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Seasons of Moon and Flame: The Wild Dreamer’s Epic Journey of Becoming
Prepare to Be Mentored by the Sacred Hags!
The yearning to slow down and simplify, return to the earth, and maybe even “rewild” what has been tamed in ourselves persists even though that dream may seem ever more remote in contemporary life. Danielle Dulsky shows that even in our high-tech and high-pressure lives, it is possible to manifest your own “year of the wild” and to tap into often-forgotten holy wisdom. Seasons of Moon and Flame guides you to live cyclically while working with the archetype of the Sacred Hag, or wild grandmother, who appears in various guises. Wonderfully inclusive, with adaptations for families, spiritual groups, and other traditions, this book is a potentially life-changing guide to living mystically, magically, and in empowering harmony with the worlds of spirit and nature.
The yearning to slow down and simplify, return to the earth, and maybe even “rewild” what has been tamed in ourselves persists even though that dream may seem ever more remote in contemporary life. Danielle Dulsky shows that even in our high-tech and high-pressure lives, it is possible to manifest your own “year of the wild” and to tap into often-forgotten holy wisdom. Seasons of Moon and Flame guides you to live cyclically while working with the archetype of the Sacred Hag, or wild grandmother, who appears in various guises. Wonderfully inclusive, with adaptations for families, spiritual groups, and other traditions, this book is a potentially life-changing guide to living mystically, magically, and in empowering harmony with the worlds of spirit and nature.
376 pages, Paperback
Published March 10, 2020
77 people are currently reading
466 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 4, 2020
Danielle Dulsky’s Seasons of Moon and Flame has now been added to my bookshelf—a handy, visible shelf filled with books by Starhawk, Zsuzsanna Budapest, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and Carol Christ. All of these visionaries help us get in touch with ourselves as women and with the phases of the moon and the seasons; and offer rituals to honor the wisdom of earth-based traditions.
Dulsky’s visits to her Grandma Grace’s house were her “Crone School.” There’s a word women are learning to reclaim as we age. Another is hag. Dulsky has “liberated” the word hag to embrace its more ancient meaning of a wise, elder woman. Cailleach and the Baba Yaga are other terms for the “archetype of the wild and fearsome hag.”
While not all of us have an elder to guide us, we do have books like this with stories, rituals and guidance. Dulsky says: “Find that hallowed meeting place where your life—where your lived experience, passions, wounds, and infinite hope—encounters the story; this is the edge of wildness, the fringe on which the greatest transformation can occur.”
Seasons of Moon and Flame has thirteen chapters, corresponding to thirteen moon cycles. The lunations are organized to reflect the four seasons, which are named in the Celtic tradition as Beltane, Lughnassadh, Samhain, and Imbolc. Each season has an archetypal hag: The Garden Hag for Spring, the Desert Hag for Summer, the Sea Hag for Autumn, and the Mountain Hag for Winter. There are “hag lessons” throughout, such as “Our bones want belonging.” As Dulsky says, “We all have rich Earth-based ancestries if we go back far enough.” In various ways our ancestors’ heritage may have been obliterated.
I appreciate that Dulsky has referred to the need to dismantle “deeply seated and systemic racism, ableism, sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, and classism, as well as a general fear of otherness.” She uses the pronouns “she” and “her” in the book, but reminds us that “this is not to exclude nonbinary, trans, or other gender-nonconforming individuals from eldership or to herald the gender binary.”
“The hag teaches us to slow down – to look to where we feel both joy and hurt, and find, right there, the impenetrable wildness of who we are,” Dulsky says. Her book is a rich resource that will inform, delight and awaken us for years to come.
This review was provided for Story Circle Book Reviews by Mary Ann Moore.
Dulsky’s visits to her Grandma Grace’s house were her “Crone School.” There’s a word women are learning to reclaim as we age. Another is hag. Dulsky has “liberated” the word hag to embrace its more ancient meaning of a wise, elder woman. Cailleach and the Baba Yaga are other terms for the “archetype of the wild and fearsome hag.”
While not all of us have an elder to guide us, we do have books like this with stories, rituals and guidance. Dulsky says: “Find that hallowed meeting place where your life—where your lived experience, passions, wounds, and infinite hope—encounters the story; this is the edge of wildness, the fringe on which the greatest transformation can occur.”
Seasons of Moon and Flame has thirteen chapters, corresponding to thirteen moon cycles. The lunations are organized to reflect the four seasons, which are named in the Celtic tradition as Beltane, Lughnassadh, Samhain, and Imbolc. Each season has an archetypal hag: The Garden Hag for Spring, the Desert Hag for Summer, the Sea Hag for Autumn, and the Mountain Hag for Winter. There are “hag lessons” throughout, such as “Our bones want belonging.” As Dulsky says, “We all have rich Earth-based ancestries if we go back far enough.” In various ways our ancestors’ heritage may have been obliterated.
I appreciate that Dulsky has referred to the need to dismantle “deeply seated and systemic racism, ableism, sexism, heterosexism, transphobia, and classism, as well as a general fear of otherness.” She uses the pronouns “she” and “her” in the book, but reminds us that “this is not to exclude nonbinary, trans, or other gender-nonconforming individuals from eldership or to herald the gender binary.”
“The hag teaches us to slow down – to look to where we feel both joy and hurt, and find, right there, the impenetrable wildness of who we are,” Dulsky says. Her book is a rich resource that will inform, delight and awaken us for years to come.
This review was provided for Story Circle Book Reviews by Mary Ann Moore.
April 4, 2020
A bloated mess of pretty but shallow words.
February 19, 2020
Endorsements:
“Danielle Dulsky is the poet of this generation of Witches, weaving the magical art of storytelling and ritual into our lives with Seasons of Moon and Flame. If we listen closely, we find that her voice is running through our very blood and bones and holds the keys to our ancestral wildness.”
— Ora North, author of I Don't Want To Be An Empath Anymore: How To Reclaim Your Power Over Emotional Overwhelm, Build Better Boundaries, And Create A Life Of Grace And Ease
“Bold, exquisite, empowering, and healing in its concoction and execution, Seasons of Moon and Flame is an exceptional achievement and an essential read.”
— Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
“This book is a map that leads not to the exotic faraway, but to the shocking and orgasmic nearby. Travel at your own risk.”
— Bayo Akomolafe, author of These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home
“Danielle’s guidance, experience, practices, and teachings will spark the revolutionary heart of anyone ready to live their ‘year(s) of wild’ to the fullest. It certainly did mine.”
— Chris Grosso, author of Indie Spiritualist: A No Bullshit Exploration of Spirituality
“Danielle Dulsky continually creates works of the soul through her writing. . . . A calling not only to remember who you are but to remember the simplicity of it all in the unraveling of the spirit, land, and flesh.”
— Juliet Diaz, author of Witchery: Embrace the Witch Within
“A rhapsody in celebration of the Holy Wild within and around . . . You’ll breathe the medicine smoke of sacred stories and be aroused to step outside the tame land and embody the secret wishes of your soul.”
— Robert Moss, bestselling author of Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole
“Danielle Dulsky is the poet of this generation of Witches, weaving the magical art of storytelling and ritual into our lives with Seasons of Moon and Flame. If we listen closely, we find that her voice is running through our very blood and bones and holds the keys to our ancestral wildness.”
— Ora North, author of I Don't Want To Be An Empath Anymore: How To Reclaim Your Power Over Emotional Overwhelm, Build Better Boundaries, And Create A Life Of Grace And Ease
“Bold, exquisite, empowering, and healing in its concoction and execution, Seasons of Moon and Flame is an exceptional achievement and an essential read.”
— Mat Auryn, author of Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
“This book is a map that leads not to the exotic faraway, but to the shocking and orgasmic nearby. Travel at your own risk.”
— Bayo Akomolafe, author of These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home
“Danielle’s guidance, experience, practices, and teachings will spark the revolutionary heart of anyone ready to live their ‘year(s) of wild’ to the fullest. It certainly did mine.”
— Chris Grosso, author of Indie Spiritualist: A No Bullshit Exploration of Spirituality
“Danielle Dulsky continually creates works of the soul through her writing. . . . A calling not only to remember who you are but to remember the simplicity of it all in the unraveling of the spirit, land, and flesh.”
— Juliet Diaz, author of Witchery: Embrace the Witch Within
“A rhapsody in celebration of the Holy Wild within and around . . . You’ll breathe the medicine smoke of sacred stories and be aroused to step outside the tame land and embody the secret wishes of your soul.”
— Robert Moss, bestselling author of Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole
June 26, 2020
I’m really enjoying the overall arc that Dulsky seems to be taking with these books. I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but Woman Most Wild was a very basic, introductory, here’s an outline of my beliefs type of journey; The Holy Wild was dug much more deeply into the specific archetypes of our fierce women ancestors, as well as broke down the elements; and Seasons of Moon and Flame is looking at actual practice, physical witchcraft and ritual. Dulsky is a badass, so that probably is intentional, but I really, really respect that arc a lot, walking us through the journey from newborn interest to actual practice over the course of several books. Seasons was no exception to my undying love for Dulsky’s work, either. This was truly a fantastic book, and I wish that I could have convinced myself to read it over the year, taking each season when it came. I’ll be coming back to the practices and rituals in this a lot as the year carries on, bringing them to my own coven, and watching my practice flourish under Dulsky’s careful tutelage.
April 23, 2020
I loved the story of the journey of the witch to each of the hags throughout the year. All of this between practical things to do to celebrate and work magic for the different moons of the year.
June 2, 2020
For as long as I can remember the spiral dance of the seasons has been the most magical calling to my own wild one’s heart. As I grew and stepped out onto the path of the Witch, it was this element that drew me most deeply; this sense that there was a way I could harmonize and fall into the flow of the natural world around me. Tuning in to those vibrations and patterns feels like the most potent form of Being I can experience in this life.
In this book, Danielle Dulsky takes us on a wild tour of the wheel of the year in a vastly unique way; tapping into the bardic arts to weave stories with multi-layers of deep, ancestral wisdom. I especially loved the long-absent reverence that is paid to the hag archetype, the old ones who have gifted us with life and who have much to share in the ways of the world if only we are humble enough to listen. The crone or the hag — once so respected — has been shunned in society for long enough, and it was a joy to see an author grant this energy the prominence it deserves.
Through working with this book, the seasonal shifts become their own inner landscape to be explored and journeyed through. Every tale that is spoken delivers another subtle meaning with every subsequent reading — as all good tales do, morphing to connect with each individual reader in exactly the way they need to receive it. Magic indeed!
The actual work of the book involves much self-inquiry; a probing into the most hidden places of our selves and our ancestral past. Not only does this text stress the importance of remembering our forebears, but it conveys the idea that we too are ancestors to countless generations extending forward in the fabric of time. What a simple notion, and yet what a powerful shift to orient our existence in this vast web of life in such a way. Dulsky gently prompts readers to begin writing our own stories, inviting us to navigate the deep wellsprings of our pain and joys, shadows and light. She provides touchstone rituals to honor the sacred passing of the seasons, while also acknowledging that spiral-within-spiral dance of the lunar phases, and maintaining the correspondences of elemental energies and the four directions.
In short, I cannot recommend this book enough. It is beautifully unique, engaging, and thought-provoking. I cannot imagine any two readers walking away with the same message once they’ve delved into their own inner landscape. I look forward to working with this book many times over as the wheel continues to turn, for the lessons will continue to spiral outward.
In this book, Danielle Dulsky takes us on a wild tour of the wheel of the year in a vastly unique way; tapping into the bardic arts to weave stories with multi-layers of deep, ancestral wisdom. I especially loved the long-absent reverence that is paid to the hag archetype, the old ones who have gifted us with life and who have much to share in the ways of the world if only we are humble enough to listen. The crone or the hag — once so respected — has been shunned in society for long enough, and it was a joy to see an author grant this energy the prominence it deserves.
Through working with this book, the seasonal shifts become their own inner landscape to be explored and journeyed through. Every tale that is spoken delivers another subtle meaning with every subsequent reading — as all good tales do, morphing to connect with each individual reader in exactly the way they need to receive it. Magic indeed!
The actual work of the book involves much self-inquiry; a probing into the most hidden places of our selves and our ancestral past. Not only does this text stress the importance of remembering our forebears, but it conveys the idea that we too are ancestors to countless generations extending forward in the fabric of time. What a simple notion, and yet what a powerful shift to orient our existence in this vast web of life in such a way. Dulsky gently prompts readers to begin writing our own stories, inviting us to navigate the deep wellsprings of our pain and joys, shadows and light. She provides touchstone rituals to honor the sacred passing of the seasons, while also acknowledging that spiral-within-spiral dance of the lunar phases, and maintaining the correspondences of elemental energies and the four directions.
In short, I cannot recommend this book enough. It is beautifully unique, engaging, and thought-provoking. I cannot imagine any two readers walking away with the same message once they’ve delved into their own inner landscape. I look forward to working with this book many times over as the wheel continues to turn, for the lessons will continue to spiral outward.
June 9, 2022
Danielle Dulsky is an excellent writer, very poetic, and I am super fond of "The Holy Wild." I loved reading more about her grandmother, as well as the general idea of us all connecting to our inner crones, regardless of gender, since crones are wise yet treated poorly in society. However, I'm not as big of a fan of "Seasons of Moon and Flame." I suppose a lot of the reason why is due to personal preference. I'm much more of an elemental-based witch, and less so invested in Wheel of the Year (although I do appreciate the natural cycle of the seasons and follow some of the holidays). Therefore, the rituals did not appeal to me nearly as much here, or the content itself. Still, I think that there is a lot of value in this book, a lot of the beautiful quotes did speak to me, and I would still recommend Dulsky's work to many of my friends.
May 26, 2021
Danielle Dulsky’s new book guides readers through the wheel of the year with poetic wisdom and grace. This beautiful book provides insights, rituals and stories to bring the reader into alignment with the cycles of the seasons. The author invites us to honor and explore our relationship to our ancestors, our world and ourselves. Seasons of Moon and Flame is a book you will want to read many times over
October 18, 2022
This book took me a long time to read, obviously when you look at the start and finish date, but I don’t think it’s the kind of book meant to be read and finished in a day of a week or even a month. The book is set up to follow the year, and to read through the year slowly and thoughtfully, and even to work through some of the rituals is to gather and learn some much from this book. This book was a treat. It reteaches the meaning of the word “hag” and invites you to find the divinity therein.
October 1, 2020
I really feel in love with how Danielle sets up the wheel of the year and frames every moon with different rituals and even every moon phase to build on the previous ritual. The seasons even have their own building upon one another to create a uniformity throughout the season. I would highly recommend this book, and I will probably pull from her book to do the rituals she has laid out.
February 9, 2022
Interesting, thought provoking book. Loved listening to the hags stories and the influences they weave. I felt Springs stories were better laid out to learn from, and when we gotta the latter stories of winter but that may be co-incidental with the time of year I've just considered these words. So without, so within.
February 5, 2021
Really enjoyed this, the Audible version is almost like spoken word poetry. A really beautiful series of reflections and stories. I'll probably end up buying a hard copy as well.
August 4, 2021
So beautiful , what a work of art.
October 11, 2025
I didn’t love this as much as her Folklore book, but I still love her witchy nature based self care/reflection.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews