Bewitching the Elements

by Gabriela Herstik

[Jo]

4.5 Stars.

Being such a huge fan of Gabriela Herstik's first book, Craft, I was so excited to get my hands on a copy of her second book, Bewitching the Elements. With this book, she's given us so many ways to work with the elements in your practice, there's something for practically every witch.

I really adore Herstik's writing style. She clearly knows how to write, with a background of writing for various magazines, but she does so in a way that feels like you're having a conversation with a friend. Bewitching the Elements is educational, but also fun, and Herstik's voice and personality shine right through. Reading her books is just such a joy in and of itself, learning from her is a bonus.

And there's so much to learn, and try out and experiment with. For every element, Herstik talks about what each element means and represents in a magical sense, ways to connect with the element, talks us through multiple visualisations, crystals to work with, tarot cards relating to the element and spreads, deities related to the element, and how to work with and create altars for them, glamour magic to embody the element, journal questions, an indepth look at the zodiac signs related to each element, and rituals. If you've ever bought one, Bewitching the Elements is very much like Herstik's ritual guides, but one based on the elements rather than the Esbats and Sabbats, and a hell of a lot longer. It's just incredible the wealth of information kept within these pages.

As I've mentioned, there's something in this book for almost any witch. Now there are a lot of visualisations, several for each element, and, as I've discussed recently, visualisations don't work for me. So there is a fair amount in this that doesn't resonate with me. But what I've found with both Herstik's books that I don't need to resonate with everything to gain something from them. Not resonating with something - especially in Herstik's books (I don't know, maybe it's something to do with how she writes?) - leads me to figure out what does, which is so helpful. But there are aspects of this book that do resonate. I loved everything on glamour, especially in the Water and Fire chapters, everything on tarot, everything Herstik writes about deities, the breathing exercises in Air's chapter, the entirety of the Water and Spirit chapters (minus visualisations), which really spoke to me, and most of Fire - there's a fair bit on sex magic, which isn't for me, but everything else was great.

I found as I was reading, I would mentally add to what Herstik was saying, like my own associations of the elements, or certain deities I think would work for certain elements. I would think about the elements differently which would lead to reflection and asking myself questions, and figuring things out. All of which led to greater contact with the Goddess^! Something about Bewitching the Elements unlocked something in me that allowed the Goddess to flow through. I now have a greater connection with her, she's comig through loud and clear, and it's absolutely wonderful! I have a huge amount of love for Bewitching the Elements for what it's brough about for me. It's amazing!

The only negative I have is that it can be kind of repetitive in places. Although the visualisations weren't for me, I still read them. And each one starts and ends roughly the same. Herstik does a great job of re-wording things to a certain degree, so it's not a copy and paste job, but they're so very similar for each and every visualisation. What's frustrating is that before starting the meditation rituals, Herstik mentions that you'll want to set up space, so "follow the instructions on page 15," as they've already been set out. I wish, similarly, at the very beginning, a very basic outline for a meditation visualisation had been written, in the same way for setting up space, and each visualisation would start with something like, "For this visualisation, follow steps 1-5 on page X, this time using the heart breath," or whatever additions needed to be made for a particular visualisation, and ended, "to finish this visualisation, follow steps 8-11." I know this would mean a lot of flipping backwards and forwards, but I feel only at the start, because there are so many, these steps would end up being memorised, plus you've got to flip back and forth for setting up space anyway. And as Herstik herself says herself at the start of each visualisation, the reader may want to read through it several times to familiarise themselves with it, or record themselves reading it out, so there's that option, too, for flipping back and forth. I just feel this would have solved things, because there are so many visualisations, and it really does get so repetitive.

But otherwise, I'm a big, big fan of this book. I will absolutely be dipping in and out of it to remind myself of things and to try out the tarot spreads, and so on, as I do still with Craft. And I'm so looking forward to Herstik's guided journal, Embody Your Magic, which is being published in September. I really recommend giving Bewitching the Elements a read, whether you're a new or experienced witch, it's great!