The May New Moon Is Out--Check Your Inbox!

For those of you who currently subscribe to our email newsletter for booksellers, The Moon, you may have noticed a few changes.

We've streamlined the look, included new features, and christened it with a new moniker: The New Moon. As with this blog, our goal is to really connect with you, our selling partners, each month and offer support, guidance, and resources with the aim of helping you grow and thrive in this ever-changing market.

Our May 2014 issue of the New Moon was mailed this morning. This issue includes:
-Connecting With the Four Elements for Prosperity
-Shelftalkers (Practical Prosperity Magick; Taming the Drunken Monkey; The Yoga of Food; and Intuition and Your Sun Sign)
-A Stuffer (A Prosperity Spell with Lakshmi)
-June New Releases
-Llewellyn's 2014 Fall Catalog
-Indie Stores' Top Five Picks
-And Much More!

If you did not receive a copy in your email inbox, you can also view it here: The New Moon, May 2014 Issue.

You can also visit our website to subscribe to The New Moon, ensuring that it reaches you each month (please note that you will need to log in/register to be able to join our mailing list).

Connecting with the Four Elements for Prosperity

When you dream of prosperity, what do you see? Do you see ever-present, long lines in your store? Perhaps you see abundance by way of a full house of family and friends. Perhaps prosperity to you is the ability to decorate your store or home as you like, regardless of cost. Prosperity, and it's companion abundance, mean so many different things to each of us, and can even mean different things to us at different times of our lives. Fortunately, we can work with the four elements (Earth, Fire, Water, and Air) to invite prosperity and abundance—however we visualize it—into our lives.

1. Water: Practical Prosperity Magick, the new release from perennial favorite Ellen Dugan, contains (as the name states) a plethora of easy and effective ways to draw prosperity, success, and abundance into your life. She separates her prosperity work into sections based on each element, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. To work with the Water element, which invites abundance and prosperity to continue its liquid flow, try her "Nine of Cups Tarot Spell."

Timing:
Work this spell in a waxing moon phase. As the moon grows, so will your dreams. The most opportune time to work this spell would be on a Friday—a Venus day. This is a happy day filled with loving emotions and is just the ticket for this particular work.

Supplies: For this simple elemental spell, you will only need a few items: a blue floating candle, a lighter, a glass bowl filled with clean water, the Nine of Cups card from your tarot deck, and a safe, flat surface.

Directions: Place the water-filled bowl and the tarot card upon the altar. Light the floating candle and focus on that tarot card. Visualize the goals that you have for yourself. See yourself as happy and prosperous—your dreams and wishes are coming true. Then repeat the spell verse three times:

The Nine of Cups card will now be for me
A lovely symbol for prosperity.
My dreams and wishes will be granted, this much is true
This magick begins with a floating candle of blue. 

Close up the spell with these lines:

For the good of all, with harm to none
By tarot’s magick, this spell is done!

Allow the floating candle to burn out in a safe place. When it is finished, pour the water from the bowl out on the earth and clean up. Place the Nine of Cups card under your pillow. More information about the spellwork may be revealed in your dreams. You may also choose to keep the Nine of Cups card out for a few days to look at and remind you of your magick, or you may return it to the tarot deck. The choice is yours.

2. Earth: The new Plant and Fungus Totems contains a number of ways to incorporate plants and fungus into your spirituality, connecting with these energies as totems and in your daily life. To connect with the energy of the White Matsutake mushroom for prosperity, for example, you can try the following:

Create devotional art using the relevant sticks, leaves, stems, spore prints, etc. These may be purely decorative, or they might have specific meanings to you. For example, let’s say you were fortunate enough to find a few white matsutake mushrooms, an unusual prize in the Pacific Northwest. Before preparing them for a special meal, you decide to take a spore print of one of the caps. You then use this print in a collage centered on bringing good luck and prosperity into your life, asking the totem White Matsutake to add its energy to your creation and your intent. Other options include making incense out of fragrant leaves and flower petals, adding dried fungus and plant parts to the wax when making candles or to the pulp when making paper, a necklace of seeds, and so forth.

3. Fire: Many of us have long neglected the archetype of the solar feminine, traditionally attributing masculine qualities to the sun instead of feminine qualities. Stephanie Woodfield, in her new book Drawing Down the Sun, presents fourteen different solar goddesses from different pantheons with whom you can work. As you begin, create some Prosperity Sun Tea:

Creating Sun Water and Sun Tea
Sun water and sun tea can be used in healing and during rituals and spells. To create sun water, fill a glass bowl with filtered water and place it in a sunny spot where the light of the sun can shine on it. If it is winter, you can place the bowl near a sunny window. Hold your hands over the water and visualize the light and energy of the sun filling the water until it shines with a golden light. Allow the water to remain in the light of the sun until you feel it is fully charged with the sun’s energy. You can use this water to sprinkle around an area to cleanse it, to wash ritual items, or to make healing teas and infusions. Creating sun tea is very similar to making sun water, with the addition of soaking herbs in the water. Like sun water, you can use sun tea to bless a particular area or for spell and ritual work.

You could also follow the same process to bless and steep a cup of tea with the sun’s healing energy. Choose herbs connected to the work you are planning on doing. Place the herbs in a large bowl, then pour in six cups of water (you may choose to add more or less water as needed). Place the bowl in a sunny window or outside in direct sunlight and allow it to steep for thirty minutes to an hour. If you choose to make your tea outside, place plastic wrap over it so nothing blows into the bowl.

Prosperity Sun Tea
2 parts ginseng
1 part orange peel
½ part cinnamon

4. Air: Enjoy this simple spell from Silver's Spells for Abundance by Silver RavenWolf. Using nothing more than a bell and the power of the air, draw abundance in all its forms into your business, home, and daily life.

Abundance from the Air
From the strong winds of change, to the gentle breezes of movement, to the use of holy breath, air magick can clean out those dusty cobwebs of procrastination, reverse a negative aspect or influence, or push along a project in the right direction. Like a small breeze that can coalesce into a mighty front, we are going to use an ancient technique called the cumulative spell that employs repetition, a basic characteristic of many folk enchantments. In the cumulative spell, a new element is added to the original simple statement, and the growing list is recited after each addition (much like the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”). Done preferably at the new moon, you are free to choose which day or planetary hour you desire. The only supply you will need is a bell.

The bell has served various religious functions all over the world, including Assyrian practices in 600 b.c.e., Chinese temple bells, Babylonian worship, Egyptian feasts, aboriginal invocations, Hindu rites, and invocations by Haitian vou- duns. To date, no one can pinpoint exactly when the bell entered human culture. Bells have been used for a variety of purposes, including amulets, fertility charms, a summons to deity, prophecy, curative agents, and, of course, as a musical instrument. Europeans rang bells to thwart the power of a thunderstorm and break the oncoming storm front.

In this spell we use the bell to summon Divinity and the elements as well as to ward off negativity.

Instructions: Hold your hands over the bell and ask Divinity for prosperity and protection. You can choose a favorite deity if you like. I simply used the word “Divinity” to keep the spell simple. This spell is to be done facing east (the position of air) at dawn (or when you arise from a night’s sleep—I realize we’ve got second and third shifters these days). Begin by saying: “I call forth Divinity.” Ring the bell, and say:

“I call forth the prosperity and protection of the element of earth. I magnetize the positive things I need and want to come to me. Now!” Ring the bell. Now say:

This is the spell
that works so well
that starts with a bell (ring the bell)
that brings a smile
that breaks the trial
that sweeps the room
and clears out doom.
That creates abundance
powered by redundancy
that brings prosperity. 

Note: At the end of the spell you can say specifically what it is that you want, then ring the bell.

To enhance this spell:
• Perform at dawn.
• Perform when the moon is in Gemini if you desire dramatic change.
• Perform on Friday in the hour of Venus.
• Perform on a cliff, bluff, or other high place where the wind is always present.
• Perform at Ostara (Spring Equinox).

Llewellyn's Fall 2014 Catalog Is Here!

Llewellyn's Fall 2014 Catalog

It’s here—Llewellyn’s Fall 2014 catalog featuring September through December 2014 new releases!
 Download the PDF here.

Headlining our Fall 2014 catalog is a wide array of books and decks, including:

• Llewellyn's Classic Tarot
• Oracle of the Angels
• Yoga and Body Image
• Celtic Tree Magic
• 365 Ways to Attract Good Luck
• Predicting Weather Events with Astrology
• And many more fabulous, forthcoming titles!

Perfect for browsing, this full-color catalog features a complete listing of our new releases for September through December, 2014.

The April New Moon Is Out--Check Your Inbox!

 For those of you who currently subscribe to our email newsletter for booksellers, The Moon, you may have noticed a few changes.

We've streamlined the look, included new features, and christened it with a new moniker: The New Moon. As with this blog, our goal is to really connect with you, our selling partners, each month and offer support, guidance, and resources with the aim of helping you grow and thrive in this ever-changing market.

Our April 2014 issue of the New Moon was mailed this morning. This issue includes:
-Cats Rule and Dogs Drool: 15 Feline-Friendly Items for Animal Lover
-Shelftalkers (Mystical Cats Tarot; 365 Tarot Spreads; Drawing Down the Sun; and Plant and Fungus Totems)
-A Stuffer (Voice of the Earth Tarot Spread for Earth Day)
-May New Releases
-Llewellyn's 2014 Spring/Summer Catalog
-Indie Stores' Top Five Picks
-And Much More!

If you did not receive a copy in your email inbox, you can also view it here: The New Moon, April 2014 Issue.

You can also visit our website to subscribe to The New Moon, ensuring that it reaches you each month (please note that you will need to log in/register to be able to join our mailing list).

Cats Rule, Dogs Drool: 15 Feline-Friendly Items for Any Animal Lover

We here at Llewellyn are equal-opportunity animal lovers, but one thing we do know is that felines are fast taking the world by storm. Cat film festivals, YouTube videos, and feline superstars like Maru and Grumpy Cat bring out the cat lover in all of us.

Thankfully, we can bask in all the furry glory with several feline-friendly books, decks, and oracles, all designed to inspire—and bring out the magical feline fascination from within.

1. The Marseille Cat Tarot
Some decks whisper. Some decks shout. This deck meows. The Marseille deck—of the original Tarot decks of the world—is now updated for the twenty-first century with adorable cats! The fabulous feline motifs of this unique deck add a cozy touch to any tarot collection and are sure to become favorites of tarot readers around the world.



 



2. and 3. Cat Wisdom Book and Inspirational Cards 

We recently announced that we will now carry Blue Angel Publishing, a high quality Australian publisher of books, oracle decks, CDs, and DVDs. New in our warehouse from them are several exciting products, including their Cat Wisdom Cards. A collection of photographs and kitten-inspired words of wisdom designed to celebrate the love that cats bring to our lives! Featuring 45 cards and a guidebook, this fun and inspiring card set will encourage you to reflect on your life from a new perspective. These make a great companion to the Cat Wisdom Book, similarly designed to celebrate the feline mystique and inspire a daily dose of cute. (And, dog lovers rejoice! Blue Angel also has available the Dog Wisdom Cards and Dog Wisdom Book .)

4. Mystical Cats Tarot

We simply could not be more excited for our Mystical Cats Tarot. Anyone who has ever owned—or been owned by—a cat knows its wild and mystical nature. With this deck, open the door to a magical world of feline enchantment that offers eternal and ancient wisdom.








5. and 6. Black Cats Tarot and Cats Inspirational Oracle

Last September, Lo Scarabeo released two feline-friendly decks, both of which are sure to please even the most discerning cat lover. Cats Inspirational Oracle features the feline experience is a fresco of countless conditions of the soul. Tarot expert and author Barbara Moore collaborated with artist Marco Turini to create the lively deck featuring 32 different cat breeds and scenarios. These light-hearted images celebrate the joys that fill a cat's life—luxurious naps, adventure and play, affection and love—and mirror our own.

The Black Cats Tarot is a gorgeous, Rider-Waite-based tarot that celebrates and honors the beautiful and magical black cats. Cleverly incorporating feline characteristics and legend into traditional tarot archetypes, this fanciful deck captures these creatures moving between worlds of reality and fantasy, the mundane and mystical. Disarmingly cute yet unmistakably wise, the black cats encourage you to explore your own animal nature.

7., 8., 9., 10., and 11. Perennial Favorites

The Enchanted Cat, a 2007 COVR Award winner, includes dozens of charms, spells, and meditations for working with feline power. A naming ceremony, lists of magickal cat names and correspondences, and spells and charms for your cat's collar are just a sampling of the feline-friendly magick inside.

Journey with the enlightened feline and welcome their unique secrets with the Tarot of Pagan Cats (also available as a cute and collectable mini version). Cats—cute, mysterious, mischievous, or aloof—seem to live in a world between worlds, a realm of magic and power. Access their unique wisdom with this beautifully illustrated deck, featuring traditional Rider-Waite imagery and Pagan symbols.

Designed in the Rider-Waite tradition, the easy-to-use Tarot of the White Cats (also available as a mini deck) is fun for all levels of tarot enthusiasts. Featuring majestic, albino kitties displaying their mystical and valiant personalities, these feline-themed cards are the perfect gift for your cat-loving friends (or yourself!).

12., 13., 14., and 15. Bags, Journals, and More

Lo Scarabeo has a number of fabulous, feline items to make your journey just that much more magical. The Black Cat Satin Bag and the Egyptian Cat Satin Bag are both perfect for keeping your cat-themed (and others, of course!) decks safe, or for decorative and gifting purposes. The Cat Note Box makes keeping household and work notes organized, while the Cat's Eyes Journal makes a perfect place to record your dreams, spells, ruminations, insights, and more,

The March New Moon Is Out--Check Your Inbox!

For those of you who currently subscribe to our email newsletter for booksellers, The Moon, you may have noticed a few changes.

We've streamlined the look, included new features, and christened it with a new moniker: The New Moon. As with this blog, our goal is to really connect with you, our selling partners, each month and offer support, guidance, and resources with the aim of helping you grow and thrive in this ever-changing market.

Our March 2014 issue of the New Moon was mailed yesterday morning. This issue includes:
-3 New Ways to Welcome Spring
-Shelftalkers (The Witch's Broom; Tarot Beyond the Basics; Ghostly Tales; and Reincarnation)
-April New Releases
-Llewellyn's 2014 Spring/Summer Catalog
-Indie Stores' Top Five Picks
-And Much More!

If you did not receive a copy in your email inbox, you can also view it here: The New Moon, March 2014 Issue.

You can also visit our website to subscribe to The New Moon, ensuring that it reaches you each month (please note that you will need to log in/register to be able to join our mailing list).

3 New Ways to Welcome Spring

This winter just doesn't want to abate; between massive snow and ice storms, rogue polar vortices, and the usual dearth of daylight, I think it is safe to say that most of us Northern Hemisphere folks are eager for spring.

Spring is a glorious season, one of rebirth, of renewal, of hope. As animals emerge from winter dens and we ourselves emerge from within houses and from underneath layers of coats and scarves, discover a few ways to bring the feelings of spring's vitality into our homes, our offices, and our spirits.

1. Make a Decorative Spring Broom.
   Deborah Blake's newest release, The Witch's Broom, includes the history and lore of broomsticks and the witches who use them. Along with original illustrations from Mickie
   
   Mueller and anecdotes from well-known witches (including Christopher Penczak, Tess Whitehurst, Linda Raedisch, and Melanie Marquis), the book includes instructions for making several brooms, from decorative to ceremonial to special occasion. Bring the essence of spring into your store or your home with a decorative spring broom, instructions courtesy of The Witch's Broom.

   Many witches like to decorate their homes or apartments with items that are related in some way to their practice of the Craft. Brooms can be a wonderful ornamental touch, and you can make them obviously witchy by covering them with pentacles, runes, and the like, or keep them subtle (lots of people have small cinnamon brooms hanging in their homes, for instance, and most of them aren’t witches) if you share your space with a non-witch, or live in an area where being openly Pagan can get you into trouble.

   As with most other brooms, you can buy one already adorned and ready to hang on your wall, or start from scratch and decorate it any way you want. The only limits are those of your imagination and crafting skill (and maybe your wallet, since some things cost more than others).

   How you decorate your broom is completely up to you, and will depend on your own personal style and desires. No two decorative brooms will be exactly alike, just like no two witches are exactly alike. And isn’t that grand!

   Decorative brooms can also have a theme and a purpose. Here are a few suggestions for a decorative Spring Broom, but the possibilities are truly endless. (For our Southern Hemisphere friends, this is a perfect craft to create and put away for a few months; or, conversely create a decorate Autumn broom to welcome that portion of the seasonal cycle.)

   • Pastel colors such as pink, lavender, light blue, pale yellow, and pale green (ribbons are nice in a rainbow of spring colors)
   • Spring herbs and/or dried flowers, such as daffodils, tulips, or anything else that grows in your area. You can even use fresh flowers to give it a spark of life
   • Representations of spring goddesses and gods, such as Persephone, Brigid, Eostre, Flora, Freya, Osiris, Pan, and Eros
   • Hang the broom up every Spring Equinox, and take it down at the Summer Solstice (when you would replace it with a similar summer-themed decorative broom)

   
   
2. Cast an Ostara Serpent Magic Tarot Spread.
   Coming in May is 365 Tarot Spreads, the newest release from Tarot Diva author Sasha Graham. Make the hallowed (and for many, daily) practice of tarot into daily journey for
   
   answers to any question with interesting and magical results. Featuring spreads for multi-cultural traditions, holidays, rituals, lore, and magic, this guide can be used year after year, with spreads falling on every possible calendar date. Each one is based on an important historical, magical, or fascinating occurrence on that particular date in history. This daily guide is concerned with the essential journey to find truth and answers, rooted in every spread with topics from love and money to career and life path. With an explanation of each spread and questions to focus on while reading, you’ll achieve your quest for answers every day.

   The Ostara Serpent Magic Spread
   On This Day (March 20)
   Ostara is the Anglo-Saxon spelling of the name for the Germanic deity of spring. Her attributes include eggs, babies and bunnies, coinciding with Easter but holding pagan rather than Christian resonance.

Summation of Spread
Spring, in addition to its fertility rites, marks the awakening of all slumbering creatures, ideas, and plans. In Scotland, highlanders traditionally pounded the ground with a stick until a serpent emerged. The reptile’s behavior gave an indication of how early spring would come. The Ostara Serpent Magic Spread seeks to discover what slumbers within in you.

Cast Your Cards
An excellent spread to perform on a warm spring day, be sure not to rush through it. Arrive at specific answers to each question before moving ahead. Cast the cards as a snake uncoiling itself:
1. What is reborn this year?
2. How do I activate my passion?
3. How can I stimulate my intellect?
4. What must become conscious?
5. How do I become an active participant in my life?
6. What does metamorphosis mean to me?
7. What can I uncoil and become free?
8. What message does the serpent whisper in my ear?




3. Clean That Neglected Closet (or Drawer, or Garage....)
   Spring is the time of year that everyone associates with cleaning: the opening of windows to circulate fresh air; ridding the home of what was gathered over the long winter and is no longer needed; and the removal of many months' of accumulated salt, mud, and grime. Llewellyn has several books on feng shui, including more recent releases Mind, Body, Home by Tisha Morris and Magical Housekeeping by Tess Whitehurst. Tisha's book presents your home as an integral component for holistic living, correlating every room with its physical, mental, or emotional counterpart in you. Your home is a reflection of you, from foundation to roof, and being in tune with its energy allows you to create positive changes—from enhancing wealth to improving relationships—in your life. Tess's book reveals how your home can be a powerful catalyst for personal transformation and manifestation, and she offers a variety of simple, whimsical ways (like a Magical Stress Eraser Mist) to create a harmonious home while enhancing your own happiness, intuition, and magical power.
   
   One of the first mandates put forth in each book: clear that clutter! As Tess Whitehurst put it in her article, "Make Your Home a Magical Tool:"
   

   "Remember 'As above, so below?' One thing that means is that physical clutter is never just clutter. It always reflects and holds in place unwanted conditions in our thoughts, emotions, and life experiences. And, when we look around our homes and everything we see is something that lifts our spirits and makes us feel good, our lives are characterized by harmony, joy, and success.
   
   So, let go of the extras. If there's clutter in your home, there’s nothing better you could be doing than clearing it. Take your time, knowing that every time you let go of a piece of clutter, your energy field is lightened and clarified, which immediately nourishes and benefits every area of your life."

   Tisha Morris recently contributed a guest blog post to our Body & Soul blog, titled, "Home is Where the Heart is…And Where Our Shadow Sides Lurk." In it she describes the correlation to
   
   
   that one drawer, closet, room, garage, etc. where we keep things hidden behind closed doors and our "shadow side," that part of ourselves we want to keep from the world at large. The aspects of our shadow sides—as varied as a hot temper or a hidden talent—can actually be useful in our daily lives, if only we address them. Until we clean those hidden compartments, we cannot reclaim aspects and parts of ourselves that we need in order to become whole and step into our authentic selves.

So tackle that clutter, cast your cards, and brighten your home or office with a spring broom! Bring the essence of the season into your heart and home.