In The Circle: Crafting the Witches' Path

Daffodils dance in a chilly spring breeze . . . a butterfly alights on a sunny marigold . . . sleepy autumn energy moves through an apple tree . . . in a winter garden, a redstart greedily strips berries from holly. And so the seasons rise and fall, the wheel of the year turns, and the sacred circle of birth, death, and regeneration goes on.

This simple and beautiful guide combines author Elen Hawke's personal accounts of sabbats and moon rites with clear, common sense instruction that makes witchcraft accessible to anyone who wishes to enter the circle.

Journey through the Moon's phases and the eight seasonal festivals; gain an understanding of Goddess and God; learn how to build a shrine, perform ritual, and collect or make magical tools. Evocative and poetic, In the Circle will take you deeper into your inner core, the place where you can connect to the spirit of Nature and to your own innate knowledge.

Tree and bird, stone and star

The spirituality of witchcraft is experienced through the world around us, through Nature and through the bodies in which we live. The sense of the divine is not remote from the world, but is part of one's own being.

To be a witch means living in harmony with the ebb and flow of the seasonal tides and the cycles of Sun, Moon, and weather; to have a love of everything that lives, a respect for and sympathy with tree and bird, stone and star, as well as our fellow humans.

This is expressed through aligning oneself with the unfolding patterns of the ritual year, and the monthly waxing and waning of the moon. Witches believe that working in harmony with these cycles will nourish the spirit of the land while aligning their own spiritual development with the soul of Nature.

-Elen Hawke