I’ve spent the last week or so going through my collection of books. It is part of my plan to reduce the amount of books on my poor, groaning bookshelf, and so far I’ve made a pretty good dent in my collection. Choosing which fiction books to get rid of was pretty easy. It more or less came down to whether or not I thought I would read the book again. For a majority of my books the answer is yes, but for a few the answer was a big no. I am also rather proud of myself for being able to let go of some totally unneeded self-help books. Honestly, I think that some of them cause more trouble then good.
Yesterday I started working my way through my collection of Wicca, Tarot, and related books. Surprisingly I’ve already weeded out about six books. Reading through some of them, I’ve come to realize that either they are too simplistic since the are aimed at absolute beginners, or that they repeat information that is also in another book, which is often much better written and more detailed. I think that I hung on to some of these books for so long because I felt like a Wiccan should have them (i.e. Drawing Down the Moon or The Spiral Dance), and also because I sort of felt like a Wiccan should have a bookshelf full of Wiccan books.
I’ve learned a lot from Wiccan books, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret… I’ve learned more from mythology and history books, and I’ve learned the most from nature and the Lord and Lady. I almost feel like trying to live up to what is in these books is holding me back. It is time to let go and to stand on my own two feet. I am trying to be very selective and keep only the more advanced and/or the best written books on Wicca and Tarot. And, you know, for some reason I am finding it much easier then I thought to make the determination of which books to keep.