You Know What They Say: It Ain't The Size of the BOS...

Nothing says a witch lives here like a massive, hand-tooled, ancient leather book with beautifully illuminated parchment pages lying nonchalantly on the coffee table or propped up on the carved oak book stand, right?

Well - maybe in Hollywood. 

In the 22 years I've been practicing, I have indeed seen a couple books that could have been taken straight off the set of Practical Magic, or swiped from a recent visit to a Medieval studies traveling exhibit. But they aren't common, and the ones I've seen are truly labors of love, and expensive projects spanning multiple years.

They are beautiful to behold. Truly, they are. I can't lie - my fingers were itching to be allowed just to touch the first one I saw. I waited patiently, hoping that my hostess would offer me a peek the entire day. But, being well-mannered I did not ask. Strangely, I wasn't interested in the contents, but rather the object itself. 

I had to have a book like that. I made up my mind when I saw it. I was going to proclaim to the world that a real witch lived here with a book like that on my altar. (Cue a vision of me rubbing my hands together in a gleeful, dastardly-villain sort of way as I thought about it)

What I envisioned was something like this:

 

I'd like to tell you I reached my goal. But I'm a pretty bad liar.

In the end what I had was a very expensive leather bound book bought at a renaissance fair, a carpet with ink stains from curious kitties tipping ink bottles, a ruined table from spilled metallic gold paint for embellishing the pages illuminated style, crippled hands from trying to teach myself calligraphy, and a book with half the pages either ripped out, pasted over, or blotchy ink patches from sudden kitty nudges to my hand while writing. Oh! And I can't forget: pathetic attempts to create delicately penned borders of ivy and botanical drawings that more resembled something a proud parent sticks on the fridge than any recognizable herb plant.

My BOS looked nothing like the one above.

It was a little more like this:

It was the Cabbage Patch Doll of BOS's. Without any cute factor. Trust me. Even my husband who normally cheers on any project I undertake was uncharacteristically lukewarm in his praise.

But, like a mother with the ugliest baby in the daycare, I refused to acknowledge it.

The fever to work on that book for the first three or four months was all-consuming. Eventually, other things were more pressing, and I had to lay the book aside for a few months. When I decided to return to working on it - I saw it with fresh eyes. Yep. There was no denying it: I had the ugliest baby in the daycare.

It was disturbingly garish.
Loud, actually.
Tacky, anyone?

It was - Just. A. Mess.
(I now refer to this BOS as my Honey Boo Boo BOS)

Sadly, I put the maimed and tortured book away and returned to using my mish-mash collection of notes on college ruled notebook paper crammed in a plain, black binder with strapping tape holding on one cover that tried to split away from the spine. (This down and out black beauty is known as Franken-book)

I used Franken-book for a couple more years. Eventually, I did get and make something a bit more presentable, but nothing as ambitious as Honey Boo Boo.

I learned a great deal from that whole sad, expensive episode:

• Function (readability, ability to access information, etc) is imminently more important than a showpiece.
• I have a constant need to re-work the pages I'm using - a fully bound book will only work for me for certain things I use - never the entire book.
• Even if I could put everything in one book, it isn't practical for me - smaller and lighter is better. 
• I was forced to face my motives for wanting such a book: If I was content to use more simple ingredients and items for my altar, spells and incense, and had had great results, Why was I so concerned about how a book looked? 
• I learned It ain't the size of the BOS, but the skill of the witch that matters.

I mentioned in another post that I was breaking my BOS into smaller books, and, true to my character, I've already revised how I'm doing that, which is what set me to thinking about how advised or ill-advised my current taking was in light of my past experiences, and hence, the spark that ignited this long, rambling post. 

In short - I'm going lean and mean this time around. At least, for the actual book I'll use at the altar. More on that in the next post... Whew. I've worn my keyboard out with this post!