that in this age of instant gratification, the Internet, and search engine research, the youngsters are going to start out with a BoS that is mostly full of fluff and filler.

Understand that while someone may do something one way at 20, they will probably not be doing it that way at 30. Give us some time to mature and walk our path a little bit first. Let us make some mistakes and learn from them. Let us peek into your BoS and realize how much better something like your Book is. Give us time to grow up. Give the gods a chance to toss our Book into a swamp and make us start all over again.

Posted in Book of Shadows, Getting Started, Life of a Hedgewitch, Practice & Learning | Tagged 101, Rants

5 Responses to The Evolution of a Book of Shadows

Herbal Junky says:

August 12, 2009 at 8:50 pm

Good content, thanks for sharing it with us
Atrum Kharitas says:

August 26, 2009 at 2:53 pm

Absolutely fantastic read. I will definitely be back to read more.
MrsB says:

August 28, 2009 at 3:09 am

Just found your blog and I’m so loving reading through your posts!

When I started out on my path, fairly late in my early 30′s, everything in my BOS was printed out from the internet. Mainly, this was because I was so interested in everything that was out there to learn, and I wanted to have all that information for myself! After a year or two, I was more confident in what I wanted to learn and study, and I started copying what was important to me by hand. I’ve now got a kitchen BOS, an herbal and a “main” BOS.
Shastan says:

September 1, 2009 at 6:32 am

You make some very good points I had not thought of before.

My main reason for insisting on hand-written work is one I learned from a University prof I have deep respect for (one of the precious few). Writing by hand processes the info through the writer’s mind. That processing is very important. While there is now an incredible amount of info of various depths readily available, the collection process is often just a click: I know people who have BOS google readers and Digg accounts. These make the info available and easy to access, yet they actually make it more difficult to process that info and make it available for someone’s brain when she or he is not online. Processing it provides the first steps of experience, inviting the individual to be more than just an academic armchair expert.

The handwriting does not necessarily need to be legible. This is process-oriented work, rather than result-oriented.

My secondary reason can be summed up by “put down the book(laptop?) and look.” Cath heard that a lot from me ;^D

Have I explained my point well? Do you have an opinion about it?

Keep up the great posts!
Juniper says:

September 1, 2009 at 1:31 pm

I completely agree with your points. Handwriting is a very useful learning tool.

I feel we make the mistake of judging others based on such things

“Oh she can’t be a very serious, scholarly pagan, she doesn’t handwrite her BoS”

Silly and pretentious

Maybe that witch has arthritis and can’t hand write. Maybe she was never taught the value of handwriting etc…

We also cannot expect everyone to do as we do all the time, nor to be at the same stage in his or her Path as we are.

We have to allow for others to evolve, practice and learn in their own way.

We don’t know what their story is, what their background is, where they are coming from, where they are on their Path … and we can’t judge by a few blog posts, or by a glance at a BoS, or by how they pronounce “Athame” (geez people, folks have accents!)

Maybe if we encouraged rather than scoffed and looked down our noses…

Like I said “Spend some time at home with your kids and Craft students working on their handwriting, researching, and spelling skills, because they do not teach that at school any more.”

Or better yet, change the school system! Get the keyboards and calculators out of kid’s hands.

Thanks

Cheers!