Long time, no see, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well! I’ve been busy, but I’ve decided that I needed a task to get me to slow down and get back in touch with my spiritual side and this week’s challenge is a perfect one for me!
For my entry for this week’s challenge, I decided it was a great time for me to reflect on my sources of inspiration.
TLDR: My experience with "traditional" sacred books of Christianity and Judaism.
When I think back about sacred books in the context of my life, the first thing I think about is the Bible. I was raised “Christian” (TLDR: Christian-ish, but we didn’t go to church after I was old enough for Confirmation). Growing up, my grandma pushed me to find wisdom and life advice in the Bible. I never really connected with the Bible until I was in college and took a class called “Great Books of the Western World: The Bible.”
The class was eye-opening to me because, as someone who grew up super sheltered, I assumed that the Bible was 100% original to itself, but academically (I’m not here to argue with your beliefs or refute them), it has its roots in the deeper history and context of the Middle East. This was the turning point in my spiritual life. Seeing that there was a much deeper root in the Bible made me feel more connected to it, and, ironically, observing the Bible from a purely academic perspective made me believe in its stories more.
While I was in college, I started exploring other religions and spiritual beliefs, and found a new home within Judaism – hence my username on here. There was this… je ne sais quoi about Judaism that resonated with me more than anything I’ve ever felt.
The climax of my decision to dive deeper into Judaism was when I was taking an Intro to Jewish Studies class and had to go to a Jewish religious service to observe it. I went to a synagogue of the Conservative branch of Judaism where the entire service was done in Hebrew. The service I went to was a kabbalat shabbat service, a short prayer service to welcome the Shabbat, the Jewish holy day (Saturday). There was one point where everyone turned to the doorway of the chapel and bowed. At that moment, I felt this Presence and warmth unlike any I had ever felt before – it was such a strong feeling that I began crying with pure happiness.
Despite having absolutely no clue what was going on, I later found out that the portion of the prayers where they turned to the doorway and bowed was the moment they were welcoming “The Bride of Shabbat” into their presence. That was the moment that I knew that I had found a new home. From that moment, I began including the Tahakh, the Jewish sacred books, (i.e., the Hebrew Bible, a.k.a. the Old Testament) and incorporating teachings from various Jewish texts into my personal practice. These elements of “traditional” and “conventional” religion/spirituality continue to color my personal spiritual gnosis. I also pull from other writings that inspire me, such as poetry. If I had to choose one single poem that sums up my personal spiritual beliefs, it’s “If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking” by Emily Dickinson.
Perhaps due to my strong animist beliefs, I believe any book that one considers sacred is a sacred book. Whether it’s the Bible, Qur’an, the Vedic texts, or even a cookbook, any item is sacred, especially when the energies of reverence and respect are directed into it. What makes something sacred isn’t necessarily the item having been created by or chosen by The Divine or any variant of the sentiment, but rather the energy with which we interact with the object. Therefore, in my personal belief, any book can become sacred if one so wills it.
Now onto the part I’m sure you all were looking for: my personal sacred books!
My main method of keeping a Book of Shadows is what I refer to as my “Omnibook”: it serves as my main Book of Shadows, my Book of Mirrors, my materia medica, materia magica, etc. It is a mash-up of everything related to my practice. I add new entries to the notebook as the need arises, and I use the Bullet Journal method of making sure I can find the information I need quickly and easily.
I also keep print-outs organized in a binder as well as saved to my Google Drive. This allows me to have a print version of any resource I need, and I also have the ability to access it on-the-go.
I copy all of my most-used resources into a main grimoire. It is very minimalist and the only decorations are things that I’ve printed out on sticker paper and stuck onto the pages. There is no index or order to my main grimoire. Because of this, I have yet another notebook that serves as a companion to the main grimoire. In this companion notebook, each page corresponds to a single page (or group of pages) in the main grimoire. It is in this companion notebook that I write the sources of the information in the main grimoire, as well as notes about the entries and other resources related to that grimoire entry. That way, I can have a clean, simple grimoire without having to stress about how it’s organized (which has been my main block to putting the energy I’ve wanted to into my grimoire/BoS/Omnibook), and still have an organized way of linking all my other notebooks/resources together in one place.
To further elaborate on the (very boring) aesthetics of my notebooks, they are all just plain notebooks: my Omnibooks are just hardcover journals with lined or square grid pages, my main grimoire is an A4 size softcover notebook with lined pages, and the most “decorative” notebook is my companion notebook, which is a softcover composition book with simple drawings of cactuses on the front cover.
To summarize my personal beliefs on sacred books, any book can become sacred if you treat it as such. Any word can be imbued with power and used to inform your personal spiritual gnosis. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to create a beautifully illustrated Book of Shadows if you’re like me and can’t even draw a stick person – just put your reverence, respect, and love into your collection of writings and they are sacred.