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Book Review: 13 Original Clan Mothers

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Title: 13 Original Clan Mothers

Author: Jamie Sams

Pages: 316

Genre: Spiritual, female empowerment, some Native American influence

This book begins with a note to readers, an introduction, the author’s healing quest vision, and the beginning of the legacy of women.  On page 30, it starts with the first clan mother, Talks With Relation. The book breaks the year into 13 moon cycles, each with a different clan mother with wisdom to tell.  The first section of each chapter explains the wisdom, followed by a story about the clan mother with an example of how to use that wisdom.

It’s difficult to explain, so here is a quote from the story portion of the sixth chapter: ” When Storyteller awoke, she discovered that Grandfather Sun’s light had not yet graced the morning sky and so she lay in silence, reflecting on the Medicine she had received during the night.  Story after story filled her head with new ways to share the wisdom that had been presented to her.  The Clan Mother felt a sense of newness as she smelled the dew-covered plants on the morning breeze.  Storyteller listened to the water song of the river running near her lodge and was content.  The Oral Traditions would continue to live, as long as those who spoke their eternal truths passed them from generation to generation, giving the human children of Earth a way to understand their lives.”

After the chapters of the 13 Clan Mothers, there are some remaining chapters: Gathering the Gifts of Women, the History of the Turtle Council House, and Entering the Council House of the Thirteen Original Clan Mothers.

Verdict: 9/10 – Every year I tell myself I’m going to read a chapter for each moon in the year and every year I forget.  The only reason I took one point off was that it gets a little wordy and there is no real advice on how to use the wisdom of each of the clan mothers, even though the author says it’s intentional. 

Book Review: Empowering Your Life with Wicca

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Title: Empowering Your Life with Wicca

Author: Sirona Knight

Pages: 293

Genre: Self-help, religious (Wicca)

After a brief introduction on some unnumbered pages, the book starts off with the first chapter: “The First Empowering Step: Setting Your Empowerment Goals”.  It has a number of stories of people who improved their situations, a guide on creating sacred space, magic tools and focals, empowering your magical tools, the magic circle, empowering your circle, and closing the magic circle. Then it goes into goals and patters, how to set your empowerment goals, with a number of examples using stories and anecdotes. In this chapter, there is “The First Empowering Step: Love Meditation”, which is kind of confusing, since the chapter is supposed to be the first empowering step which is setting your goals.  Then I read on and realized it’s broken into different types of goals: love, health, and prosperity.  Each of these has a meditation, affirmation and prayer, how to create a sacred space for your goal, a ritual, and an oracle.

Chapter 2 is on creating your empowerment plan. This and every following chapter has another step to reaching your goals. Each chapter has a small amount of instruction, a few anecdotes or stories, and the following for each goal: love, health, and prosperity.  Each step also has a meditation, affirmation and prayer, how to create a sacred space for your goal, a ritual, and an oracle for each type of goal.

Page 265 starts the appendices with appendix 1 on empowering Gods and Goddesses. Appendix B has a list of empowering crystals and gemstones. Appendix C has empowering magical tools. Appendix D lists empowering herbs, plants, trees, and flowers. Appendix E shows some magical symbols and is followed by the bibliography and index.

Verdict: 4/10

This is a great book for someone who has a lot of time to do rituals, guided meditations, and updating their altar and keeping sacred space.  It is also a great book for someone who wants to spend a significant amount of time doing meditations and rituals.  It was well-researched with some great guided meditations and rituals. The anecdotes made it a fun read and helped illustrate some points, but some readers might see it as “fluff” to lengthen each chapter.

However, it is my opinion that if you want to improve love, health, or money in your life, you can cast a spell or two, but a better use of your time would be actually following a plan to improve those aspects of your life.  For example, if I wanted to not be fat (which I do), I could follow the guided meditations and rituals of all 12 steps of this book.  Or I could spend that time cooking healthy meals and exercising.  That’s why this book got a low rating.  It’s not that the book was bad.  It does what it says it will do.  I just saw the methods offered as being too lengthy for the desired end result.  And if I had a dollar for every time the author used the word “empowering”, I’d be rich.

Book Review: The Crystal Bible

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Title: The Crystal Bible – A definitive guide to crystals

Author: Judy Hall

Pages: 400

Genre: Non-fiction, informational

The first 38 pages include the table of contents and some background information. It touches on how they’re formed and how to select your own crystals.

Starting on page 38 in alphabetical order, they dedicate 2-6 pages per type of rock starting with Agate and ending with Zoisite on page 322. Each entry has a color photo of each stone. The entry also includes a list of colors, a description of the appearance, the rarity, and source. Then it goes into the energetic attributes, healing, and position for each stone.

The final pages include several pages on the different shapes of crystals, a quick reference guide about other associations with the stones such as chakras and the zodiac, and an index.

Verdict: 10/10 – This book does exactly what it says. I would recommend this to anyone looking to know more about gemstones, looking to do energy-work with gemstones, or looking to identify gemstones.

Book Review: The Simple Sabbat

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Title: The Simple Sabbat – A Family Friendly Approach to the Eight Pagan Holidays

Author: M. Flora Peterson

Pages: 154

The first 22 pages were filled with information about the author, table of contents, dedication, prologue, and introduction.

The first chapter of 2 pages explains the wheel of the year. Chapter 2 delves into ritual circle formats. It offers a family-friendly version of rituals.

The remaining chapters are on the Sabbats. Each Sabbat offers the following sections: time, meaning of the season, God, Goddess, colors, altar, activities, an incense recipe, an oil recipe, a food recipe, a ritual, and sometimes a craft. There are also a few pages for notes at the end of each chapter.

The book really ends on page 138, but there are several pages about the author’s other books.

Verdict: 7/10 – I liked a lot of the activity ideas. There were a lot of references to her YouTube channel (probably too many references) for craft ideas and more recipes. Many of the rituals weren’t terribly family friendly. I guess it depends how old your kids are. I would have liked to see more ways to involve your family in ritual. There was also just one to two sentences describing the purpose of each holiday. If I were a beginner, I would have liked more information.

I also tried the recipe for skull bread. They tried to make it accessible for vegans or those with allergies, but mine didn’t taste or look very good, despite my baking experience.

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