Introduction to the Heartland Hedge Witch

 Merry Meet!

My name is Jen Marie and I'm the Heartland Hedge Witch. I'm a Wild Woman (not quite yet a Crone) wife, mom and Mimi from an area of the US where the Ozarks meet the Heartland. I've been practicing for more years than I have not with the last 15 or so of those being out of the broom closet. My path is very eclectic and am truly a Hedge Witch, my solitary practice includes bits of green, kitchen, and hearth magic as well as divination and riding the hedge. I read tarot, auras, and have prophetic dreams. I'm lucky enough to be known as the witch of my village (village here meaning my collective of people who I surround myself with on a regular basis). The purpose of this introduction is to give you a bit of insight into the person behind the screen. I do hope you'll grab a cup of tea and join me on this Grimoire journey.

I manage a few different blogs, but all are focused on the craft in different aspects. 

The Heartland Hedge Witch - my main blog with journal topics, seasonal celebrations, and more

Grimoire Guide - you are here

The Cozy Craft - dedicated to adding a bit of whimsy and cozy to your personal craft

Of Cauldron and Kettle - my recipe and kitchen witch blog

Occasionally you will find some cross-over posts as some topics might apply to more than one aspect, but these are definitely their own stand alone blogs. If you enjoy reading my ramblings, I invite you to explore more of each blog.

Blessed Be,
Jen Marie

Commonplace Grimoire Guide Introduction

   Merry Meet!

    Welcome my friends to the Heartland Hedge Witch's Grimoire Guide. My goal with this blog is to give a step by step guide for setting up a Grimoire in a Commonplace Book style. If you're new to the idea of a Commonplace book, the basic concept is that you have a single book where you can keep all of your ideas - quotes, poems, recipes, and ideas from other books are typical Commonplace Book entries. Now, imagine that you have that same kind of book, but it's designed to keep all of your witchy knowledge including spells, correspondences, and more.

 Typically, grimoires are designed to be completed in sections with all of the information on a single topic grouped together, but we witches are learning more every day and that makes keeping an organized grimoire a bit more difficult. Some witches opt to section off their blank books in advance, allocating a certain number of pages to each section while others prefer using a binder system so they can add to or take away from at any time. These systems work fabulously for some people, and I am in no way discounting those systems if they work for you, but merely giving a different option.

    The benefit of the Commonplace system are that you can add to your book at any time. The books themselves are typically smaller (the book that I'm using as an example throughout this blog is an A5 size, 5.83x8.27 inches, and fits nicely in my bag so that I can keep it with me. By design a Commonplace Book is meant to be added to without rhyme or reason, entries are added as information is gathered. This may sound like it's completely unorganized, but quite the opposite is true. Instead of organizing your material based on a table of contents, you're actually organizing your table of contents based on the information. This allows for a much more natural flow, but also allows you to keep your information easy to find. Also, though completely not required, my Commonplace Book system provides color coding that helps make information topics easy to find at a glance.

    I encourage you to try this system, even as a stepping stone for adding information into your larger grimoire, a process we'll explore more in the future. For now, I ask that you grab a cup of tea and cozy up and learn more about the process and see if it's right for you.

Blessed Be,
JenMarie 

Gathering Your Supplies - Part 1- the Book(s)

Merry Meet!

    When starting your Commonplace Grimoire journey, the first thing you'll need is a book. I must admit, I have a fetish for all sorts of stationery supplies so when I started working on this project, I went looking for just the right book and ended up with a set of them for different uses within this project. All of the books I'm using for this project are from Amazon so they're readily available if you choose to use the same books and format that I'm using.

A5 Lined Hardcover Bound Book

A5 Dot-Grid Hardcover Bound Book

A5 Lined Hardcover Spiral Bound Book

A4 2026 Spiral Bound Planner

In my introduction post I mentioned one of the benefits of following this system was the ability to keep your book with you because it was a nice medium size. Part of my deciding factors for choose a book are that I wanted a true hard cover so that it would be durable enough to carry with me and stitched binding so that it wouldn't fall apart (glue binding isn't durable enough to live in my bag). I also knew I wanted thick pages so that I didn't have to worry about bleed-through with the different pens and markers I would be using (more on those in another post). The next decision was on whether I wanted a dot-grid or lined book and this is where I ran into a conundrum. I prefer lined for everyday use, but if I'm drawing something out (like a tarot spread or an alter layout) I prefer dot-grid. At first I considered just getting some loose-leaf grid paper and making my drawings then adding them into my book, but that would give me an entire section of "add ins" with my tarot spreads and that seems to go against the idea of a simple and easy system. So, instead I purchased both versions of the same book. My lined book is my regular everyday in my bag book and my dot grid book is solely for divination.

Full disclosure, while I was looking for these books, I found another A5 version that is spiral bound along with an A4 (8.3x11.7 inches) spiral bound planner. I ended up with both of these in addition to my other books. I've decided to use the A5 spiral bound for my witch's journal (following the prompts over at my main blog The Heartland Hedge Witch) because the spiral binding isn't ideal for being thrown in my bag, but it's perfect for a lay-flat journal that I keep safely at home. The planner I use in conjunction with my blog posts as well as keeping all festivals and holidays documented.

Of course, you don't need multiple books to get started, you need one notebook that you feel most comfortable with. If this is a simple composition book from your local big bin store that's just fine. Building this grimoire is a personal experience and there is absolutely no judgement of any of the supplies you choose.

Blessed Be,
Jen Marie

Gathering Your Supplies - Part 2 - Writing Supplies

 Merry Meet!

If you've been following along from the beginning, you know that I love stationery supplies of all kinds. When I started this project I went through the mountains of stationery supplies that I already had on hand. You can absolutely use what you have on hand, none of these supplies are required to get started with your common place grimoire. 

Mildliners by Zebra are the primary use of color within this project. They're very versatile and can be used as both highlighters and markers. I love them for this project because they add color and can be added to a page after it is written.

I have a tendency to color coordinate my supplies when I'm working on a big project like this and I definitely did that with the selection of Mildliners I chose for my commonplace grimoire.

You can see the sampling above that I've got a selection of twelve different colors that I'll be using in the books and I've named all of them. If you would like to use the same color palette, I've added a listing of the actual Mildliner colors as well as the sets they are found in.

Green Meadow - Mild Green - Cool & Refined Color Set

Marigold - Mild Gold - Warm Color Set

Bright Peach - Mild Orange - Fluorescent Color Set

Rosehip - Mild Red - Cool & Refined Color Set

Moonstone - Mild Gray - Cool & Refined Color Set*

London Fog - Mild Dark Gray - Friendly Color Set*

Lavender Bud - Mild Cool Gray - Neutral Color Set*

Champagne - Mild Cream - Neutral Color Set*

Sage Brush - Mild Olive - Neutral Color Set*

Weathered Bone - Mild Beige - Neutral Color Set*

Warm Chestnut - Mild Copper - Neutral Color Set*

Cocoa Powder - Mild Brown - Warm Color Set* 

I used the color identifier found at the Zebra website to list color names and sets, however, all of the colors marked with an asterisk (*) are part of the Neutral set that I recently purchased on Amazon so these colors can definitely be found in more than one set.

To purchase the vintage neutrals Mildliners set I have, visit this Amazon listing.

The bulk of the writing will be done with my Pilot Juice .38 pens (these are super fine lined and write so beautifully) and the Mildliners will be to color coordinate pages by theme/type (we'll get into that when we start on the table of contents/index). 

To purchase the Pilot Juice .38 in black, visit this Amazon listing.

I will add that while I was looking for an Amazon link for the pens Pilot Juice pens I discovered that they make the .38 in many different colors, including brown, which I think would be an absolutely lovely addition to this color palette. 

I'll also be adding color using these SARASA pens from Zebra. I purchased a two pack of pens from Amazon to get the colors shown above (but the packs included a few extra colors not shown).

If you would like to purchase the same two pack that I did, visit this Amazon listing.

Please remember that NONE of these supplies are vital to getting started, you literally need nothing more than a notebook and pen. The idea behind this project was not to create a large expense for anyone, but to share a system of recording information on the craft in an analog fashion.

Blessed Be,
Jen Marie

Creating Content Areas

 Merry Meet!

Today I want to share with you how to create content areas within your common place grimoire and give you some ideas for areas you might want within your book. Remember, this process is completely personal to your craft and if I have an area that doesn't speak to you, you don't have to use it. This is a guide, not a grade.

If you remember from my writing supplies post, I'm working with the Mildliners in my color palette to designate different areas of content within my books and I have selected twelve Mildliners to work with so in theory I could have twelve content areas. 

In my workings on this project, the list I have come up with for areas are:

I. Basics
    A. Circles
    B. Alters
    C. Correspondences
        1. Colors
        2. Crystals
        3. Water
        4. Dirt
        5. Salt
        6. Metals
    D. Types of Magic/Witchcraft
        1. Nature & Earth Based
            a. Green
            b. Hedge
            c. Sea
            d. Elemental
        2. Home & Practice Based
            a. Kitchen
            b. Eclectic
            c. Solitary
            d. Secular
        3. Spiritual & Ceremonial
            a. Cosmic/Astrological
            b. Ceremonial
            c. Shamanic
            d. Hereditary
        4. Religious Based
            a. Wiccan
            b. Dianic
            c. Celtic/Norse/Kemetism

II. Tools & Divination
    A. Cartomancy
        1. Tarot
        2. Oracle
        3. Playing Cards
    B. Runes
        1. Nordic
        2. Witches' Runes
    C. Pendulum
    D. Numerology
    E. Sigils
    F. Aura Readings

III. Calendar & Celebrations
    A. Wheel of the Year (Northern Hemisphere)
        1. Imbolc - Candlemas  
        2. Ostara - Vernal Equinox
        3. Beltane
        4. Litha - Summer Solstice
        5. Lughnasadh - Lammas - Summer Harvest
        6. Mabon - Witch's Thanksgiving - Autumnal Equinox
        7. Samhain - Witch's New Year - Halloween
        8. Yule - Winter Solstice
    B. Festivals
    C. Full Moons
        1. Traditional Names
        2. Native American 13 Moons
    D. Days of the Week

IV. Cosmic
    A. Astrology
    B. Cultural Zodiac
        1. Chinese
        2. Vedic
        3. Celtic
        4. Egyptian
        5. Mayan
    C. Cosmic Events
    D. Moon Phases
    E. Planetary Correspondences and Paths 

V. Home & Hearth
    A. Kitchen - Recipes
    B. Home Rituals
    C. Herbs & Uses
    D. The Witch's Garden
    E. Foraging 

VI. Folk Magic

VII. Spells & Rituals
    A. Intent
        1. Banishing & Binding
        2. Cleansing & Clearing
        3. Prosperity & Money
        4. Protection & Healing
        5. Hexes, Curses, & Rooks
    B. Practice
        1. Spell Jars
        2. Knot Magic
        3. Herbs & Kitchen
        4. Sigils and Signs
        5. Candles & Crystals
        6. Moon Spells

VIII. Crafts for the Craft
    A. Poppets
    B. Incense & Smoke Sticks

IX. Personal
    A. Journal Entries
    B. Shadow Work
    C. Family Tree
    D. Personal Craft History
    E. Dream Work

X. Media
    A. Song Lyrics
    B. Podcasts
    C. Book Notes
    E. Book Shelf (documenting my personal library of related media)

XI. Online Community
    A. Live Sessions
    B. Exchanges

Now part of the beauty of a commonplace book set up is that all of this is flexible. I won't have a set table of contents laid out like the outline, above, just designating a color for each category so that when I'm flipping through looking for ideas for spells for example, I know I'm looking for pages edged in weathered bone or if I want to find a recipe I'm looking for pages edged in green meadow.

To designate a topic, each page will be edged in the appropriate color and the title will be accented with the same color. As we move forward and you see the process in action, I think it will make much more sense. For now, the goal for you is to build an outline similar to the above and if you have not already, consider how you will designate the different pages. This doesn't have to be set in stone just yet, but it is nice to have an idea of how you want do it.

Blessed Be,
Jen Marie