Affiliate links ahoy! I do include Amazon affiliate links to the Llewellyn annuals! The transcript is below the welcome text and explainer.
Hello Curious Spirits!
Today I unboxed my author copies from my Llewellyn annuals submissions for 2026! This year, my work shows up in the Llewellyn Herbal Almanac and the Llewellyn Magical Almanac.
In the Magical Almanac, I guide readers through an Artist’s Way-inspired tool to help decide what aspect of magic and spirituality you want to focus on. Some people enjoy tarot, while others are interested in learning mediumship, herbalism, and other subjects. Even if you want to learn everything, it’s hard to learn it well all at once - so having a way to narrow down the preferences helps!
In the Herbal Almanac, I share my adventures in foraging pine resin - and getting stuck to just about everything. I do have some great pine resin incense this year, but it came at a cost: laundry and a chunk of my dignity. Yes, it was worth it. Read my experience so you don’t have to have a similar one!
The illustrator for the Magical Almanac Article is Angela A. Wix, and for the Herbal Almanac, illustration came from the Llewellyn Art Department.
Thank you for taking the time to hang out for a few minutes - and remember the Witch’s Jar Conference happening on Thursday and Friday! Registration is FREE so grab your spot now.
Join the Spirited Witch Patreon
TRANSCRIPT
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Everyone, for those unfamiliar with me, I am Diana Rajchel.
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I am the voice behind the Spirited Witch Substack,
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Practical Living for Spooky People,
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as I've recently rebranded it.
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And I have been writing on witchcraft-related topics since the year 1999,
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writing and publishing.
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And the most consistent thing I've contributed to has been the Llewellyn annuals.
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So for those unfamiliar,
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they'll do astrology almanacs,
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but they will also do witch-specific almanacs with,
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like,
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things about when to cast spells and so on.
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And I just broke an orange stick on this, so I should reach for some scissors.
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Hmm.
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Nobody accused me of being sensible all the time.
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So, but I do have scissors in my little calendar kit, but this I should.
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But that is...
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part of what has built my writing career has been contributing to those annuals
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year after year for many years and to the point where sometimes I will wait a few
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years to read my copies because I get two copies of each annual I contribute to
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every year as part of my submission payment and just to avoid inadvertently
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duplicating anyone else's ideas or pursuing experiences that are
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being pursued already quite thoroughly. I will sometimes just kind of wait and come
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at it so the ones I've been contributing to the most of the Magical Almanac and the
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Herbal Almanac. I have this right here so here is the Magical Almanac oh that's
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pretty
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And then here is the Herbal Almanac.
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The Herbal Almanac is actually not a magical publication, which is a little odd for Llewellyn.
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And it is strictly practical gardening,
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no mention of witchcraft,
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no mention of deities,
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nothing like that.
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And here's the thing is there is usually about a year's delay between contributing
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and senior contribution published.
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So I have no memory of what I wrote.
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By the time it rains around, I've been working on so many other things.
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The old info has been overwritten.
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And I've been writing for a very long time and a lot of stuff,
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especially if you look at The Spirited Witch,
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may not be on the schedule everyone wants,
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but there is a lot of it.
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So I'm trying to find it.
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I'm seeing a lot of very familiar names in here.
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Where am I?
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Okay.
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Here I am.
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The Double Decision Star.
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So I am all the way in the back of the book this year.
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So right before you get to the credits.
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So what this was was inspired by The Artist's Way.
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I do remember this now.
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And so this is intended to...
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help with deciding where to focus your spirituality so there is the star and
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this is inspired by the Artist's Way Life Pie and so let's say you're interested
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in tarot you're interested in spirit work or mediumship you're interested in
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herbalism you pause and you color you you name one point of the star and you point
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it to the degree to which you have that interest and i know some of you are going
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to just try to like
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fill in the crayon all the way but most of the time there are stronger interests in
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some areas than others so that is the purpose behind this particular practice is to
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help you know especially if you're a beginner and there's so many different areas
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of specialty and so many different areas that take really deep dives to truly
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understand them
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This way you can figure out for yourself, okay, is my heart with herbalism?
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Is my heart with astrology?
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You know, where is my heart going?
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Where is my gut going?
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What can it take to get heart and gut in the same place so you can follow that direction?
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So that is what the decision star is for.
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Now,
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the Herbal Almanac,
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I've been talking a lot about my experiences kind of stumbling through learning
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permaculture and stumbling through a
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The home that I have is we are in process of restoring it,
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which is taking forever and will take forever on our budget.
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But it used to be the site of an asphalt company.
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So it was a family owned business for almost 200 years.
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No, not 200, 100 years.
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We knew there was a house here in 1910 and there was an apple orchard.
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And there has been a house here for over 100 years.
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And the family business kind of picked up in the 50s and 60s.
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So a lot of my energy has been going to gardening and soil restoration.
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And I have been writing about it a little bit in the Herbal Almanac.
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um So this was one from again a lived experience on how to gather pine resin
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without sticking to your car. Yes this was lived experience, yes i did stick to my
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car, yes i planned poorly but i learned some things like rubbing alcohol will get
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sticky pine resin off, and that one is on page 171 they do the best illustrations for
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each article so that's part of the fun of
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Looking for what you wrote is looking for what they did and how they laid it out.
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And they, somebody, did do the sticky sketch.
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I'm going to have to look for,
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I've been trying to make sure I get more of the illustrators’ names.
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Okay.
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See if I can get this at the camera.
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So, but you know, drippy, I'm going to see.
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They didn't,
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they didn't give them the temptation of showing a witch stuck to her steering
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wheel,
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but I know they thought about it.
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So take a look at that one.
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I am very proud of this.
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This was a lived experience.
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And the resin I gathered last year has finally dried this year.
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So yeah,
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I can finally actually use it for an incense like intended,
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but it takes a while to cure.
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So these are the ones that I did this year.
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I'm super excited about it.
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I hope you are too.
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Thank you everyone for stopping and hanging out with me.
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My phone is indeed about to die.
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So if anyone has any questions or would like me to read something, it's a great time to ask.
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Otherwise, I'm probably going to wrap this one up.
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So bye.
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And I do see some people are just joining right now just as I'm wrapping up.
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I did a quick unboxing of my Llewellyn annuals contributions that I just got the
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copies of today.
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So for the 2026 Magical Almanac, I am the last article in the book.
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And it's the Decision Star.
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So helping you figure out where in the occult magic you would like to put your energy.
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And the herbal magic, actually not herbal, not magic.
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This one, this is Llewellyn's very strictly no magic here book.
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And it's all about gardening and herbalism and practical herbalism and crafting.
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And in recent years, usually I talk about the crafting part.
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Last year,
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I talked about foraging for pine resin and the many,
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many misadventures that come with that.
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So that's what I have here.
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I have some fun stuff coming out in Substack this week.
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I finally got the cleaning formulas because I did say six-month spring cleaning.
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I did not say consecutive six-month spring cleaning.
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So that's where we have it.
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Again, if anyone, I think you're allowed to ask questions, but I'm not seeing that.
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So I'm still going to get to the Substack format.
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So thank you everyone for joining me and happy summer.
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If you are on the opposite side of the world, stay warm up here on the Northern Hemisphere.
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Stay cool.
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And thank you everyone for taking the time.
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Stay magickal.
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