Why 365 Days of Hoodoo?

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Stephanie Rose Bird, author of Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones, Four Seasons of Mojo, and the new 365 Days of Hoodoo.

When you first encounter my book 365 Days of Hoodoo, you will notice a couple of things beyond its intricate cover—it is thick with pages and it has a good weight to it. Beyond that is the title. The title is a clue to its use. You see, it’s designed for daily use over a period of a year.

I am a life-long educator. The idea of this book is in response to many things, one of which is that readers of my first Llewellyn Book, Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones, desired an apprenticeship. At the moment, I wasn’t offering apprenticeships, but eventually I came to suspect that I could create one in written form, hence the daily format of my new book.

Over the course of a year, you can learn a lot through daily practice. There is history and background to Hoodoo concepts, techniques, and lore in each chapter. The chapters are spaces to learn about specific concerns to Hoodoos, for example, love, luck, protection and money tricks, jobs, spells, and rites. You learn to make things important to Hoodoos, such as mojo bags of a variety of sorts, war and peace bottles, floor washes, candles and their fixins’. You learn about how to grow specific Hoodoo herbs. There is also space to reflect on what you have learned about each topic, at the end of each section of the book.

The fact that you are encouraged to keep a Hoodoo Journal goes along with the concept of this being a year of learning and practice. In the journal you can reflect on all things Hoodoo, including what you’ve learned, celebrating your successes, and making plans for further inquiry.

So, while you can certainly pick up the book and pick out work to do and a concept to explore, for full effect you’ll want to stick with it, for the period of a year. Feel free to take as many breaks as you need, but do 365 Days of Hoodoo.

Our thanks to Stephanie for her guest post! For more from Stephanie Rose Bird, read her article, “10 Tips to Help You Practice 365 Days of Hoodoo.”