Most of my reading has been dedicated in the last six months to research I’m doing for an ongoing project while still doing my Witch Work and running a permaculture Covenstead. Those books won’t appear here as to not give the project away before it’s ready for its public. But I’m always reading. This last month I finished two books even whilst dealing with all the HOLIDAZE shenanigans. Tell me if these are in your TBR pile or if after reading my review you want to add them to that nice Sunday stack.
Adventures in Opting Out: A Field Guide to Leading An Intentional Life by Cait Flanders.
As someone who has made it a mainstay of my life to live intentionally, and also spent a few years being a constant traveler, I was excited to get my hands on this tome. The author, Cait Flanders, wrote this one on the heels of her book, The Year of Less, which was its own adventure in living minimally. Opt Out doubles down on the lessons of The Year of Less and dives deeper into Flanders’ goal to build a more meaningful life focused on nature, connection, and personal values, which for her includes a heavy travel schedule.
The part of the text that really appealed to me is that when she first began to create the life she lives now, there were naysayers, lack of support, and huge hurdles mostly put in place by societal expectations. I felt that hard. Not having a permanent address is a big problem in the outer world. People not understanding why you’re doing something leads to lack of support. And people who think your choices somehow affect or make their life ‘less than’ will always stand in front and block your way.
“People will always make comments when you decide to live a counter-culture lifestyle. They will have even more to say if you struggle with it,” she wrote, after her first attempts at living the life she wanted did not go smoothly. Regardless, Flanders is successful in the end and navigates all of the pushback throughout the book. She uses a hiking as a metaphor for the journey of living intentionally that even if you’ve never even considered such a way to live, you can picture it in your mind as you read — the reader starts at the trailhead, and she takes them through the whole ‘hike’ of opting out that leads them to the great viewpoint at the end. The amount of uniqueness that came into Flanders’ life is then spilled on the page in practical guidance of how to apply the lessons she’s learned that readers can take and make deliberate choices in their own.
“The only thing I can guarantee is that … progress is never linear,” Flanders writes. “Your map won’t be a straight line — and you will be better for that.” The amount of evidence within this quick read to help you create your own map to an intentional life. If you live a life more esoterically as I do, this worldview of intentionality isn’t new; but, seeing how someone else walks this path was inspirational and provides a gentle, encouraging tone like when you meet a fellow hiker coming from the other direction on the trail and they let you know some good intel about the journey ahead. “hey, there’s a wash out after the last bend,” or other lessons so you are more prepared and supported to make such a leap to a more intentional life. No woo-woo in this book, but it’s not necessary at all. This quote has stuck with me since reading:
“A lot of us are hurting in our friendships and relationships because people cross our boundaries or don’t meet our needs in some way. But most of the time, we don’t tell people what we need. We just expect them to know or understand we are on a journey. Not only is is unfair to place an unspoken expectation on someone; it’s also unfair to assume that people will always understand what we are doing and why. People can see only as far for you as they see for themselves. So we have to remember that if people aren’t doing the same thing as us, they won’t automatically understand.”
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynne Jackson.
In 2025 I set about to reclaim some of the Spirit Work talents that I was born with but was suppressed as a child because they were summarily dismissed by the world around me. So when this book appeared before me, I took it as — you guessed it — a sign. Laura Lynne Jackson is a psychic medium and author of the book, The Light Between Us, a NYT best seller.
She very much details the energy of people, places and things. “Because we comprise energy, we also give off energy,” she writes. And that energy can be channeled to pay closer attention to the whispering patterns, repeated moments, and subtle disturbances that often pass us by in our hectic daily lives. Jackson bids the reader to treat the signs as a living dialogue between inner awareness and the outer world, asking what it means to recognize meaning in them without forcing it, as opposed to treating signs like an abstract superstition or fixed answer.
Like many Practitioners in the Craft, Jackson encourages discernment over certainty, curiosity over dogma, and a more intimate relationship with how insight actually arrives. The author also includes a central theme of the presence of our Beloved Dead and Those Who Came Before. Throughout the book this presence of the “Other Side,” as she terms it, is not distant or theatrical, but adjacent to our ordinary experiences, helping to bring symbols, timing, and resonance. If you’re a Witch, this is not new to you, but the approach by Jackson that this is a fact of life is refreshing.
The book is full of stories of people who asked for and received signs, and who received near divine intervention from their Spirit team — Jackson calls them your Team of Light. Many of them made me catch my breath and examine the signs that I likely missed from the Universe, my Beloved Dead, or just the collective energy that often can make things happen miraculously. If you have ancestral work in your Practice, some of the ‘asks’ that Jackson details Some of the language left me wanting for a deeper dive, but Jackson falls clearly in the ‘love and light’ crowd — not that it’s bad, but it’s a different foundation than this writer’s. But for people exploring spirit work, Jackson’s prose is conversational and story-focused.
The best part of the book was how such a universal language of signs can be interpreted differently and also the comfort in grief and confusion they can belay to the reader. It’s clear that Jackson wants to offer the reader a way to a sense of wonder in the midst of loss, turning grief into a path for deeper connection. It empowers the reader to go on their own journey to empower them to work with their own spiritual realm team. Love never ends is the author’s message, and it continues to impact our lives greatly. We just have to notice the signs.
Up Next:
I am still working through Scorpio Witch by Ivo Dominguez, Jr. & Zoe Howe, because I have to keep stopping and pondering the information inside of it. Anything with astrology in it sends me down a deeper rabbit hole, so I’m relishing this one a little longer.
I also picked up Mountain Witch by Rebecca Byer as part of a Yule haul recently. Her book Wild Witchcraft already sits on my shelf.
However, sudden urges to go book shopping may bring a different tome to the next Bookish Witch post.
See you for the next post on What The Witch Is Reading. Thanks for reading and comment if you have any questions, anecdotes, or requests.
As you can see, I read a little of everything. I’m always curious about what others are reading. What book are you working through right now? Let me know that, too!