 Today we're reviewing Weave the Liminal Modern Traditional Witchcraft by Laura Tempest-Zarrcross. Hey there saplings welcome back to esoteric moment. I have another book review today and this one is a little outside of Druidry but I think it's a great way to kind of shift our focus and think about things in a little bit of a different way. Weave the Liminal is a delightful short but really compact book about modern traditional witchcraft. The author is trying to convey different ways that modern practitioners can adapt their traditional witchcraft, their practices of all sorts and really make it their own. I think this is a book that is prime for the pagan community right now because there are so many people who identify as eclectic pagans or eclectic witches and while that might be slightly different than a modern traditional witchcraft practice it is really useful to think about what eclectic means to you and this book is going to help you do that. So the actual copy of the book is really beautiful I'll be honest I love the artwork so much that that might be why I took a look at it at first because the cover just drew me in. Each chapter has a little art page as well which makes it easy to navigate through the book and it's really just a beautiful addition to the beautiful writing. So the book is definitely geared towards beginners and that means that some of the beginning chapters are what you expect to hear and read. The first one being you know defining terms and talking about the history of witchcraft and paganism. Chapter two is really all about kind of digging a little bit deeper into that like who is a witch and what does that mean in your regular daily practice kind of talking about some some general how-to's. Chapter three it talks about diving into the practice and really making it your own and the author has tons of ideas about how to adapt traditional ideas or whatever other paths you're drawing from and really incorporating it into a practice that makes sense for you. So listening to your body, listening to the rhythm of the seasons where you live, talking about what threads and tools you're going to use to actually weave your practice together. Chapter four is a great element of the book and is why I think some druids and other pagan folks will be interested in this book. It is such an excellent interpretation of the ethics in the pagan community and really approaches it in such a kind of neutral and informative way but still inspiring you to actually think about where and how your ethics are being incorporated into your practice. The author is definitely someone who has a little bit of snark about the threefold law. She talks a lot about cursing and just like those typical things that we think a witch needs or a pagan has to have and really lays it all bare for the reader and makes you think about things without assuming that you will follow the traditional way of doing things. Leave space for you to do it the traditional way but also make it work for your modern practice. The book then goes into talking about deity and gods. This is another juicy topic I know in my asking for questions video a few months back that tons of you wanted to talk about deity especially in druidry and I'm definitely going to do a video but in the meantime this book has some interesting thoughts and ideas that really will apply to a lot of different pagans and this is also the area where the luminal space really becomes the focus of the book. The space between the spirits you're working with ancestors the other world gods goddesses this is all where the author dives into that liminal space and is probably my favorite part of the book. Finally the book ends on some practical like this is what it means to be a witch in 2019. I think a lot of these elements will again apply to pagans of all sorts. It's about etiquette in the world and in our practices. It's about how we make community, how commerce is all a part of paganism. We need more conversations about what pagan community means today and that includes Etsy and YouTube and all sorts of things that we weren't thinking about as a community. We need more authors talking in a very upfront and easy to understand way about paganism, commerce, social media all of these things that are so integrated into our pagan community now but we're like not teaching newbies yet and I think this is a great for-leader in talking about those elements in the pagan community. Clearly this book is for witches and those who have a more modern traditional practice but there are some elements that will apply to pagans of all sorts and it's just a really beautiful book put together with some snark and some really juicy content that a lot of pagans will enjoy reading. If this isn't your practice I would suggest it's definitely worth putting on your wait list at the library and for those of you who follow a more witchcraft traditional path then this might be a great book to have on your shelf. In the comments below let me know what your thoughts about including in newbie books information about our current social media, commerce, modern world of paganism. If you have any thoughts about how we teach that to new folks and how we just are better pagans, kinder pagans to each other in this new modern world we have together. I'm realizing that the light has been really inconsistent in this video so I apologize for that. I hope it wasn't too distracting but winter there's just so much light everywhere and yet so dark in your house. This week's sapling shout out goes out to wolf mama. They put a comment on my why I'm not a historical druid video talking about their feelings about not having the correct like roots for druidry and they talked a bit about how they as a person of color felt with druidry. I am so grateful that they would talk about their experience especially about being black and what that means for druidry because we don't hear enough of those voices in our druid and pagan community and I think we need to make more space for that. So there were some other responses to that comment too so if you're curious about inclusion and diversity in druidry that might be a great person to go follow and talk with under that video. Thanks for watching and as always may you find peace in the sacred grove.