For when blocks of text just aren't cutting it anymore, but momma didn't raise no Michaelangelo.
- Astrological Reference Chart
This can be done by even the least artsy of folks. Trace a round thing for a big circle, use a protractor, or wing it because who cares if it's perfect. You'll divide the circle into roughly four quadrants. Then, you'll use a total of four more diagonal lines to cut each of the four quadrants into three parts. This sounds way more confusing than it is--each line should run through two diagonal quadrants. Use a ruler or don't. I did and it still turned out a sloppy mess. You can label each angle inside the circle as 30° to help you remember the intention.
Anyway, now you can either label the wheel beginning with your zodiacal sign or with Aries or with Capricorn, depending on what you're trying to highlight. You can add the houses if you'd like, Aries being in the first house if this isn't your personal chart.
Or you could print one out. I did both because my first general reference try looked bad and there was no way I was brave enough to draw my own birth chart. CafeAstrology.com baby.
- Kabbalahist Tree of Life
Look, you don't have to believe in this specific break down of this specific interpretation of the universe for this to look super badass in your grimoire. Plus it's a good idea to integrate other frameworks, it'll teach you something, believe it or not.
This one from Wikipedia was the one I referenced:
Okay, so this one requires the bare minimum of crafting: cut and paste. If you have a printer or can get magazines, and can cut and paste, you can do this. Stickers and stamps and washi tape are not necessary. Just go through magazines and/or creative commons websites and find ephemera (aka stuff) that reminds you of a deity and/or sacred/liminal space. You can cut, you can rip, you can overlap, you can crumple for extra texture (the more you crumple, the more quilt-like it gets). Okay, let's break it down.
Print pictures of animals, planets, herbs. Grab visual texture images like moss, lichen, sunrays, snowfall, bark, bricks, flowers. These should be biggest, go in the back-back, and should get glued down first. Next you'll probably put pictures of deity or sacred/liminal space on the fissures where the first layer elements meet. These pictures should be large, but not overwhelm the pages. Then you can stack the associations on the edges, corners, and empty spaces now left behind--it stands to reason that you want pictures of things like stones and herbs and candles and other associations to be the smallest pictures. Boom, mobile altar space. You can check my hashtag #roaen's art, for my personal examples (cough cough).
- A Full-Page Cleansing Sigil
The pentagram. Hekate's Strophalos. A sigil of your own or someone else's making. Literally a photograph of selenite or a bowl of salt you printed off at the library. Let it be a whole page big, and if drawing it yourself, use a set color palette to make it. (Good options are black, red, and light gray; brown, olive, and teal; or black, royal purple, and navy.) You can even put one on either side of two pages facing each other so that when you close the book, anything on that page is pressed between them.
- Symbol Reference Sheets
Alchemical symbols, astrological symbols, Nordic runes, the ogham alphabet, the witch's alphabet. Generally I fit three or or four symbols on a row, and I let each row be three lines of the notebook paper (dotted is my preferred, followed by grids, with lined being the suckiest; sorry if you're unlined, but if that's the case you are braver than me and probably don't need my advice). I will write the brief Meaning first, doing my best to left-align it in the column, and then I right-align the symbol. You don't have to do it this way, but here's my method if you don't want to make your own. These pages look sick as fuck, so consider spacing them out for maximum effect.
- Planetary Grids (see x)
Printing them out is easiest and neatest, but I find them more aesthetically appealing in my own hand, personally. Saturn is the default and the smallest, so start there. The Moon and Mercury will need to share their own page. Good luck, soldier.
- Your Own Personal Bind Runes and Sigils Reference Page
So this one builds on a couple other we've mentioned but is slightly different. This spread would be dedicated to recording sigils (of the planetary grid variety or of the letter kind) and bind runes (several different runes stacked into one to combine effects) as you use them for spell work. If one of them doesn't work? Just cross it out in red. Does it work especially well? Circle it in some color other than red, idc. These can be your own or someone else's, but I recommend writing down their name or @ so you can find their work in the future.
Leaves, petals, whole flowers, clumps of moss, bits of birch bark. Whatever tickles your fancy, as long as you asked permission to obtain it and gave gratitude and/or offering in response. Use a napkin to surround the plant material before you press it if you want to protect the pages. Tape or otherwise adhere it to your designated page once it is sufficiently dry. This can also be used as a mobile sacred space because of the energies it will carry--like the equivalent of carrying a secluded glade in your pocket.
- Photos of your Practice
And I don't mean only pictures of altar or spell jars, though by all means include those too. I more meant photos of the trees you talk to, scans or pictures of your full moon tarot spreads--shit, pictures of the backs of your favorite decks just for funsies. Take selfies with your new stones to get to know them. Put in screenshots of the witchy playlist you've been meditating to. Scrapbook, basically. You don't have to do this often. Maybe collect things throughout the season and then make a single memories page that encapsulates all three months gone by.
Got ideas of your own? Please add them!
