The Practical Grimoire of Peace & Renewal
Old Ways to Turn the Year, Keep a Quiet House and Remember the People You LoveThe Practical Grimoire
Mark the new moon, the old feast days and the people you love with customs you can do at home, each from a named, dated book.
- Know where every custom comes from: the old words, author and year, with the old kept apart from what was adapted.
- Start with what you have: a candle in a jar, flour, water, garden greens. Nothing to buy.
- Turn the whole year: 32 workings, from Christmas Eve to All Souls, and a 32-plant herbal with Gerard's 1633 woodcuts.
- Build your own year: worksheets, a log and a year wheel to draw.
176 pages · 7 x 10 in paperback · black-and-white interior · by Sarah F.
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Keep the turning year by hand,
the way they really did
From the first new moon to All Souls, every custom dated, sourced and set out in steps.
You already feel the year turn. The first thin crescent after sunset. The greens coming in at Christmas. A name you say quietly on a certain day in November.
With this book you'll mark those days the way real households did, from a named, dated book, with what is already in your kitchen and garden.
The biggest candle in the house on Christmas Eve, lit at the proper time and not before, as Henderson recorded in Cleveland in 1879. A small struan for each person on Michaelmas Eve, named as it is shaped, from Carmichael in 1900. A word to the bees, or to the garden, when someone in the family dies, as a Suffolk cottager did before 1849.
Then you'll build your own year: your birthdays, your fresh starts and your remembrance days, on a wheel you draw yourself.
You go looking for something to do on the day itself. And you find...
A list of rituals with no source and no reason, dressed up as centuries old.
A modern eight-spoke wheel sold to you as the way it was always done.
A candle in a pile of dry herbs, filmed for the camera, with no word about pets or fire.
A kit you're told to buy before you're allowed to begin.
None of that is on you. It's what fills the shelf when nobody goes back to the old books.
The old words first, with the author, the book and the year.
A label on every working: Old, or Old pattern, adapted, with what changed and why.
A wheel that shows only the days the sources date.
Steps with a candle in a jar, flour, a bowl of water and garden greens.
Pet and fire safety wherever a working needs it.
EVERY QUOTATION CHECKED WORD FOR WORD AGAINST THE OLD PRINTED BOOKS.
Greet the next new moon
the way Barra did
Chapter 1, Fresh Starts, p 30. Labeled Old: done as the source records it.
From the old books: “When they first see the new moon they make their obeisance to it as to a great chief. The women curtsy gracefully and the men bow low, raising their bonnets reverently.” Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, vol 1, 1900, p 122, on Barra.
What you'll need: your eyes, a clear western sky after sunset, and the words on a card until you know them.
The steps:
- Watch for a thin bright curve low in the west after sunset.
- Go outside and stand facing it.
- Bow or curtsy once, as on Barra.
- Say Carmichael's words, softly or in your head.
- Write the date in your log: tonight is the moon's first night.
Carmichael's words are a Christian prayer, printed whole. Beside them sits a version without the names, labeled as ours, so the choice is yours. The page ends with a safety line, the questions people ask, ways to make it yours and a space for your log.
Every working in the book follows that build: the source, its reason, the steps, the safety, your log.
Every season has its days,
and every day has its page
Eight chapters, from Fresh Starts to Endings and Rest. Each one opens with a true story from the sources, then gives you the workings, a page of the old books' own words and a page to build your own.
A true story at every chapter door
Each chapter opens with a dark engraved page and a story from the sources. Here, the young English lady who kept bowing to the new moon, as Carmichael told it in 1900.
Find your day in seconds
The Finder sorts every working by season and by need: a fresh start, calm in the house, remembering, rest. Find the day, turn to the page.
Only the days the old books date
The wheel shows the feasts the sources record, with their dates. It is not a modern eight-spoke wheel, and the page says so.
The Christmas candle, at its proper time
On Christmas Eve, the biggest candle in the house, lit at a moment you choose and out before bed. You keep the stub to light next year's.
A struan for each person you love
Michaelmas Eve bread from Carmichael, set out for three cups of flour and a home oven, with a small loaf named for each of the family.
The herbal, with Gerard's own woodcuts
32 plants, each with its 1633 woodcut, Latin name, an old quotation, how to know it and its line from the ASPCA pet list.
Build your own turning point
Seven steps and the nine old patterns behind every custom in the book, so you can read any of them and make your own.
A year wheel that becomes yours
Draw your own year on it: the old days you keep, birthdays, anniversaries, remembrance days and fresh starts.
Here's what you'll do
from one new moon to the next
32 workings in eight chapters, each one from a named, dated book.
- Mark the first sight of the new moon. Greet it, turn your ring, write down the first night's dream: four fresh-start workings in Chapter 1.
- Bring the green in, and take it down on time. Every London house decked with green, as Stow recorded, then the greens down on Candlemas Eve, as Herrick wrote in 1648.
- Keep the light, safely. The Christmas candle, the new fire, a light on All Souls' Eve: each one with a candle in a jar or a battery lamp.
- Bake the year's bread. The Lammas loaf, the Michaelmas struan and soul cakes, written out for a home oven.
- Keep a quiet house. A bowl of sweet herbs where you sit, old words for coming home, a story evening. Customs to keep, never a treatment.
- Remember your people by hand. Telling the bees, a sprig of rosemary, a sweet-scented pot, soul cakes. Nothing here contacts the dead.
- Lay work down. A day of rest from Janet Currie's poem, a Christmas week of visiting, a day you choose to go back.
- Build a year that is yours. Seven steps, nine old patterns, 4 worksheets, a 6-page log and a year wheel to draw.
Keep the people you love in mind,
with your own hands
Some time before 1849, a Suffolk cottager was asked whether she had told her bees when her aunt died. “Oh, yes; when my aunt died I told every skep (i. e. hive) myself, and put them into mourning.”
Chapter 7 keeps small things like hers: a word to the bees or the garden, a sprig of rosemary, a sweet-scented pot you tend yourself, a light on All Souls' Eve, a soul cake for each visitor.
Nothing in it contacts the dead or asks for a sign. No page tells you how to grieve, or for how long. Each step is an invitation you can leave for another day, and the book names real help plainly: if a loss stays heavy, a doctor, a counselor or a local helpline.
Made for the woman who wants
to know where it came from
Not for you if...
- You want a promise that a working will bring calm or relief.
- You want to contact the dead or receive messages.
- You want a modern sabbat system presented as old.
- You'd rather buy a kit than use your own kitchen.
- You want workings aimed at someone else.
For you if...
- You want to mark the new moon, the feast days and your own fresh starts with real steps.
- You want each custom's book and year, with the old kept apart from the new.
- You'd rather use a candle in a jar, flour and garden greens than anything you must buy.
- You keep pets and want each plant checked against the ASPCA list.
- You want to build a year of your own, with a log and a wheel to draw.
One goal to a book,
all four on your shelf
Same labels, same safety, a new goal in each.
Protection for the home, the threshold, the bed and the people you love. Love & Relationships for love, family, friends and the people you work with. Prosperity for the purse, the larder and the harvest. Peace & Renewal for the turning year, a quiet house and the people you remember.
Each book: 176 pages, the old words with their author and year, the same labels and the same pet and fire safety. The Complete Series brings all four for $119.95, against $159.80 bought one by one.
Keep the turning year by hand,
starting tonight
Open to p 11: a bowl of rosemary, a rose and a few kitchen herbs by the chair where you sit in the evening. Then the Finder, the next new moon, and every feast day after it.
Read it, try a working, keep your log for a month. Your copy comes with our 30-day money-back guarantee.
Questions about Peace & Renewal
Straight answers, from the book itself.
1.I'm new to this. Can I start here?
Yes. Part One walks you in: a first working you can do tonight (p 11), how each working is built, your kit, timing, safety and the method. Every working has numbered steps. If you'd like the wider craft by topic first, The All In One Complete Book of Shadows is where WitchWish starts.
2.Which Practical Grimoire should I read first?
Any of them. Each book stands alone, with one goal to a book, and where a custom belongs to another title the page names it. Start with Peace & Renewal if you want to mark the year, fresh starts and remembrance days.
3.Is it Wiccan? Is it a wheel of the year book?
No. The feast days keep the names and dates the old sources give them: Candlemas, Lammas, Michaelmas, All Souls. Modern names such as Imbolc are mentioned as modern. The wheel on p 28 shows only the days the sources date, and the page says plainly that it is not a modern eight-spoke wheel.
4.Is there religious content?
Many of the sources are Christian, such as Carmichael's Hebridean blessings and the church feast days. Their prayers are printed whole, and beside each one is an adapted version without the names, labeled as ours. You choose which to use.
5.Does it promise calm, or help with grief?
No. These are customs to keep, never a treatment, and the book says so on its first pages: it never promises calm, relief or an end to grief. Wherever grief or worry is near, it names real help: if sadness, worry or grief is heavy or lasting, talk to a doctor, a counselor or a local helpline.
6.Does anything in it contact the dead?
No. Remembrance here is light, bread, flowers and words: telling the bees, a sprig of rosemary, a remembrance pot, a light on All Souls' Eve, soul cakes. Nothing calls, answers or asks the dead for a sign, and no page tells you how to grieve or for how long.
7.I have pets. Is it safe to use?
Every plant in the workings is checked against the ASPCA list of plants toxic and non-toxic to pets, and the page says which. Rosemary, thyme, rose, basil, lemon balm and sage are non-toxic; lavender, chamomile, mint, holly, ivy and bay are toxic and kept out of reach. Mistletoe berries, yew, box and lilies are never ingredients.
8.Do I need to buy anything?
No. Your kit is your kitchen (p 14): a candle in a glass jar or a battery lamp, flour and oats, a bowl of water, a jug, ribbon and whatever greens your garden has. No essential oils and no white sage.
9.What do “Old” and “Old pattern, adapted” mean?
Old means done the way the source records it. Old pattern, adapted means the custom is recorded, then changed for today, and a box on the page says what changed and why. Modern means no old source; it is used only on the build-your-own pages, and they say so.
10.What about fire?
Every working with a flame has an indoor way, a candle in a glass jar or a battery lamp. The book's rule is never to leave a flame alone and never to burn one all night. Outdoor fires are only where allowed, never on a dry or windy night, with water at hand.
11.Do the dates matter where I live?
The feast dates follow the northern year, as the sources give them, and Easter dates are printed for 2027 to 2036. Many workings have no set day at all, and the method, worksheets and year wheel let you set your own days.
12.How big is it, and what if it isn't for me?
176 pages, 7 x 10 in paperback, black-and-white interior with a matte color cover, by Sarah F. Inside: 32 workings, a 32-plant herbal with Gerard's 1633 woodcuts, worksheets, a workings log and a year wheel. It's printed for your order and ships free, and it comes with our 30-day money-back guarantee.