Natural Magic and Folkways from Those Who Call the Blue Ridge Mountains Home The southern Appalachians are rich in folk magic and witchery. This book explores the region's customs and traditions for magical healing, luck, prosperity, scrying, and more. Author H. Byron Ballard--known as the village witch of Asheville--teaches you about the old ways and why they work, from dowsing to communicating with spirits. Learn the deeper meaning of haint blue doors, magic hands for finding, and medicinal herbs and plants. Discover tips for creating tinctures and salves, attuning to the phases of the moon, interpreting omens, and other folkways passed down through the generations. Part cultural journey and part magical guide, this book uncovers the authentic traditions of one of North America's most spiritually vibrant regions

Roots, Branches & Spirits: The Folkways & Witchery of Appalachia

Politics & Social Sciences

Ballard, H. Byron

Social Sciences

Llewellyn Publications

This comprehensive guide to North American folk magic covers more than twenty diverse magical traditions that have taken root on the continent. You will discover the Northeastern maritime practice of "buying the wind," the Mexican Curanderismo method of energy cleansing with candles, the Irish- American custom of making fairy houses, and much more. Drawing on the expertise of twenty-five renowned practitioners, this book explores authentic magic from New England to the West Coast and everywhere in between. Learn about Appalachian folk magic from H. Byron Ballard, Voodoo from Lilith Dorsey, Ozark folk magic from Brandon Weston, and Brujería from J. Allen Cross. Filled with history, tools, and spiritual beliefs, this new entry in Llewellyn's Complete Book Series showcases the rich and varied magical traditions of North America.

Llewellyn's Complete Book of North American Folk Magic: A Landscape of Magic, Mystery, and Tradition (Llewellyn's Complete Book Series, 16)

Dorsey, Lilith

Bird, Stéphanie Rose

Casas, Starr

Weston, Brandon

Wen, Benebell

Schreiwer, Robert L.

Richards, Jake

Cummins, Alexander

Phoenix, Robert

Hedera, Via

Ivanco-Murray, Melissa A.

Santiago, Sandra

Coviak, Kenya T

Cervantes, Paloma

Your Hands-on, Back-to-Basics Guide to Building a Magical Practice\nAs if you're having face-to-face lessons on her porch, H. Byron Ballard introduces you to the ways of magic, answering vital questions about what it is, why it matters, and how to do it. She teaches the mechanics and foundational skills of practice, offering no-nonsense techniques that practitioners of any skill level or tradition can use.\nDrawing from her many years as a practicing witch, Ballard demonstrates how to engage daily with the energy around you. She encourages you to experience magic with fresh eyes―whether you're a beginner or need to regain a beginner's mind. This book provides grounding exercises, shielding methods, healing magic, insight on witchcraft tools, and more. Ballard offers everything you need to live a full, enchanted life in our deliciously magical world.

Small Magics: Practical Secrets from an Appalachian Village Witch

After years of pondering, Byron Ballard has finally written a primer for the kind of magic she practices. Driven to it by colleagues, friends and students, writing this little book is an act of stubborn devotion to a fading culture. This deceptively simple system of folk magic has come down to modern Southern culture through the immigrants and natives who called these blue hills home. Written in an easily accessible style and filled with insights and stories, Staubs and Ditchwater: a Friendly and Useful Introduction to Hillfolks Hoodoo is part memoir, part workbook.

Staubs and Ditchwater: A Friendly and Useful Introduction to Hillfolks' Hoodoo

Smith Bridge Press

Sharing these practices and this beloved but fading culture has led me far afield, teaching and speaking. I’ve rambled from the bayous of Louisiana to the ruined hills of West Virginia, and from Memphis to Glastonbury in search of stories and materials and ways of doing. There are so many old ideas newly integrated into my personal practice and my teaching – enough to fill a book. And here it is. May you remember well and enjoy this next journey.

Asfidity and Mad-Stones: A Further Ramble Through Hillfolks' Hoodoo

This is a saga both serious and ridiculous of how the author came to love her body and listen to it, even when it whispered nonsensical things. Embracing Willendorf: A Witch’s Way of Loving Your Body to Health and Fitness is a kind of memoir, a story of walking and pondering, of thongs and tight Levis. And it is about transformation. About choosing to be healthier and achieving that through a wonderfully simple idea—that when we love our bodies, we will do what we need to do to nourish these exquisite and beautiful machines. Try out the tasty and healthy recipes in the back, then pick up a few rather naughty books from the suggested reading list. Because once you start loving your body, all sorts of interesting opportunities may present themselves. This book is your personal recipe with the ingredients for living a rich and vibrant life—and perhaps discovering your true self in the process. Embrace your life and your strong physical self. Embrace your Willendorf.

Embracing Willendorf: A Witch's Way of Loving Your Body to Health and Fitness

Health, Fitness & Dieting

“Earthwork” is a word used to describe a constructed bank of dirt, often raised in ancient cultures as a means of defense. Earth Works is a book of essays and rituals for a time of deep cultural change, a shift that author Byron Ballard calls “Tower Time.” The first part of the book explores scenarios in these chaotic times and suggests possible reframing to understand the historic underpinnings and the long-term effects on both the planet and its inhabitants. The second part of the book—called Berms—consists of tried-and-true rituals and ceremonies for communities, small groups and individuals to improve resilience and face inevitable change with courage, consideration and humor. Ballard has decades of ritual experience and brings that understanding to the practical and esoteric considerations of making ceremony both personal and powerful. You will find ideas here and inspiration—and something like hope.

Earth Works: Ceremonies in Tower Time

Product Description \nAn invitation to return to a simpler time of earth-based spirituality and ritual living, through writings from a small forest-farm in the Appalachian Highlands. 
 This book looks at the agricultural year as a starting space for a deepening of earth-centered spirituality. It gives a set of backstories to ease the reader into a time between the pre-industrial era and the modern one, into a place where the fast-moving stress of American life can be affected by a better connection not only to the natural world but to the elegant expression of the year as expressed through seasonal festivals and celebrations. 
 The chapters are broken into four seasons, with the quarter days a highlight within each, and feature simple skills that accompany each marker in the year. Author H. Byron Ballard offers advice on spiritual and physical immersion into the seasons that applies to readers from all areas: rural, urban, and suburban. 
 This is also a deeply practical book, including insights into the following: \nFarming & gardening: composting, manure, soil preparation, pests, seed-saving 
Food: cooking, preserving, foraging, the summer kitchen, mushrooms and mycelium 
Fiber arts: knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving, decorative cut-work, and embroidery 
Sewing: treadle machines, electric machines, hand sewing 
Household crafts: candle-making, soap-making, broom-making, sharpening tools 
Health: medicines, tending the dying, death and death rituals 
 A glossary is included for any unfamiliar terms. \nReview \n“H. Bryon Ballard has written a completely original book, designed to reconnect Pagans to the land and to the Wheel of the Year. Part lyrical philosophy, part guidebook, and part instruction manual, 
Seasons of a Magical Life will stay with you long after you have read it.” 
 -- Deborah Blake, author of Everyday Witchcraft\n“The gentle art of engaging with the everyday through time and space is wonderfully gathered up here by Byron Ballard, showing us how we can reconnect with the continuity of ancestral life through our own daily actions. Sheer magic.” 
 -- Caitlín Matthews, author of Singing the Soul Back Home and Diary of a Soul Doctor\n“In today’s quest for authenticity and elder wisdom, we are blessed to have the wise voice of one of the most authentic witches I know: Byron Ballard. By authentic, I mean someone who is truly living it, and willing to share the hard-won wisdom of her life. Ballard practices all that she teaches, living the magical life with the land she loves, and spreading the love of that land wherever she travels to inspire us to love our land. As the proverbial Village Witch, she weaves the strands of poetry, science, history, farming, medicine, and magic into her holistic vision” 
 -- Christopher Penczak, co-founder of The Temple of Witchcraft and author of The Plant Spirit Familiar, Spirit Allies, and Sons of the Goddess\n“Our world needs elders speaking their truth and sharing their wisdom teachings. H. Byron Ballard is such a global elder, unafraid of using her voice. 
 Seasons of a Magical Life demonstrates an earth-based spirituality which seamlessly weaves together land and soul, building fences and seeking solidarity, tending bees or chickens, and the practice of laundry as a meditative practice. Brava!” 
 -- Imelda Almqvist, author of Natural Born Shamans, Medicine of the Imagination, and Sacred Art\n“A cozy stroll through H. Byron Ballard’s forest-farm, 
Seasons of a Magical Life offers inspiration for a down-home yet revolutionary Pagan, animist path.” 
 -- Christine Grace, author of The Witch at the Forest’s Edge and co-host of the Betwixt & Between podcast\n“This deeply personal work may be Ballard’s best yet, as she reconnects the reader with their own lands, spirits, sunshine, and storms. The philosophical blends seamlessly with the practical, as Byron takes you juneberry picking or teaches you the hidden history of her homeland. This is magical lore and regi

Seasons of a Magical Life: A Pagan Path of Living

Self-Help

Personal Transformation

Weiser Books

Women's Sovereignty and Body Autonomy Beyond Roe v. Wade

Wisechild, Louise M.

Ian, Janis

Hendren, Trista

Remer, Molly

Aldred, Kay Louise

Campbell, C. Ara

Luna, Maya

Bailey, Arlene

Smoth, Sharon

Women's Health

Norge ISBN

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Books by Ballard, H. Byron