New year, new book, new series! This year I’m going to be working through the Hedgewitch Book of Days by Mandy Mitchell. I’ve had this book for a while, and I have used a lot of the information to beef up my own Book of Shadows and rituals. However, I bought this book with the intention of working through one chapter each month and doing a deep dive into the year of the hedgewitch. Needless to say, the business of life got in the way, and I put my copy on the shelf to only be moved when I dust. With that in mind, I am making 2020 the Year of the Hedgewitch.
First of all - who is a hedgewitch? What is hedgewitchery? Why did I buy this book in the first place? To put it simply, a hedgewitch is another term for the cunning folk, kitchen witches, herb lore masters, and other low magic users who use magic to make the natural world around them a better place. They move on the edge of this world and the next, using herbs to heal, trading with fae, and knowing the hidden things. (I also consider hexes and curses to be an integral part of low magic and what cunning folk do, but Mitchell is of the "harm none" school of thought.) For Mitchell's book, she focuses on using magic in everyday chores and activities. She is all about infusing your daily life with magic and working in tune with the rhythm of the year. As a very busy witch, this homey version of hearth craft really appeals to me. Mitchell focuses on simplistic spells and rituals that can be slipped into the most hectic of lives. Her recipes have lots of seasonal ingredients, and don't include six hours of prep time in the kitchen. The other big chunk of topics in her book involve cleaning, blessing, and protecting the home through magical and mundane means.
Mitchell has a super chatty style, and peppers in stories about her life and experiences with each chapter. Reading each chapters is very similar in tone to popping into your favorite auntie's house for tea and coming away with another little gem of magic. Nevertheless, there are six distinct categories that appear in every chapter.
- Foods in Season – Mitchell lives in the UK, and that is apparent in her list of foods in season. If you live in colder climates, her lists may be good enough for a starting point. For me, I live in South Florida, and I also don't eat many of the foods (like meat and shellfish). I'll be using other resources for in season foods, and adapting a more local and seasonal diet (where possible).
- Correspondences – I love her correspondences for each month! She includes full moon names, stones, colors, plants, colors, etc in a very easy to use list. To date, these lists are what I used the most in her book. Again, you can see the UK bent here as she doesn’t have American holidays, Jewish holidays, or other events that are important to my practice. I’ve been toying with the idea of penciling them into the margins, but for right now I just have everything in my calendar.
- Topics For The Month – Each month, Michelle has a few different topics that relates to the energy of the month, getting started and spring cleaning for March (where her book starts), sigil magic for January, etc. If there is a sabbat in the month, she gives often easy ways to decorate your altar and celebrate that holiday. The rituals she includes are directly related to the topics. This is the section of the book where her chatty nature is the most apparent and makes it the most diverse of all the categories. Not all the topics are going to work for everyone, and that's true of my life as well. It does make it a well rounded book, and again why I'm going to be picking the parts that work for me.
- Recipes – Each month has two or three simple recipes in it that range from full entrees to drinks and sweets. They seem like recipes that once you make once or twice, you can just throw together without much thought. I will be adapting the recipes to fit my needs and diet, since Mitchell very rarely includes tips on how to adapt recipes for different diets and needs. I don't know if I'm going to write out the whole recipe, but I will include notes on how I adapted each recipe I make, in case you are also in need of veggie-friendly ideas.
- Witchy Ways to Celebrate – Mitchell lists some brief ideas on how to celebrate the month. Most of them reinforce the ideas that where explored more in depth in the chapter, but they also are a little more simplified.
- Folklore/Sayings – Each chapter closes with a few folk sayings for each month, along the lines of “April showers bring May flowers”. They are whimsical and I’ve already found myself saying a few.
Even though Mitchell's book starts in early spring with the month of March, I'm going to capitalize on the energy of the secular New Year and start my Year of the Hedgewitch in January. Even though the witch's new year is Samhain and the Jewish new year is Rosh Hashannah, I still think that January is the month where I feel the most influx of new energy and goals. Maybe it's because it's also my birthday month, maybe it's because I tap into the collective energy, maybe because it's a slow time of the year. Whatever the reason, it feels right to me to start this project in January, and that's the foundation of my witchcraft.
I'm not intending on making every single recipe and activity in the book, especially as I balance work, school, personal relationships and everything else. In my mind, this only adds to the value of Mitchell’s book. I can use it for years to come, both to return to old favorites as well as to get fresh ideas. I may do a mini dive into another one of the topics in the month, like color magic, sigil magic, divination, etc, but I’m not committed to it. At the end of the month, I will have a round up of all the recipes I did make, the rituals I tried, and my thoughts about the month. I'll also probably have links to the other books and resources I've used in the month.
So far, I’ve been enjoying reading this book and I’m excited to jump into this year of really exploring the world of hedgewitchery. I think this book is very accessible and really a great starting point for new witches as well as offerings for experienced witches. If you want to join me for a month or the whole year, I’d love to see how you interpret the recipes and rituals. I will be using #yearofthehedgewitch on Instagram, and I invite you to use the tag as well. It makes it so easy to find other people and connect with them!
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