Book Review: Tending Brigid's Flame by Lunaea Weatherstone

There are some books that I can take a lot of information from and use it in my Craft and this is a book that definitely inspires that feeling. Although it focuses on one Goddess, Brigid, it does mention several other Celtic deities and deities that can be traced back to Brigid from Greek, Egyptian, and even German culture.

Weatherstone focuses most heavily on the fire aspect of Brigid. She does mention that Brigid is an Earth Goddess, a fire Goddess, and a water Goddess but tends to stay more concerned with her flamekeeping aspect. Although I appreciate this as I personally see Brigid more as a fire Goddess and evoke her as such, I felt the balance of the elements was very skewed in one direction and her other aspects became very lost throughout the book. I'm sure this was not the author's intentions but I had hoped to see more on her water and earth aspects as I feel like those are not as thoroughly investigated.

She was superb in her descriptions of flamekeeping for the Goddess Brigid and how to properly devote oneself to Her fully and completely. Many of her crafty ways of devotion I plan to incorporate into my own Craft as I feel very connected to Brigid. Her devotion methods were very simple and would easily fit into anyone's daily routine. Brigid's attributes are what I aspire to have. Her generosity, strength, and courage are all desirable aspects that I, myself, wish to embody. Through devotion and discipline, I plan to incorporate this more.

The book gives a lot of incite into different ways of devotion such as scrying, meditation, divination in respect to tarot, runes, and from natural messages, flamekeeping, writing, poetry, and much more. Some resources described I had never thought of before. After reading this book, I took up the art of jewelry making as a devotion to the Goddess in her smithcrafting element. I use metal to bind the beads together and created my own set of Goddess beads. Although the Goddess is related to fire and I tend to think of her mostly in this way, I found myself drawn to blue and green colored beads for my prayer beads. I was more drawn to her water and earthly aspects during creation, something the author says to just do without thinking why.

Weatherstone is very good with her citations and giving incite to many forms of prayer and worship. She incorporates poetry and scripture from all kinds of books, some of which are Christian. She explains that we shouldn't shy away from certain forms of art just because they are of a different theology but instead to make them our own. I certainly agree with this mindset because in staying away from certain literature we are limiting our minds.

This book can teach people a lot about this wonderful Goddess and all of her glories. Her animals, her plants, her stones, her love, her warmth, her hospitality, her courage, her strength, her forge, her hearth, and her teachings.