The Way of the Eight Winds - by Nigel Pennick (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A guide to the history and practice of traditional European nature-based spirituality

- Examines the Eight Directions and the powers of their Winds, the Tides of the Day, and the eightfold year of modern Pagan practice

- Explores geomancy practices, how to work with spirits of place, and the power of mountains, rivers, caves, standing stones, and crossroads

- Shares spiritual exercises, including runic practices and divination techniques, as well as how to craft your own magical tools

In this guide to the Way of the Eight Winds, Nigel Pennick explores the history and practice of traditional European Pagan spirituality, a path that recognizes and celebrates our relationship with the Cosmos and the creativity of Nature.

The author looks at the Eight Directions and the powers of their Winds, the Tides of the Day, stations and houses of the Sun, and the eightfold year of modern Pagan practice. He explores practices for restoring a connection with sacred places in the landscape and the eldritch powers that inhabit them, including working with spirits of place (the Anima Loci), interpreting the lore of trees, and recognizing magical, otherworldly, and auspicious features. He describes divination techniques, including ostenta and signs, as well as sigils and emblems that emerge from the Wildwood. He explores geomancy and the magic of the landscape, including both natural and man-made features such as standing stones and crossroads. He shares spiritual exercises, including meditations, runic practices, and geomantic walking, and explores how to craft your own magical tools and build labyrinths, from small talismanic ones to those large enough to be danced in.

With re-enchantment of life as the goal, Pennick emphasizes the Way of the Eight Winds as a spiritual path that reconnects us to Nature, brings us back to the present, and helps us see the world our ancestors venerated.

Review Quotes

"A complete compendium of symbolic and geomantic practices derived from the fourfold layout of the human body."-- "Prudence Jones, coauthor of A History of Pagan Europe"

"Employing his wide-ranging scholarship and years of experience, Nigel Pennick presents nature as numinous, imbued with subtle energies, a gateway to the unseen, reached through geomancy--the art, as the author puts it, of 'making ourselves right with the earth.'"-- "Anna Franklin, author of The Hearth Witch's Kitchen Herbal"

"In a world yearning for a deeper spiritual connection, Nigel Pennick's The Way of the Eight Winds offers a timeless animistic approach to living in harmony with the natural world. Born out of a need to bring ancient wisdom to the pressing dynamics of modern life, Pennick guides readers toward a more harmonious relationship with nature, themselves, and their communities. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to rekindle a land-based identity and interdependence with ecosystems."-- "S. Kelley Harrell, author of Runic Book of Days"

"Nigel Pennick has an encyclopedic knowledge of traditional magical practices, which is evident in the well-researched and clearly explained material in this book. Highly recommended."-- "Ian Read, editor of Chaos International magazine"

"Nigel Pennick has spent a lifetime as a multitalented artist and artisan, author, and pagan practitioner, and The Way of the Eight Winds brings together many branches of his verdant work. The resulting system--which illuminates everything from higher cosmic principles to the more modest cultural arts of craftsmanship--is rooted in the timeless lore of how humans interact meaningfully and reciprocally with their living landscape and its myriad inhabitants, seen and unseen."-- "Michael Moynihan, Ph.D., coeditor of The Rune Poems"

"Nigel Pennick is one of Britain's living treasures. Like a latter-day Pythagoras, he reveals the unity behind existences, upholding the cosmos as animated, not as dead matter. This wonderful book of lore discerns the essential harmony connecting all things while exploring the geomantic art of placement that helps us make sense of the order of each place. An indispensable guide to understanding our dear world."-- "Caitlín Matthews, author of The Complete Lenormand Oracle Handbook"

"The author writes about the spirit of place and pagan geomancy and magic from a traditional and pluralistic viewpoint, describing true principles that are universal and then detailing their expression in the European tradition from antiquity to the arts and crafts movement. For the first time, the material on the Way of the Eight Winds is brought together in one place. A long-awaited gem."-- "Patrick McFadzean, author of The Geomancers Guide to the Vastupurusa Mandala"

"This beautifully illustrated compendium distills the wisdom of Pennick's lifetime of research and more than 50 published books. Across cultures and millennia, he describes the 'ever-changing and ever-flowing cosmos' and how uniquely human intelligence and creativity have evolved in relation to the complex immutability of the laws of nature. This book should be on university reading lists and essential for those who seek to restore balance and harmony in our relationship with the natural world."-- "Linda Kelsey-Jones, retired lecturer, Texas State University, College of Fine Arts and Communication"

About the Author

Nigel Pennick is an authority on ancient belief systems, traditions, runes, and geomancy. He is the author and illustrator of more than 60 books, including The Pagan Book of Days. A lifelong artist, researcher, musician, and craftsman, he lives near Cambridge, England.