 Hi my name is Danny and welcome to Esoteric Moment. Today I have another book review and it is for a hand fasting. This book is called Welcoming Hera's Blessing, Hand Fasting, and Wedding Rituals. It is by Raven Caldera and Tannen Schwartz-Swarzen. I don't know about that last one. This book is a fantastic resource if you are planning a wedding ritual. Specifically I think this is really geared more towards a celebrant or priestess, priest, someone in the community who might be doing multiple rituals or working with a really diverse community. One of the best parts about this book is that it really has many different examples. It's not just like examples of straight and gay couples. There are examples of young people who maybe aren't old enough to legally get married. There are examples for gender fluid couples. There are examples for people who can't maybe legally get married and multiple partners. It's really an exquisite resource as far as diversity goes. Before I get too far into the detail, there is one formatting issue with the physical paperback that is really bizarre that I wanted to point out. The first page of every chapter has this weird narrow column. There's probably two inches of margin on both sides and the top, but not the bottom. And so there's just a bunch of wasted space. And then the rest of the chapter is a normal formatting for the pages. I don't really understand why the publisher or authors chose to do this weird thing. And it doesn't really detract from the content of the book, but it seems like a waste of paper. Another bit about the physical book. It has some really great appendices in the back. Some that are focused on like tools and symbols, others that are focused on like flower meaning, other correspondences, and there's also an index on the back. So I think that as far as making it a good resource is really awesome. Generally the book starts out by talking a little bit about pagan couples, the history of handfasting, some of those basic generic informational bits. Then they get into talking about how one might call quarters if they want to include that in the ritual, how deity might be addressed, basic terminology in the vows, like how you want to focus on time of vows, like are you promising yourself for this lifetime, for all lifetimes, eternity, to love last. That's a really interesting conversation. There's a bit about myth and different examples of kind of weddings for gods, goddesses, and other important texts or myths that pagans use. There are some more unique weddings, like the shapeshifters hand fasting, polyamorous hand fasting rites. That I think is really awesome. They have a chapter about children in ritual, which isn't like super meaty but important. I really appreciated how they handled interfaith rituals. They talk a bit about how you can work with different or multiple officians, how you can approach the topic, and kind of how you prioritize different aspects of the rites. And then really great examples. There's like a pagan Muslim wedding, a pagan Buddhist wedding, a Judeo-pagan wedding, some more. Really awesome examples. There's also a full meaty chapter of like full rites, which basically because of how nicely the rituals are formatted, you could basically take out and use wherever you are doing a wedding. I think their examples of rituals are really easy to read and the cues for when props are being used or physical actions are taking place is really great. Because it's so clearly written and the examples are so thorough, it becomes very easy for you to pick and choose which parts you like and mix and match as you and your partner or officians need. Interestingly, they also have a chapter on hand partings. So if someone's getting a divorce or the hand fasting doesn't work out, there are rituals for when both partners can be there, when just one person can be there. And it talks about how vital this type of ceremony can be in a person and a community's life, even though we don't really focus on that aspect. Obviously, it's great if weddings and hand fastings are really the start of super long commitments until someone dies. But that's not always how things work out in today's world. And I think it's great that we're allowing space and access to cutting the cords in that relationship so that healing can take place. I think this is a great resource. It's probably my favorite hand fasting book that I read and the one that I'll for sure be keeping. If you aren't planning on ever doing more weddings than just your own, it might be better off as a library book just because there's so many examples and things like that. You might not really come back to it after planning your wedding. However, if you're ever considering doing celebrant work yourself, so maybe you want to do your friend's wedding or you think maybe it'll be useful because your kids aren't that far away from it, then it might be a really great book to own. In the comments below, if you have found another hand fasting book or pay in wedding book that you really think is useful, I love for you to put it in the comments. Let's, you know, get as many resources out there for everyone as possible. There aren't a ton of pagan specific books out there or even, you know, videos, that sort of thing. I'd love to know more about what you have found and thank you so much for sharing your own stories about your hand fastings or weddings or things you want to do in some of my previous videos. It's been so much fun to read those comments and hear your stories and what a like positive fun topic to share on YouTube with people. If you like learning about books about spirituality and paganism and want to hear about Druidry or my work in community gardens, farming stuff, please don't forget to subscribe. There's a little bell next to it so that you will know exactly when I upload a video. Thanks for watching and as always, may you find peace in the sacred grove.