The Magical Year

The Celtic seasonal wheel is based on eight festivals – Winter Solstice, Imbolc, Spring Equinox, Beltane, Summer Solstice, Lughnasadh, Autumn Equinox and Samhain. Together, these lead us through the cycle of the year, aligning our awareness with the seasonal pattern of the earth beneath our feet.In this book on the solstices, equinoxes and other festivals within the sacred cycle, Danu Forest reveals the secrets of each festival in turn and skilfully revives ancient traditions, encouraging us to reconnect with nature, and ourselves, with a host of practical ideas and rituals. Decorate your home with beautiful seasonal crafts and altars to manifest sacred space. Make gifts to give to friends, cast spells for creativity, fertility and blessing, and use the abundance of nature in recipes that can be enjoyed as part of your seasonal celebrations or for self-healing and empowerment. Meditate on the changing heavens throughout the year with Celtic star lore. Deepen your experience of the turning seasons, from the rest and renewal of winter through the revels of spring and summer to the soul or spirit nights of autumn with magical guided visualizations. This cycle of conscious celebration helps us, year on year, to align with nature’s rhythms with greater wonder and insight.

Based on sound extensive research, as well as many years of practical experience through both personal practice and teaching, the book will act as a guide for weaving a new, more soulful way of living into readers’ everyday existence.

Danu Forest has been a practising druid witch and Celtic shaman for over twenty years, has been teaching Celtic shamanism and witchcraft for over a decade, and runs a shamanic consultation and healing practice. She is the author of Nature Spirits: wyrd lore and wild fey magic (Wooden Books), The Druid Shaman (Moon Books) and Celtic Tree Magic (Llewellyn), creates and teaches email correspondence courses, writes a "Danu's Cauldron" blog for witchesandpagans.com, and has been published in magazines such as Kindred Spirit, Soul and Spirit, and Pagan Dawn. She is also an Ard BanDrui in the Irish Druid Clan of Dana, an ordained priestess, a druid grade member of OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates (healers/seers) and Druids) and a member of The Society of Shamanic Practitioners. For more information, see www.danuforest.co.uk