Thursday, March 15, 2007

Book of Shadows

In a forum that I frequent (even if I don't post often), a thread came up asking people about their Book of Shadows. As I love hearing about what everybody has in their BOS, I though it would interesting to go through mine again, to remember what information I have collected over the years and how I have organized that information.

While I don't call my collection a "BOS", I do have a three ring notebook that I keep (or several, really). One part has articles, new articles, information from websites and blogs that have been printed out (I go through a lot of ink and paper!). Another part is a notebook in which I write down my thoughts about anything that pop up at anytime during the day (It used to be a regular old notebook, but recently I have switched to Moleskine journals). A third part of the three ring binder includes papers and articles that I have written myself regarding what what works for me, my beliefs, ethics, etc.

This is a system that I started when I was about 15, so as I said above, I have several of these three ring binders. I have one from early on that has many things printed out from The Riders of the Crystal Wind BOS, which is a collection of articles written by people who frequented the old BBS systems back in the day. I have a couple more that include other things that were printed out on the web from when I was younger.

I have one that includes information about gods; "dictionaries," pages of myths, list of various pantheons, list of what gods are connected to (such as these gods are the gods of war; these are the gods of charity; etc.)

I have another one that includes only information regarding Heathenry (or Asatru) as that is what I have been interested in recently.

Most people see a BOS as a place to store their collection of spells, poetry, and stories, amongst other information. As I'm not into spell work and I admittedly dislike poetry (I do try to like it, I just can't seem to get past it), my collection contained in my books includes articles written on concepts, ideas, ethics, history and much more.

Someday, I may organize it into something that is more cohesive and "permanent" but for now, this system works for me.

So, I ask you, what is your Book of Shadows like? What information do you have in it? How do you organize it?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My BoS is a very large three-ring binder that I use for everything Craft related, whether specifically magickal or not. The contents include ideas, rituals and spells, lessons, my personal astrological information, notes on any work I do with tarot, the pendulum, or dreams, as well as my CoG materials. What it doesn't have is deity lore, correspondences, or anything else that I consider reference material and can find in a book on my shelf or online.

And those moleskin notebooks are awesome.

Jaspenelle Jovian said...

Hm I might have to make a blog entry about this...

My BOS (though that is really a misnomer for them) consist of:
- My meditation notebook where I write about my progress off in subconscious and higer self land :). It is full fo inspirational quotes and pictures too.
- My animal runes notebook, long term project of mine. I am creating a large rune set using mostly self-invented animal glyphs.
- Several random thought/theory notebooks and one binder. Where I print out the essays I type and as well as articles I find of interest,
- My DOS - disk of shadows: All the stuff saved on my computer that have have yet to read/research

And of course my mind and soul, my path originates from there and lets me know what is right or wrong.

S. Nichole said...

Thanks for your comments!

Cosette - Thanks for sharing what you have in your BOS. And I would agree, Moleskine notebooks are awesome! I carry one around with me at all times.

Jaspenelle - I look forward to seeing what you write about regarding your BOS. I am interested in finding out more about your animal runes, too.