One of the magickal book series that I’ve really enjoyed over the last few years is the Modern Witchcraft series from Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. This month the latest in the series, The Modern Witchcraft Book of Natural Magick by Judy Ann Nock was released.

I’ll be honest, one of the reasons I was initially drawn to the first book, The Modern Witchcraft Guide to Witchcraft by Skye Alexander, was because I loved the look of the book. The vintage looking cover and slightly scalloped page edges just felt a little witchy to me.

The series spans all the basics from tarot to spells to the Wheel of the Year. Most of the books in the series have been written by Skye Alexander (who I really like) but two of the books, Natural Magick and Wheel of the Year, are by Judy Ann Nock.

I like Nock’s way of presenting her material. She has a bit of a “learn by doing” approach, which I love. I think the best way to learn anything in the Craft is by actually doing it. We have a tendency to read and study and learn to the point where we almost back ourselves into a corner and feel like we never now enough to actually do anything. In both of Nock’s books in this series, she writes a bit of an introduction to a topic and then dives in with spells, meditations, and rituals.

In The Modern Witchcraft Book of Natural Magick, Nock shares spells, rituals, and magickal tips for connecting to the natural world and the elements for magick. You can tell quickly that she loves this kind of magick. She doesn’t just throw some magick at you can say “Here’s how to work with the earth.”

Nock breaks it down and gets specific about different aspects of working with earth, for example. She starts the book off with a chapter specifically on seed magick and follows that with a chapter on roots and trees along with a chapter she calls “Body of the Goddess.” This is a chapter that I feel presents an angle to earth element magick that a lot of books lack; the idea that to work with the earth and natural magick we need to connect with the parts of the earth that we can’t see, the stuff we don’t observe through the seasonal cycles. She presents some great meditation and ritual work for helping to make this kind of connection to the planet that can help really change the way you work this kind of magick. This goes even a bit deeper with another chapter called “Earth as Entity” where she focuses on working with earth as Gaia, seeing the earth as alive.

Other chapters of the book cover working with air, water, and fire as you would imagine, but she also includes chapters on working with the cosmos and the stars, the sun, and the moon, the use of time (and we’re not talking about what day to do a spell, it goes much deeper than that), and working with your own aspect of “self.” I love this idea because it brings it all together, the idea of finding ways to see yourself as part of the natural world and part of the magick, not separate from it like the modern day world tends to approach it.

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A few of my personal favorite entries in The Modern Witchcraft Book of Natural Magick include…

? The “Spell for Casting Away” on page 65; a spell designed not to banish something but to help you find the patterns that no longer serve you while helping you draw strength from the earth.

? “Creating a Pendulum” on page 70; I am such a big fan of pendulums and her craft helping you make one from copper wire and a crystal is a great way to make a deeper connection to both the earth and one of your magickal tools.

? “Ritual: The Nine Sacred Woods of the Cauldron” on page 103; this fire ritual is her interpretation of a ritual that has been around for a long time and helps us to create a link to not only fire but the sacred spirit of the nine sacred woods so we can learn their magick more deeply.

? Chapter Nine “Star Magick: The Realm of Cosmos”; this entire chapter is great but the “Invocation to the Seven Sisters” is particularly beautiful.

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If you’re like me and you feel natural magick just isn’t something that you’re good with, you’ll love The Modern Witchcraft Book of Natural Magick. It will help you see that nature magick doesn’t have to always be able herbs or kitchen witchery and it can be simple but powerful.

You’ll develop a deeper understanding of nature from a spiritual and magickal perspective as you work with Judy Ann Nock’s rituals, spells, and meditations and change the way you view nature in your magickal world.

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You can pick up The Modern Witchcraft Book of Natural Magick and all the other books in the series over here at my Amazon shop! (this is an affiliate link and your purchases make me a wee bit of money which goes to supporting the blog)

 

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