Starting Your First Grimoire Without the Pressure

In the top-left corner of my ritual photographs, there is an open notebook with a fountain pen resting across it. It isn’t a prop. It is my working grimoire, and it is far messier than it looks in the picture.

A grimoire, sometimes called a Book of Shadows, is simply your own record of your practice. It holds what you’ve learned, what you’ve tried and what happened. Here is how to start one without freezing at the first blank page.

Choose an ordinary notebook

A beautiful leather journal can feel too precious to write in. Start with a notebook you won’t mind spilling wax on. You can always copy your favourite pages into something beautiful later. A ring binder or a notes app works too.

Five sections to begin with

1. Intentions: what you’re working on and why.
2. Rituals: what you did, when, and the moon phase if you noticed it.
3. Correspondences: colours, herbs and stones, and what they mean to you.
4. Readings: cards or pendulum answers, with the date.
5. Results and reflections: what changed, in your life or in you.

Write it like a diary, not a textbook

The most useful grimoires are personal. “Lit a green candle for the interview. Felt calmer than expected. Got a second interview two weeks later” is worth more than a copied page of planetary hours. Your own experience is the knowledge.

Keep it going

• Write one line after every ritual, even a tiny one.
• Reread it at each new moon.
• Tuck in your ritual reports and photographs. Many customers print theirs and keep them here.

A first entry

Every order comes with a written report and photographs, and both are easy to print and paste in. If you are studying, writing or starting something creative, my wisdom and study rituals and creativity and focus work make a good first page.