The Book of Seasons might be the most underutilized tool in witchery. We’re all familiar with the Book of Shadows, which serves as a space to record spell work or magickal correspondences.
But the Book of Seasons is different.
Now, if this is the first time you’re hearing about it, you’re probably not alone. I haven’t heard anyone talk about it before, either. Only me. I don’t know if I invented it, but I love creating one and I think you will too.
In this post, I’ll cover what a Book of Seasons is, how you can use it and why you want to create one for yourself.
About The Book of Seasons
As a green witch, nature is at the center of all my personal spiritual practice, and celebrating that connection is something that I do regularly. Since you’re reading this, I’d bet that’s true for you too.
The eight points on the sacred Wheel of the Year (the sabbats) are for marking the transitions from season to season with celebration and ritual. The moon phases are also times of ritual and celebration (the esbats).
These celebrations and rituals are something that our ancestors have been doing for millennia. In that way, these things also serve as a bridge that connects us to our past and to our future, since we’ll hand our traditions down to those who are going to come after us.
Your Book of Seasons supports your journey through the wheel of the year by giving you a place to connect with the seasons in a creative format.
This is a place to record what you experience every day in the natural world. Whether you’re hiking, gardening, birdwatching or just observing nature from your back yard, you can record your thoughts, feelings, observations, and messages in your Book of Seasons.
We’ll look at some other things you can include in your Book of Seasons later in this post.
Healing and Transformation are Part of Creating Your Book
Creating your book brings together two of the Ravynwood Foundations: journaling and healing creativity.
The other Ravynwood Foundations are self-care, gratitude, meditation, and energy work. The Ravynwood Foundations are the tools that I think everyone needs in their life.
These two foundational tools, along with using nature’s wisdom, were a critical aspect of my own healing journey and the Wheel of the Year served as the sacred framework for it.
You might be on a journey of your own right now. (Most of us are since life is ever-changing.)
It might be about healing, ridding yourself of limiting beliefs or healing old wounds that have kept you stuck. You might be creating boundaries or establishing your sovereignty.
Your journey might include all these things.
Creating a Book of Seasons can support you in whatever journey you’re on right now.
What Goes into a Book of Seasons?
What you record in your Book of Seasons will depend on what’s important to you, but I’ll give you a few ideas to get you started.
- You might include things like local plants that grow around you.
It was shared with me by an elder that what grows around you is exactly what you need. When you begin to see a plant that’s popping up everywhere and growing abundantly around you, identify it and get to know it. It’s interesting how time and again this has happened for me.
Each of those times, I have been very pleasantly surprised that the meaning and the medicine of those plants that suddenly appeared in my environment were exactly what I needed. Each year, I look forward to seeing what pops up near me.
Now if there’s a particular tree or plant or animal that calls to you, you might use this as the basis for your book or broaden it out for all of nature, which is what I do.
You cannot get this wrong.
- Another way that you can use your Book of Seasons is for leaning into the seasons of life.
Everyone will be in a different season depending on their age, but also depending on their experience.
As an example, you can experience a spring at any time, regardless of your actual age. Spring signifies new beginnings, and that can happen at any point in your life, not just when you’re young.
Your book is yours, and you’ll want to make it your own.
You might include:
- journal entries of your thoughts
- quotes about nature or that you find inspiring
- poems you like
- doodles or artwork
- profiles of plants or animals
- notes about the natural world
- wisdom you’ve received from nature
- images that you’ve taken yourself or found in magazines
There’s no need to ever share it with anyone unless you choose to, so you can feel free to make it very unique.
What does Creating a Book of Seasons Do for Me?
What it does is it helps wrap you in nature’s ancient wisdom.
By recording messages you receive or things you’ve noted, you begin to create deeper connections to these things. You can draw on this ancient wisdom for navigating your modern life.
I’ve said this a lot, but change always begins with awareness.
Developing relationships with the natural world is just like developing relationships with another human. It requires time and attention. Observation is powerful. Watch what’s happening in the natural world.
Suggestions for Things to Watch:
- Migrations – when do the birds show up and when do they leave?
- When do the trees around your home or in your area get leaves?
- When do certain flowers bloom? You can notice the ones you planted and the wildflowers.
- When do lightning bugs appear in your area the first time each summer?
- What weeds or type of wildflower blooms first in your area? Identify them. Do they have medicinal uses? Magickal purposes?
Tip: Get a good field guide for plant identification. This is especially important if you’re planning to consume or use the weeds in any type of preparation. There’s lots of plants with look-alikes that can be harmful or deadly.
Noticing what happens around you in the natural environment is a significant part of creating your Book of Seasons.
What’s Happening Within You?
You’ll also want to reflect on how these things relate to what happens within you.
Just as the seasons in the natural world are happening around you, these things help you better understand what’s happening within you.
You can also make notes of things like the types of animals that appear to you. Augury is something that we touch on inside of Ravynwylde, and this means reading signs in nature.
Doing this is a way to tap into the wisdom of that animal for guidance or wisdom that helps you navigate your internal world as well as helping you in the world around you.
I think that reading signs in nature is something that every witch is naturally drawn to do, especially if she really wants to connect with and understand the natural world in a significant way.
Your Book of Seasons is where you will record all these impressions, thoughts, feelings, observations, and any wisdom or messages that you receive from the natural world.
Begin Creating Your Book of Seasons
To begin creating your book, take an intentional walk outdoors.
Notice what you see.
Engage all your senses and take away those impressions.
I like to carry either a notebook or a voice recorder to capture things as they happen.
Photos are also a powerful way that you can take note of these things. Through the images that you capture of the things that speak to you. And don’t overlook the tiny things. Sometimes it’ll be a speck of moss or the tiniest of bugs, but these are the things that are reaching out to you and tapping you on the shoulder, so to speak. They’re saying “hey, notice me.”
It’s up to you to notice.
Pro Tips:
- The story of birth, life, rebirth, and death are all around us in the natural world every day.
- I encourage you to find time to observe nature as much as you can while you’re building your Book of Seasons. Then, record anything that is meaningful to you in your book.
- Embracing both the beauty and the brutality of nature is the way of the witch.
Duality is an essential aspect found in all of nature, and exploring the full cycle in its entirety is powerful. We need to understand how everything relates to all other things to have a full picture. So don’t avoid exploring the full cycle.
What Should I use to Create a Book of Seasons?
To create your book, you might go with an electronic format. You could do a Pinterest board or a Notion board or you could use something like a note-keeping app.
I have a strong preference for a physical book since it’s something that I’ll be able to directly write in. This way, I can keep it handy, and I might even pass it along someday to someone else so that they can benefit from everything that’s inside.
(How I wish that someone had passed one along to me!)
If you choose a physical book, the sky’s the limit where design is concerned. You can add artwork or doodles, images, poems, quotes that you find inspiring, or anything at all that you like.
Add your thoughts on whatever it is that you see or what catches your attention while you’re on an intentional nature walk. Record your feelings about it, and any notes that you think might be useful for you in capturing the wisdom nature shares with you.
You can choose any format you like. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
- A basic notebook with lined pages
- A bullet journal
- A scrapbook
- A sketch pad
- A 3-ring binder
One thing that I do, no matter which type of book I choose, is to create an index in the front of the book. I set aside a few pages just for this. Then, I number all my pages so that I can easily find whatever I might be looking for by using the index.
As an example, if I want to find a sketch and notes I made about an oak tree, I’ll easily be able to find it in the index.
Whether you use a binder, notebook, or electronic option, depends entirely upon which one you like. You can try them all.
I have one of each type at this point, so try different things to see what you like best.
Tip: You can create one book that you keep adding to or create a separate book for each year or even for each season.
Keeping it Sacred
I have the opinion that our Book of Shadows, our Book of Seasons, and our journals are things we do just for us and that they should be treated as sacred. This means that I don’t share them with others.
Now, you can decide to share yours. It’s always up to you.
The “Side Effects” of Keeping a Book of Seasons
As you’re creating your book, you might experience a few “side effects.”
Fortunately, they’re all positive ones.
This really has to do with paying attention to the natural world as you’re creating your book and the impact that has on you.
For me, it used to be that the natural world was just a backdrop for my overscheduled life that society wanted me to live. All the things I was told I should do, should have, should want, and should be, took up my time and energy, leaving me exhausted and unfulfilled.
Living that way led me into the existential crisis that preceded my downward spiral into suicidal ideation.
Throughout my own healing journey of walking through the wheel of the year with intention and making it a priority to connect with nature and my own soul, something really magickal happened.
- I have rediscovered the feral me, the wild version of myself.
That’s the version of me that I was before everyone told me who I was supposed to be or who I needed to be.
- My boundaries got stronger.
- My priorities became what guides my choices, and I threw out society’s definition of success and redefined it for myself.
- I grew stronger and more determined to create a life that felt really good. One that I loved instead of one that I hated. I wanted to avoid having a life like the one that was driving me into desperation and self-destruction.
So, creating your Book of Seasons might lead you down a whole new path.
I felt like I should just give you a heads up.
The Summary for Create Your Book of Seasons
Creating a Book of Seasons is a wonderful way to support your journey through the seasons of the Wheel of the Year. Wrapped inside this creation is a transformation just waiting for you as you take the time to discover and then tap into nature’s wisdom.
Your Book of Seasons will help you do that.
There will be more posts coming up that are related to this one, so stay tuned for those.
If you want to take your journey a bit further, then I invite you to click here to explore Ravynwylde – A Sacred Year Journey for the Solitary Green Witch. It might be just what you’re looking for.
Blessed be.
You might also like these posts:
Journey Through the Wheel of the Year: Sabbats & Themes
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