This post is an excerpt from the fantasy novel The Snow Witch by Jaclyn Wilmoth. You can find The Snow Witch at all major retailers in both ebook and paperback by clicking here.
To Lumi, Arctic Town was just too creepy. The birds were always watching and she stuck out like a sore thumb.
From the air, the domed city looked like a blister on the land. A blemish where the pus of the place boiled out of its skin. They had arrived in spring as the snow melted down the dome, creating honeycombs of ice around the lower walls.
“This,” Cole swept his arm out in front of him as they came in to dock, “is Arctic.”
As they stepped out of the dirigible terminal, the world of Arctic Town sprawled before her. The brightness of the place smacked her. The sun at this angle seemed to be magnified by the dome in which the city was built.
It was more than just a town. It was an entire manufactured experience, like stepping back in time. The streets were bustling with people. The buildings had facades that looked like a frontier town.
From inside, you could hardly see the outside world at this time of year. A thin veil of water ran between the dome and the ice-comb, making the forest outside shift and change in unnatural ways, its reflection distorted for those inside. It gave Lumi an uncomfortable feeling, as if nothing was what it seemed, as if she couldn’t trust her own eyes.
Cole moved into the crowd and Lumi weaved her way through people to follow.
Lumi felt herself drifting away on the stream of people as Cole wrapped his hand around her waist.
“You can always spot the tourists.” He gave her a knowing smile.
“How?” she asked, looking around. There was something off about it. The people swarming the roads all looked so similar. The same pale eyes, the same fine hair, the same set chins.
“The newness of their clothes.”
Lumi looked closer. The clothes looked old to her. Old-fashioned, like each person had just stepped in from a hundred years ago, as if they’d been riding horses, but there were no horses to be seen. Frontier clothes, horse hands in pristine condition. Everyone almost seemed to be in costume, as if they were wearing clothes that didn’t quite fit them. Denim and leather that hadn’t been worn before. The jeans were bright blue, the leather stiff and uncomfortable looking.
Cole fit in here, in his denim shirt and tan moleskin pants. Lumi felt garish in her bright blue dress, out of place in her tattered but contemporary clothes. Here everyone else wore stuff that was old-fashioned but new. She wondered if they were even in uniform, the sameness was so exact.
“But how can you tell? Everyone’s got new clothes,” she called ahead to Cole.
He smirked back at her. “Everyone’s a tourist.”
Lumi wondered what this said about a place, that everyone was a visitor. The trees even seemed transplanted. Even they looked uncomfortable, as if they too wore costumes that didn’t quite fit.
There were birds everywhere, but no other animals. Each tree lining the street had several birds of different species looking down into the street, heads whirring from one side to another.
Lumi looked to the ground, wondering if there should be birdshit everywhere. There was none.
The light shone bright in Arctic Town. She had to squint against it. Then claws clamped down on her shoulder. She shouted, swatting and trying to get away.
It was a magpie, perched on her shoulder even as she tried to run from it. As it moved next to her ear, she could hear the machinations beneath the feathers. This was no biological bird.
The movement on the street around her had frozen. Lumi looked around. Everyone was staring at her.
“Oh, it’s okay,” Cole said. He leaned his mouth toward the bird, as if he were talking into it. “Just her first time here.”
He nudged the magpie up onto his finger and flicked it into the sky, on its way.
The crowd murmured and slowly returned to the bustle it had been.
“Turning heads everywhere you go,” Cole said. “Good thing we’re here.” And he guided her through a wooden door as he opened it.
“I feel like I’m being followed,” Lumi told him.
“It’s the birds,” he said. “You get used to it.”
They were only passing through, so she didn’t get used to it.
Just as she had stepped back into the stream of vintage-clad, starched bodies, she felt a brush of fur and a firm grip on her arm. Some soul so old that Lumi couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman, so wrinkled as to be unrecognizable and covered in so many furs that the person seemed not to have a body at all. Just a wrinkled face and wrinkled hands in a ball of dead animals.
The hands held Lumi’s wrists, and she looked toward the elder.
“Whatever you do,” the voice seemed to be garbled, as if it came from beneath the pelts. “Do not come here with child.”
Lumi pulled her hand away.
“You will disappear,” the elder said, releasing Lumi’s hand. “They are watching.”
The aged soul looked up to the birds in the trees. Lumi followed the gaze and when she looked down, the ball of furs was gone.
She was on edge for the rest of the time they were in the dome. Each time she looked outside, each time they went out, she saw fur rushing to hide.
Jaclyn Wilmoth lives in the boreal forest of Alaska, where she teaches creative writing, grows very large kohlrabi with her husband, and tries to keep her daughter away from no-no mushrooms and berries. Hauling water is her least favorite chore.
Find more of my creative writing here. You can check out prompts and inspiration for your own writing here. And for posts about how to add more magic into your own life, click here.
This post is an excerpt from the fantasy novel The Snow Witch, by Jaclyn Wilmoth. You can find The Snow Witch at all major retailers in both ebook and paperback by clicking here.
The forest made different sounds in the snow. The wind whistled in winter, and sometimes even howled, as if the sharp points of the quakenbush’s bare branches were cutting its belly. Still, there was a beauty to it, and to Lumi, a novelty.
Cole had noticed that she had been spending more time in the cabin since it started snowing and encouraged her to go outside, which she had been avoiding, and take a walk, which she almost never did alone.
This stretch of road looked so strange, like a whole other planet from the road Lumi had come to love in the summer. In summer, the willowherb grew taller than her. By August, it was so tall that it could barely hold itself up and the stalks bowed in toward the path so that it created a little tunnel for her to walk through. Now the stalks had turned to hard, hollow paper and the flowers had erupted into small tufts of smokey seeds, waiting to be carried off by the wind. These were the last of the seeds, the ones that weren’t taken in time. Snowflakes rested on them.
She listened harder to the sounds. A raven. A squirrel. A crunch. Lumi glanced over her shoulder, wondering if she had in fact heard someone. The forest was still.
It was unlikely. They were far enough away from the small village nearby that there wasn’t much foot traffic. It was probably more likely an animal. And yet.
As her foot stepped down onto the snow, she felt a different texture below her foot. And then, snaps. She looked down to a pile of feathers, partially covered over with snow. As she stooped, she saw what had snapped. Bones.
They were bigger than she had expected, but unmistakable. Swampland crane bones. She reached down to brush the snow away. The bones were nearly as large as her own arm bones.
And there it was again, that crunch. She looked behind her and held her breath. Silence again.
She rubbed a finger over the smoothness of the bone. The snow melted on her fingertips, and pulled her into a memory.
*
I stand on the bridge and actually, the water looks completely still from here. It must be moving, flowing, but the river looks like it is holding its breath, waiting to see if I will really do it. There’s a reverberation on the water, a ping that catches my eye. Then another, and another. I pull on the sapphire earrings that are swishing in the rain. A gift from Luis that I would never wear in public. A secret all our own. The wet tinkling makes a melody that will stay with me.
The tears are freezing on my face. They pull at my skin as I try to wipe them away. I am so far up. It’s so, so far. Like I have climbed a mountain. Like the whole world is below.
Only it’s just water. Just the swirl of river against rock. Just a gray that doesn’t stop. I can feel it. I can feel the kicking beneath my navel. I can feel the way even it wants out of this body.
The wind is pushing me back, trying to keep me on the bridge. It doesn’t know. Doesn’t know the way the world works, that what awaits me surely must be worse than death.
The water is pulling and the wind is pushing and I know that it’s me that has to break the tie.
It is beginning to rain. All those raindrops have fallen so much farther than I would. And when they land, they disappear. They are home. I want that too.
I lean my shoulders forward and put my arms out wide.
Then I feel hands on my belly.
*
Lumi was certain she heard footsteps then. The swish in the snow of quick strides. She turned toward the noise, and another snowflake skimmed her cheek and another memory overtook her.
*
A crane steps gingerly onto the riverbank in front of me.
It is purposeful in the way it moves, silent. It looks me in the eye. They have come.
It is our bodies that the whole pandemic revolves around. So here I am, lover of all the sick, on my knees in the river. The commonality in all cases is our own bodies, and so the whole village has come to watch, to make sure that we are washed away by the water. I look toward Hannah. There are, at least, others with me. I try to send her this thought, to draw her attention to the crane. She won’t look. Her eyes are scared from beneath her mask and the long beak of it is quivering. I hope that it still smells of the calming herbs.
But it is our bodies that cared for each of those bleeding, melting bodies. And yet, we are not sick. We held the dying and comforted their souls, and now they are sure that we must be witches.
Another crane calls above us. I hope that They see.
It is our bodies that cleanse the wounds, and so they demand to see. Amid the jeers, I can hear the sob of my mother. My clothes are torn off. But all I see are bubbles as the water rushes past my face.
*
Lumi didn’t remember Cole finding her whimpering. She didn’t remember him pulling her out of a huddled ball in the snow, heaving for air. She didn’t remember the walk home or him wrapping her in blankets next to the woodstove or how long they sat there in silence.
All she remembered were the visions in the snowflakes.
Jaclyn Wilmoth lives in the boreal forest of Alaska, where she teaches creative writing, grows very large kohlrabi with her husband, and tries to keep her daughter away from no-no mushrooms and berries. Hauling water is her least favorite chore.
Find more of my creative writing here. You can check out prompts and inspiration for your own writing here. And for posts about how to add more magic into your own life, click here.
Yule, or the winter solstice, is a time of year when the days are the shortest and the earth begins to tilt to bring us more daylight. At its heart, Yule is a celebration of both the darkness and the light, and it is an opportunity for us to celebrate winter. This post contains ideas for Yule traditions, the spiritual meaning of winter solstice, Yule rituals for writers, and winter solstice writing prompts to help you connect with the season and your craft.
Winter Solstice
It’s impossible to let the solstice pass without recognition when one lives this far north. At 3:00 pm, the sun has already set and on cloudy days it’s hard to tell if it’s coming up at all. These days, depending on how you count your twilights, we are getting about three hours of sunlight, and everything else is dark.
Winter Solstice is one of our family’s favorite holidays, and we’ve created some of our own family Yule traditions. There’s something beautiful about knowing that you have been through the darkest time of year and you know each day will get brighter and brighter. Every solstice, we create a mandala with natural materials.
We also celebrate by decorating “Bruce the Solstice Spruce.” A few years ago, we started the tradition of finding our tree in the woods and bringing him home with us. The white and black spruces that grow up here might not be as full or as round as the store-bought trees, but there’s something magical about the act of actually bringing the tree in from the cold and celebrating it.
What is Yule?
Yule is an ancient Scandinavian festival that corresponded to the Winter Solstice, the shortest day or the longest night of the year. It was known as the time when the world is the darkest and people would wait with bated breath to see if the sun would return. But it was also a time of great celebration, because the sun did return.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice usually falls on December 21st or 22nd. In the Southern Hemisphere, Midwinter usually happens on June 21st or 22nd. When it is Yule in the Southern Hemisphere, it is Litha in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa. Yule follows Samhain in the Wheel of the Year, and it in turn is followed by Imbolc.
The solstice actually is just one measurable moment: the moment when the pole of your hemisphere is tilted as far as it will be from the sun, creating the longest night. However, because of the importance of this holiday, many cultures celebrate this time of year for many days, like the Twelve Days of Yule or the week of Saturnalia.
Winter Solstice Meaning
Yule at its heart is a celebration of the sun. We have made it through the long dark. We are on the slide into spring. The sun is coming up more and more each day, making the world brighter and lighter. As the sun returns, we know the plants and animals and mushrooms will also return.
On one hand, the Winter Solstice represents the depths of winter. The landscape is at its most threatening, and it is a time that the land is calling us to go inward, reflect, rest, and hibernate. On the other hand, it’s a time of incredible celebration because the darkest time of year has passed and we have made it through. The days get brighter from here.
Yule vs. Christmas
Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is celebrated on December 21st or 22nd, when the earth reaches its ultimate tilt, while Christmas is celebrated on December 25th. But there are other differences between these holidays as well. Though a lot of Christmas traditions come from old pagan Yuletide celebrations, to me they are very different holidays.
For me, Yule has been the hardest sabbat to write about. Christmas is so prevalent in my culture and was such a bulwark of my childhood that I can hardly ignore that it is happening. But all of the trappings of consumerism and expectations at this time of year honestly used to make me a little bit scroogey about Yule.
On the other hand, this is such a spectacular time of year in the Great North. All day, the light is breathtaking. At night, the aurora borealis are dancing among clear, glowing stars. There is magic in the air, and it begs to be celebrated.
In our family, we’ve decided that we will celebrate everything. We do celebrate both Winter Solstice and Christmas. But, unlike Samhain and Halloween, or Ostara and Easter, I do not think of these holidays as interchangeable.
Instead, we celebrate them separately, as two holy days that are interconnected. On solstice, we make a mandala, honor the sun, and celebrate nature, including decorating Bruce the Solstice Spruce. We try to spend as much time outside as possible, even when it is 30 below zero, like this year.
On Christmas, we celebrate abundance, warmth, and generosity with a big meal, family and friends, the coziness of home, and gifts under our solstice spruce. To me, Christmas represents the time when the return of the light is noticeable, the day when it really does feel like there is more light than there was just a few days ago, and that is definitely something to celebrate.
Winter Solstice Traditions
One of the beautiful things about this time of year is that there are so many ways to celebrate. You can honor the return of the sun, or you can honor the shadows and darkness. You can host friends and family, or you can retreat into your own cozy little world. Bonfires, feasts, sacrifices, and inebriation have all been part of Yule. But reflection, rest, home, and hearth are also important this time of year.
One Yule tradition that has persisted is bringing greenery inside the house. This happened both as Yule trees, which were decorated, or Yule logs, which were covered in ashes, and burned later in the year. You might bring in mistletoe to embrace the properties of the tree it grows on. You could create a simmer pot of spruce or pine. You might bring a stick of willow or birch inside to watch the leaves bud as a reminder of the coming spring, or an omen of good things to come.
Another lovely winter solstice tradition is to give a gift, offering, or sacrifice. This time of year, we put out bird seed in recognition that even our feathery friends might be in need. It’s a time when we must give what we can because we do not know if our neighbors have enough for winter.
In honor of the return of the sun, it’s also a wonderful time to bring fire into your world. You can light a candle or have a bonfire, sit by the fireplace, put up twinkle lights, or just spend time in the precious sunshine.
Yule Correspondences
One of the most recognizable symbols of Yule is evergreen. But this doesn’t just mean pine and spruce trees. Mistletoe is also evergreen, and was thought to bring the properties of whichever tree it grew on. Holly and ivy are also traditional evergreen Yule plants. Animals that correspond to Yule might be squirrels, deer, owls, ravens, or bears.
Food that evokes the Winter Solstice are oranges, apples, gingerbread, fruitcake, cinnamon, root vegetables, and game meat. The colors that correspond to Yule are those of the sun and holly: red, green, and gold. You might also choose to reflect the colors of the land this time of year: white, blue, silver and black. Crystals that correspond to Yule follow the colors: emerald, rubies, diamonds, bloodstones, garnets, and quartz are just a few. Wreaths, candles, stars, and bells can also be used to represent this time of year.
Any of these correspondences, whether they be plants or colors, can be used to bring the joy and meaning of the season into your life. Anything you do with intention can help connect you to the turning of the Wheel of the Year. So break out your owl pictures, hang some mistletoe, light some candles, or eat an apple — it’s all ritual and celebration!
Yule Rituals for Writers
Here are some ideas about how to celebrate Winter Solstice. These Yule ideas are geared particularly at writers, as they are ways to connect with your creativity and your craft this holiday season. However, I’ve tried to leave them open-ended enough that they can act as Winter Solstice celebration ideas for anyone who wants to connect more with the season and the land. It’s a great time to reflect, be generous, take some time for yourself, and dream about the year to come.
Start a journal. It is time to go inward. Like the land, we can pull into ourselves so that we can grow even more next year. One way for writers in particular to connect with this inward-facing energy is to journal. Use one of those nice notebooks you haven’t touched. Use some of the prompts below that call to you. You might choose to start a daily practice, or to journal through the twelve days of Yule. Use your words to discover yourself.
Write the story of your year. As the year comes to an end, write about the key events of the year. What have you accomplished? What have you overcome? What is the overarching narrative of the year? What has changed? How have you grown?
Give gifts. What do you have to give, in terms of your writing life? Could you give lessons, encouragement, or even your writing itself? You have gifts to give, and giving can connect you to a community. How can you be generous this season?
Set intentions and make wishes. It’s a particularly good time of year to think about what you want to grow in your life. As the light comes back, take some time to think about the big picture dreams you are trying to nurture. It may not quite be time to set particular goals and make a plan, but explore your thoughts and intuition to dream about the potential for the coming year. Why are you writing? Is it to make money? To inspire people? To entertain? How can you grow into your fullest potential this year? What would it look like? It’s a great time to make a vision board.
Rest. Like the earth. As the world sits in stillness and waits for the light to come back, the animals, plants, and fungi outside are resting up for all the growth that is to come. We too need rest. This can be a busy time of year, and if you are anything like me, you have a huge to-do list of all the projects to complete, holiday plans to make, travel, and festivities. But these expectations of busyness at this slow and calm time of year makes it all the more important for us to be conscientious about the rest we are getting. Allow yourself to enjoy the time with others and to rest.
Winter Solstice Writing Prompts
Here are 30 Yule writing prompts to help you connect with your intuition and creativity at this powerful time of year. I have purposefully created these prompts to be interpreted in many ways, as inspiration for creative projects like poetry, fiction, or personal essays, or as Yule journal prompts. Don’t worry too much about what they mean. Instead, let your creativity fly with whatever comes to mind. It’s an especially good time of year to use these as winter solstice journal prompts, letting you turn inward to reflect and see what your imagination holds.
Write about a time of starvation.
Write a narrative that begins with finding a word written in the snow.
Start with a memory of a smell you associate with winter.
Write about an unexpected creature killed during a hunt.
Write about your biggest accomplishment this year. What kind of future does it propel you into?
Write about a scarcity.
You kiss someone under the mistletoe, and in that kiss, you gain some of their powers.
Write about what happens when the light comes back.
Listen to your dreams. Go to bed with a notebook and pen on your bedside, trying to remember your dreams. When you do remember your dream, write it down. Start your writing there.
Write the story of the next year. Pull one tarot card (If you don’t have a deck, you can use this.) per month, and write the story that comes up.
Write about giving birth to the sun.
Write about overcoming the darkness.
Go outside if you can. Take a walk with no set destination and let your intuition guide you. Write about where you end up.
Write about the naughty list.
Write about a party that lasts as long as the ale keeps flowing.
What percentage of your day is darkness on Winter Solstice? Do an erasure of a text that blacks out that percentage of the words.
Look at the variety of paints in the color white from Sherwin Williams. Pick one that is evocative to you. Start your story with the name of the color.
Write about a fire that burns all year.
Write a story that begins with an ending.
Find out how long the shortest day is where you live. Write a story that takes place in that amount of time.
Write about the first sunrise after the long dark.
It’s not an easy time of year, but it is one of my favorites. As a girl who originally grew up in Florida, I couldn’t have imagined loving the world when it was forty below. But there’s something otherworldly and magical about the landscape of the north at this time of year. Everything, the trees especially, is dusted with hoarfrost, like icing on every surface. The snowflakes are distinct and glistening, which my four year old calls “glitter snow.” And the entire day is a sunrise or a sunset, depending on how you choose to look at it.
Either way, the light turns from pink to blue and slants across the ice to reflect on itself again and again so that the whole world is sparkling. And there’s something about the way that the air nips your cheeks that reminds you to be grateful that you are alive — that even if the sun isn’t shining, just existing is enough.
As I finish writing this, it is 12:18pm and already the sun has begun to set. The hills around us are pink with alpenglow and the snow is taking on the icy blue of twilight. There are hundreds of boreal chickadees in the yard. They are shaking the birch trees so that their seeds fall from their catkins and litter the snow. Even in these darkest of times, the land is preparing for new growth, and we can, too.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on the Wheel of the Year, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. For more ideas about how to deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post.
Mabon, or pagan Thanksgiving, is celebrated on the autumn equinox. This post contains witchy writing prompts for fall equinox, Mabon rituals for writers, autumn correspondences, history, and the meaning of Mabon to help artists connect their craft to the season and find more creativity and inspiration. They can be used as autumn creative writing prompts or Mabon journal prompts. Use these fall ritual ideas to spark your imagination and decide how you want to celebrate the autumn equinox.
Change is in the air, here. Each morning on the drive down the hill to school, my daughter calls out, “It’s looking a lot like fall out here!” from her carseat. As much as I may be resisting it, she’s right. Mushrooms are coming up. The sky feels crisper. The aspens are turning pink. If I embrace the present at this time of year, it really is beautiful.
In our garden, we currently have more than we can eat. I have been trying to get everyone I see to take my kale. But it is also becoming clear which plants will not have the chance to ripen before the temperatures drop (I’m looking at you, winter squash and peppers).
What is Mabon?
Mabon, which happens on the fall equinox, is the time of year when the earth is balanced between summer and winter. It’s known as the pagan Thanksgiving, the season of feasting and harvest, and a season to begin to prepare for the winter. There is balance between the light and the dark.
It is the first official day of autumn. In the northern hemisphere, Mabon falls between September 21 and September 24. In the southern hemisphere, it takes place around March 20th. (Note: Google will let you know the exact time of balance for this year!) When it is Mabon in the northern hemisphere, it is Ostara in the southern hemisphere and vice versa.
Mabon is the second harvest, situated on the Wheel of the Year between Lugnasadh (the first harvest) and Samhain (the last harvest). It is the height of harvest season. We are reaping what we have sown this year, and feeling the abundance that has come as a result of our hard work.
Meaning of Mabon
“Mabon” is a relatively new holiday, the term being coined in the 1970s(!). It was named after the Welsh god Mabon ap Modron, which means “great son of the great mother.” Legend has it that Mabon was stolen from his mother, the earth goddess, and held prisoner. This is a story which resonates with the tale of Persephone, who is taken from her mother in fall, held in the underworld through winter, and brings spring back to the land when she finally returns.
That being said, many cultures celebrate, and have celebrated, the autumn equinox. There is a lot to celebrate at this time of year. And when you live as far north as I do, it seems like something that you have to mark. The tilt toward winter has begun. It’s time to harvest, slow down, and prepare.
Mabon is a day of balance: there are twelve hours of light and twelve hours of darkness. On this day when the sun fleetingly finds equilibrium, we can begin to take stock of where we are out of balance, and what we can do to bring more harmony into our lives.
This is a time of gratitude because we are harvesting the fruits of everything we’ve worked for through the previous seasons. But as the earth tilts closer toward darkness, we are also called to think about which of our plantings we are going to harvest and preserve (metaphorically), and which we are going to let wither. It’s a time of looking at whether we’ve done enough to make it through winter or whether there is more to do.
It’s time to harvest, but it’s also time to preserve the harvest. How can we set ourselves up for future success? Mabon is an opportunity to turn inward and reflect on what is working and what isn’t.
Because of this, we have to think more seriously about how to prepare for winter. Mother nature is getting ready for the season: seeds are dropping, leaves are changing, and fruit is coming ripe. These are all signs that we, too, should be thinking about how to get ready for the cold.
When we look around us, we can see the trees letting go, telling us to do the same. As the wheel turns this time of year, we are in a prime position to let go of those things that have not served us, give thanks to those things and let them fall away to make space for next year’s growth.
Mabon Correspondences and Symbolism
Mabon is a celebration of the sunny side of fall. It’s a time to honor the beauty that comes when the sun begins to wane: autumn leaves, mushrooms, late summer flowers, and the abundance of the garden. All of these make excellent symbols of the season.
Any of these correspondences and symbols can be used to decorate your workspace, as your desktop or phone background, or even as something to wear. You might pull some of these correspondences into your Mabon altar, your desk, or the colors of pens you use.
Colors of Mabon
The colors of Mabon are the colors of autumn: red, gold, orange, brown, and a deep, dark green. This is one of the times when the earth is screaming out in the colors of the season, bursting with the hues of a setting sun. You only need to look out your window this time of year to decide which colors you can use to celebrate Mabon. Bring those most beautiful fallen leaves inside, decorate your home and yourself with the gilded forest.
Foods for Mabon
Berries! Apples! Grapes (And wine!)! In fact, a whole cornucopia. No, actually. Cornucopias are symbols of Mabon too. This is the height of the harvest season. Everything is coming ripe. Apple pies, cider, berry cobblers, any kind of food that uses what’s coming ripe in the world around you would be a perfect celebration of the season.
Crystals for Mabon
You might have guessed that many of the crystals that correspond to Mabon also correspond to fall colors. Yellow citrine, amber, tiger’s eye, ruby, and jasper can all be used to honor this time of year. You can connect with these stones by wearing them, or setting them on your writing desk or on your altar. Sometimes a little bit of sparkle that catches your eye can be a powerful recurring reminder of what you are trying to cultivate this season.
Mabon Rituals for Writers
There are quite a few writing-oriented ways that you can use the energy of the autumn equinox to further your writing practice, and especially to hone your craft as an artist. It’s a great time to practice gratitude, take stock, let go, and set yourself up for the rest of the year. Here are some ideas for Mabon rituals that can also support your writing and creativity.
Get balanced. Take some time to think about the balance (or lack thereof!) in your life. Do you have a good balance between your creative life and your practical life? Do you have balance between time to work and time to play? How can you bring more balance into your writing practice? Make a plan to make it happen.
Take stock. What had you hoped to harvest by this time of year? What have you harvested that’s unexpected? What worked well and what didn’t help as much as you’d hoped? Take some time to journal for Mabon reflecting on what you are harvesting, what you still wish to harvest, and how the direction of your writingmight have changed.
Let go. Autumn reminds us that there is beauty in letting go. What do you need to let go of so that your creativity can thrive? Have you been holding on to fear? Excuses? Bad habits? Write about what you want to let go of. Write key words on leaves and burn them in a fire. Let your own leaves turn as bright as you can and let them go.
Clear out your writing space. Just like spring, fall can be an excellent time for a general clear-out. While you are letting go of what you don’t need, you can also spruce up your writing space. Clear out that desk so you have room for new ideas. Make your space cozy so you can get yourself ready to dig in for the winter and get writing. Making a writing space that’s your favorite place to be will draw you to the desk as winter starts and put you in the mood for creativity.
Finish Projects. (This one is particularly hitting me this year, as I am trying to finish a book by Mabon!) It’s time to tie up loose ends before winter. How can you get the most from the next harvest? How can you finish the year strong? Which projects can you complete and how can you re-apply yourself? Which projects might have to wait for another time? Get clear on what you want your writing life to look like and focus on that.
Make a writing simmer pot. This one is especially for all of you who are writing at the kitchen table. Fill a soup pot with some water and your favorite scents. You can use apple, cinnamon, and/or sage for seasonal scents. You could use creativity-boosting scents like lavender or lemon. Or any essential oils you like. Write your writing wishes on bay leaves. Simmer the water and scents on low and let the steam send your wishes to the heavens.
Host a literary feast. The autumn equinox is a time for celebration and gratitude. What better way to honor all the things you have to be thankful for than a thanksgathering with your nearest and dearest? Invite your friends and family to bring wine and something to share—maybe the piece of writing they feel most grateful for.
Mabon Writing Prompts
Here are 30 Mabon writing prompts to help harvest your ideas. I have created these prompts to be interpreted in many ways, so don’t worry about “what it means.” Just let yourself write and see where your creativity takes you.
Many of these fall writing prompts are intended as inspiration for creative projects like poetry, short stories, or memoir. However, I’ve tried to leave them open-ended enough that they can also function as autumn equinox journal prompts. How can you explore yourself through these lenses? Have fun with it!
Savor your favorite food. Treat yourself to your favorite food and eat it slowly, paying particular attention to the details of what eating it is like. Write about it in detail. Make it our favorite food, too.
Write about gratitude for something unexpected.
Write about something gained by letting go.
Go on a nature walk and collect what sparks your interest: acorns, pretty leaves, even human-made debris. Write a piece in which one of these features prominently.
Write about a child being held in the underworld.
Write about the longest sunset.
Create a recipe for getting through winter.
Write about using the first artificial light.
Write about what’s hidden under the fallen leaves.
Choose one of the crystals associated with Mabon. Research its properties. How is it formed and transformed into the stone it is? Write a character undergoing the same transformation.
Write about harvesting a forbidden fruit.
Write about being stuck in the middle.
Mine your memories. Think of a time when everything felt in perfect harmony. Start your story there.
Write about something blossoming too late.
Write about a god making their exit.
Find a place with a lot of fallen leaves and explore in the detritus. Write about what you find.
Write about the takeover of pumpkin spice.
Write about a harvest that’s not enough.
Research a mushroom. Use its properties to develop a character personality. Is it deadly? Beautiful? Parasitic? Psychedelic? What would this mushroom be like as a character? What would they do? How would they act?
Write about someone tilting toward the dark side.
Find several colors of one kind of leaf and order them from newest to oldest. Describe the change that the leaf goes through in detail, from the perspective of the leaf.
Check out the Justice tarot card (if you don’t have your own deck, here are a ton of images of the Justice card). What is the story that you see in the picture of this card? What is the meaning? Show us how this relates to balance, to equinox.
Write a story about perfect timing.
Write about the biggest blessing of the year.
Write about something that needs to be preserved, and how to do it.
The sun is setting noticeably earlier, which also means there’s more chance of seeing the aurora borealis. We are using the lights more, and seeing the stars more. There are plants that need to go outside and will die, because it is clear they are not going to fruit. There are plants that need to come inside and will be nurtured, because I can’t get through a winter without greenery.
If we can live in the harmony and the balance of the present moment, we can see just how beautiful the cycles of the seasons are. The way each one can leave us with new fruits and new wonders. But there’s also a call to look inward, to prepare yourself and your writing for the changes to come. There is so much to be grateful for, so much to preserve, and still so much work to do.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on the Wheel of the Year, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. For more ideas about how to deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post. And if you’re in the southern hemisphere, you can find the
Litha, the summer solstice, is a time when the earth is bursting with creativity and a time when writers can get inspired by the sun and let their writing shine. This post has ideas for how to connect with the summer solstice, also called midsummer and Litha. It includes an explanation of the holiday, Litha correspondences, summer writing ideas, summer solstice rituals for writers, ideas for how to celebrate Litha, and creative writing prompts that can also be used as Litha journal prompts.
Summer Solstice
The summer solstice is one of my favorite times of year. In truth, I never noticed the turning of the Wheel of the Year until I moved to Alaska. Here, you can’t ignore the changes of the seasons. You don’t just notice them, you plan your life around them. In a matter of weeks, our yard went from several feet of snow to wildflowers. These kinds of transitions beg to be marked and celebrated. It feeds the soul to take a look outside and let yourself sync with the seasons, to let go when the trees let go and shine bright when the sun does too.
This post is an ode to those brightest of days, summer solstice. In our yard, roses, dandelions, and strawberries are just starting to bloom. The garden is taking root and it doesn’t get dark anymore. The air is abuzz with sunshine, mosquitoes, and bees. I can feel the energy all around and I want to connect with that energy, to infuse my writing with that energy, to let the heat of the sun light my words on fire.
Here are some ideas about useful ways to think about Litha, writing rituals to help embrace that potent longest day of summer energy, and a month’s worth of creative writing prompts inspired by the summer solstice. I hope they help you find calm, connect with the world around you, and create something beautiful.
What is Litha?
Litha is the pagan celebration of the summer solstice. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year. Astronomically, the summer solstice can hit its peak any time between June 20th and June 22nd in the Northern Hemisphere, while the Southern Hemisphere will feel the full strength of the solstice between December 20th and 23rd. When it is Litha in the northern hemisphere, it is Yule in the summer hemisphere and vice versa. It’s a time when the sun seems to stand still, frozen at the pinnacle of its strength.
This holiday is all about the sun. Litha is a time when everything reaches its peak: the sun, summer, the flowers, the trees. The world is bursting with life. The goddess is at the height of her pregnancy, ready to bring forth the fecundity and harvest of the earth.
But there is another side to the summer solstice that is often overlooked. It’s also the day that the power of the sun will begin to wane. As all things happen in due time, so too does the sun begin to cede its power to the night.
Litha Correspondences
One of the easiest ways to celebrate any holiday is to bring out the colors that correspond to that day. For Litha, think anything sun-like or fire-like: red, orange, yellow, gold, and brown all fit the bill. You can think of crystals in the same way. Many of the crystals that correspond to Litha are fiery, solar colors: carnelian, tiger’s eye, citrine, and sunstone can all help represent that height-of-summer energy.
All flowers are midsummer appropriate, in my book. To get especially deep into the holiday, you could use flowers that look like the sun: dandelions, daisies, marigolds, chamomile, and of course sunflowers are good examples. Also, the flowers that are currently in bloom locally are always a great choice.
There is a legend that summer solstice is the day that the Oak King gives up the throne to the Holly King, marking the turn into the darker time of the year. Because of this, oak and holly are both great to work with at this time of year.
All kinds of herbs might also be ready to be harvested around this time, and the peak of the sun’s strength is also associated with the peak of the herb’s strength. It’s a beautiful time to forage herbs or pick the herbs in your garden. If you don’t know your local herbs, summer solstice, when the herbs are at their most vibrant, is a lovely time to get to know them.
For feasting, honey is the quintessential Litha food. Edible flowers are perfect for that midsummer feel (We love deep-fried dandelions in our house, but I assume they are not traditional!). Citrus fruits and strawberries also taste like the height of summer. This is one holiday where fresh herbs will never go amiss.
Litha Rituals
Suncatcher
The summer solstice ritual I am most excited about starting this year is to make a suncatcher. Making one and hanging it in your space on the longest day helps to act as a reminder of the light of our nearest star, even on dark days. It can help spread more light and joy around your home as it reflects sunlight through your window.
Flower Crown
This Litha ritual is almost instinctive. The pull of the flowers in midsummer is irresistible and they beg to be made into a crown. I, and countless others, have probably made flower crowns without thinking of it as a summer solstice ritual. There is just something primal and beautiful about adorning your crown with the bounty of the summer. Let the beauty of the flowers inspire your thoughts and your words.
Bonfire
Though Litha is not one of “the” pagan fire festivals, fire features prominently. It’s hard to celebrate the fullness of the sun without celebrating fire. Traditionally, Litha was sometimes marked by a whole-night-long bonfire, from sunset the night before solstice (Midsummer’s Eve) to the sunrise on the morning of the longest day. Even if this bonfire-marathon is not available to you, you can have a BBQ, light a candle, or turn on your salt-lamp. Even small things can remind you of the light and life-giving power of the sun.
Mandala
This is a particularly personal summer solstice for our family. This is a Litha ritual that we actually have done every solstice — summer and winter — since The Surfing Novelist and I got together. In our own family solstice ritual, we collect the bounty of the season: flowers, rocks, catkins, whatever speaks to us. Then we use those things to create a circular mandala pattern. When we are done, we let the mandala stay where it is outdoors, letting the birds pick away at it and the flowers wilt as a reminder of the seasons passing.
Mandalas of years past
Why Litha Matters for Writers
Solstices are incredibly powerful times and intense turning points. Summer solstice especially so. The world around us is bursting with its fullest potential, and you can be too. If you have been feeling like you want to step into your power, to live up to your potential, to really shine, then Litha is a great time to harness the energy of the growth happening all around you. Follow nature’s lead and let yourself be bursting: confident, creative, shining!
Sometimes as writers, we really need that push to get our work out there, that boost of confidence that our words matter, even if it is only to us. Litha is a great time to hone your inner sun, to step into your potential and let your stories shine.
Litha also represents the height of creative potential. The creativity of the land is blossoming all around us, and asking us as artists to blossom as well. Now is the time to let the fire within you burn, to follow your nature and express your true self.
How to Celebrate Litha as a Writer
Here are some ideas about how to use the power of the summer solstice to connect more deeply with your writing practice. Use the one(s) that speak most to you. Intuitively, you know what will help spark your creativity and inspiration, so feel free to tweak these ideas and make them all your own.
Reconnect with your goals. The wheel of the year has turned halfway. If you set goals at the beginning of the year, look back and see the progress you have made. Give yourself some love for how far you’ve come, even if it’s not as far as you might have wanted. What about the plans for the rest of the year? Do you need a new direction? Are there goals that you are ready to go after? Or goals you are ready to let go of?
Build your confidence. The sun shines confidently and powerfully, especially on Litha. It’s an opportune time to work on shining confidently and powerfully as well. Think about things you could do to help you build your confidence. I’m not talking about things that are dependent on others, like getting accepted to a magazine. I’m talking about things you can do. Share your poetry with friends, publish a story on Wattpad, start or join a writing group. What are some things you can do to make yourself feel more confident about your writing? Make a list and start doing them!
Write from sun down to sun up. It’s the shortest night, and one way to mark that is to write until the sun comes up. Where I live, the time is about two and a half hours between sunset and sunrise. Find out what the times of sunrise and sunset are, grab some wine, and let your fingers dance all night.
Write in a fiery place. If any day of the year is one to be outside, this is it. Jumpstart your creativity by writing in a new place or new situation. Particularly midsummer-y ideas are to write by bonfire, in the forest, or while sunbathing.
Do a writing ritual to connect with your creativity. Y’all know I love my writing rituals. Here’s one especially designed to boost your creativity.
Charge your writing. Use the energy of the sun to give your current WIP or your writing tools a boost. Find something that represents your writing: a copy of your manuscript, your favorite pen, a new notebook. Leave this item in the sun from sunrise to sunset, so it can absorb the entirety of the sun’s power. Make sure it isn’t something too precious (For the love of goddess, do not put your only copy of your manuscript or your laptop outside all day!). Alternatively, you can leave it inside next to a sunny window.
Let go. Like the sun, we all need to ebb and flow. What is holding you back from reaching your fullest potential? Are there people, situations, or beliefs that are standing in your way? As the earth begins to tilt away from the sun, you can use this energy to move closer toward your most potent self by letting go of those things that no longer serve you. Write them on a paper. Throw them in a bonfire. Let them go.
30 Litha Writing Prompts
Here are 30 summer solstice prompts to help get your creative fires burning! I have created these prompts to be interpreted in many ways, so don’t worry about “what it means.” Just let yourself get writing and see where the little jog of your creativity takes you.
Many of these prompts are intended as inspiration for creative projects, like poetry, short stories, or memoir. However, I’ve tried to leave them open-ended enough that they can also function as summer solstice journal prompts. Imagine yourself as the main character. How would you react in these new or different situations and what can your behavior tell you about yourself?
Write a story about a character whose fate is changed when they jump over the fire.
Write from the perspective of bees.
Go for a walk and note the first yellow thing you see. Use this in your first sentence.
Write about what happens when the sun doesn’t set.
Find a flower that calls to you. Do a bit of research about its reproductive processes. Write about people who undergo these processes.
Write something that features a medicinal herb.
Craft a story that centers around something that has stopped growing.
Write a story that takes place over the course of the shortest night.
If you were an herb, what sort would you be?
Write what happens when the fairies come out.
Create a character who starts their story at their peak. It all gets darker from here.
Write from the point of view of the sun.
What’s the first word that comes to mind when you think of the summer solstice? Type this word into relatedwords.org and use as many of the words that come up as possible.
Write about the freshest feast.
Create a narrative that takes place entirely in a ‘tween-time, when everything is standing still but also in transition.
Write about the sunrise after the longest day.
Let yourself go skyclad and write about it.
Write about a pregnant goddess on the eve of giving birth.
Pull the Sun tarot card. (If you don’t have a deck, you can find pictures of the sun card online. I particularly like this one.) Looking at only the picture (Don’t use the description!), write everything that comes to mind. Don’t stop writing for ten minutes.
Craft a piece that centers around a meal that has been foraged.
Write about a dance that never ends.
Listen to fire. Light a candle or a small (safe!) bonfire and watch the flames. What do you see? Make a list of everything you see in the fire (Think looking for shapes in the clouds — but with flames!). When you feel you have a good list, create a piece that includes everything you saw.
Open a book to the exact middle page, and find the exact middle sentence on that page. Use this sentence to begin your own piece.
I hope you enjoy these writing prompts for summer solstice and that these seasonal writing rituals help you connect a little more, create a little more, and let your inner light shine. Litha is summer, it is light. It is the full flowering of the fecundity of the earth. This is the time of year to spread your arms to the universe, or at least to your backyard, and let yourself burn as bright as you can. Collapse on the earth and contemplate the universe, then sleep deeply and wake up to the year’s next moment of change.
Do you have summer solstice traditions that you observe? How are you going to celebrate? Our family will be making our traditional mandala, and this year I am hoping to introduce the little one to suncatchers. I personally am hoping for the chance to write through the shortest night. If you use any of these prompts or rituals, please let me know how it goes.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on the Wheel of the Year, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. For more ideas about how to deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post.
Beltane, also known as May Day, is the beginning of summer and a great time to connect with your creativity. This post includes 30 creative writing prompts for Beltane, an explanation of what Beltane symbolizes, some Beltane ritual ideas, and how to celebrate Beltane as a writer.
What is Beltane?
Beltane is a pagan holiday that celebrates the coming of summer. This sabbat takes place around the halfway point between the spring equinox (Ostara) and the summer solstice (Litha). In the Wheel of the Year, it is even considered the first official day of summer. It is a celebration of fire, flowers, passion, romance, and creativity. It is the time of year when the outside world begins to teem with life. Reproduction is on display, from the birds to the bees to the flowers and trees.
Beltane is usually celebrated around May 1, though the exact date of the astrological middle between equinox and solstice can vary quite a bit. Beltane is also known as May Day or May Eve and shares similarities with Walpurgis Nacht and Floralia, the Roman celebration of the flower goddess.
Beltane Rituals
Beltane Fires
Beltane is a fire festival, and bonfires are central in celebrating the holiday. My favorite Beltane ritual is the idea of lighting your hearth from the communal fire. Traditionally, all hearth fires would be put out and people would light their home fires from the larger communal Beltane bonfire. Fires were also used for cleansing and protecting livestock. Fire, even in the form of a candle or small fire in a fire pit can be a great way to mark this day.
May Pole
Perhaps the most famous ritual of May Day is the May Pole. The most recognizable image of the May Pole is that of a large pole with ribbons strung around it. Often in the celebration of the May Pole, participants will erect a large pole or branch and dance around it. Beltane is a time of gathering after the harsh weather of winter, when everyone can finally come together outside and dance.
May Bush
One of the most beautiful traditional rituals for Beltane is the ritual of the May Bush, which is a small tree or even just a branch decorated with flowers and ribbons. The participants could decorate the tree to represent their wishes by writing them on ribbons, decorating the tree with something symbolic of the wish, or making the wish while they decorate. This ritual is easy to adapt to an at-home practice. Anything from decorating a tree in your front yard with ribbons to tying a wish on a favored houseplant will do the trick. Let the life and fertility of the plants around you help you find your own vitality and creativity.
Beltane Symbolism and Correspondences
Beltane is especially known for flowers. Celebrants make wreaths and crowns and adorn themselves, their houses, and their beloved ones in flowers. White, red, yellow, and orange flowers are perfect for celebrating the strength of the sun and the arrival of summer. Hawthorn, birch, and rowan are also associated with this sabbat.
Oats, wine, and dairy are all foods associated with Beltane, so eat some oatmeal cookies after your wine, or drink some oat milk. But also, it’s an ideal holiday for feasting in general, so invite over some friends and be merry.
In case all the fires and phallic poles and vulvic flowers didn’t tip you off, this particular sabbat is also associated with romance and sacred sex. Beltane is often seen as the time of year that gods and goddesses come together to copulate and marry, so it can be associated with weddings, love, lust, and new unions.
Colors associated with Beltane are green, silver, white, and the fiery romantic colors: red, pink, yellow and orange. In the same vein, crystals of these colors can also be used around Beltane. Emerald, malachite, carnelian, rose quartz, garnet, and bloodstone are all excellent crystals to celebrate this time of year.
How to Celebrate Beltane as a Writer
For writers, Beltane offers new, exciting ways to connect with the creative energies around us and inside us. As the landscape bursts forth with new life, so too can we find these fertile forces in ourselves and our own writing practices. If you have felt stuck as the winter dragged on, or are looking for something new and inspiring to light your writing fire, Beltane is the ideal time to act on those impulses. Here are some ideas for how to bring the celebratory, fiery, creative energy of Beltane into your writing practice.
Experiment. Beltane is an excellent time to let yourself play, let yourself dance around the metaphorical fire of your writing. Try new prompts. Try a new form. Draw your story. Beltane is a great time to try something new and see where the fires of creativity take you.
Honor your ancestors. At Beltane, like at Samhain, the veil between worlds is thin. This is an ideal time to think about your literary foremothers. Who has inspired you and your writing? Reread the things that lit your literary fires and let yourself reconnect to what got you writing in the first place.
Lose yourself in music. Have you been wanting to create a writing playlist? To find music that helps you write? To create your own background music? Beltane is an optimal time to immerse yourself in the ecstasy and rapture that music can add to your writing practice.
Let nature guide you. Take your writing utensils outside and let nature be your muse. Find a flower, animal or tree to inspire you. You could use this prompt about plants, or just allow a nature bath to renew your writing.
Light your candle from the communal fire. As we all begin to come outside and rejoice in the warmth of the sunshine, it’s an excellent time to connect with other writers. Join or start a writing group. Attend literary events or conferences. Find community that will inspire you and get your creative juices flowing.
Start a union. Beltane is also a fortuitous time to hook up with other writers (did you see what I did there?). Find an artist or another writer whom you’ve always wanted to collaborate with and ask! Beltane will be supporting the endeavor!
Adorn yourself. Perhaps you are the kind of writer who is inspired to wear flowers in their hair. Ahem. Or perhaps some bright red lipstick, a new scent, or a particularly special piece of jewelry might help you connect to a different side of yourself as a writer.
Adorn your space. If your writing space is a little on the tired side, this is a great time of year to introduce plants, flowers, and fire elements. Buy a bouquet for your writing space and see if the beauty of the flowers rubs off on your writing. Get a new candle or a new plant to help transform your office (or kitchen table) into a place where magic can happen.
Explore your sensual side. If ever there were a time of year to explore the more sexual side of your writing, this is it. If you’ve wondered about spicing up your stories or trying your hand at writing romance or erotica, Beltane is ideal.
Creative Writing Prompts for Beltane
Write about a marriage that happens when the veil is thin.
Write about two characters whose hands are fasted together.
Use music as inspiration. Put on something entrancing and just let yourself write whatever comes to mind.
Write about a sexual fire being rekindled.
Start a collaboration. Find another writer or artist who inspires you and create a story, poem, or work of art together.
Write about a romance that sets the world on fire.
Write about a union that starts at the May Pole.
Write about a dance that changes everything.
Spend time in a wooded area and listen for nature spirits or fairies. What do they tell you? What are their stories?
Write about a sexual ritual.
Write about what happens when the spirits of nature come out to play.
Use your favorite line from a song as the premise for your own piece of writing.
Write about your wishes.
Create a character who is transformed when they adorn themself with flowers.
Write about an old woman decorating a may bush.
Listen to a tree (bonus points for birch, hawthorn, or rowan, which is also known as mountain ash). Find one particular tree and connect with it. What are its stories? Write what the tree knows.
What are you doing to celebrate? If you use any of these prompts or rituals, please let me know how it goes! Your work could be showcased here.
If you are looking for more prompts and rituals based on sabbats, you can find them here. For more creative writing prompts, look here. If you’re interested in reading creative work based on some of these prompts, they are here. To deepen your writing practice with rituals, check out this post.
The spring equinox, also known as Ostara, is a special time of year when the day and night are in equal balance. You can use these rituals and writing prompts to celebrate Ostara and inspire your Spring. The energy of this time can help you strengthen your writing practice, develop your creativity, and plant the seeds you will harvest in your writing. Embrace your potential as a writer and get inspired by the light and new growth the earth is offering.
What is Ostara?
Ostara is the pagan celebration of the spring equinox, the time when there is equal amount of daylight and night. It is the beginning of spring and usually falls around March 21st in the northern hemisphere and September 21st in the southern hemisphere. Astronomically, it can shift a few days from year to year. Ostara is considered the first day of spring and the last day of winter. It is the day that the earth begins to wake after the long winter.
It’s a time of rebirth and a time of perfect balance. It’s a time to plant seeds and cultivate hope for the future. It’s a celebration of fertility and fecundity and creativity, which makes it an excellent time of year to harness the power of creation and imbue your writing practice with some magic. Things change on Ostara because it’s when the daylight begins to outweigh the darkness. Starting on Ostara, we get more hours of light than we do darkness, and it signifies the time of year when the light has overcome the dark.
Ostara is the dawn of the Wheel of the Year. Ostara is named for the Germanic goddess of Spring, Eostre, which is also where the word Easter comes from. (Easter, by the way, is celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Basically, it is the celebration of the first full moon of the Wheel of the Year.) Eostre, in turn, may be derived from the Proto-German Austro, meaning dawn. Though Easter and Ostara do not often correspond in terms of dates, there are many shared correspondences. Both holidays celebrate spring, rebirth, eggs, and hares.
Ostara Correspondences
One of the most notable Ostara correspondences is the rabbit or the hare. The females of the March hare species can get pregnant with a second litter while they are already pregnant with a first, which is part of why they are a symbol of fertility and fecundity. Eggs are also a symbol of Ostara, and it’s easy to see why, given their connection with spring and new life.
Ostara is also associated with spring flowers: daffodils, crocuses and pussy willows, all the flowers that are the first to come up in the spring. The colors of these flowers also correspond to Ostara: green, yellow, and purple. Also, pastels are always great for this holiday. The spring equinox is also a time to celebrate the trees coming back to life, so all kinds of seeds and seedlings are appropriate, as are venerating birch trees, alders, and ash trees. Crystals that are particularly relevant for Ostara are rose quartz, moonstone, and aquamarine, which are all associated with growth and new growth.
Lemony and herbal teas and scents are also good representations of spring and freshness. Floral scents are also good: Rose, lavender, jasmine, and any kind of flower-scented incense or candles will help freshen up your space and make things feel renewed and abundant.
How to Celebrate Ostara as a Writer
Ostara can be an magical time for any artist, and for writers especially. It’s a great time to set new intentions, let yourself be reborn, find more balance, and try something new. If you celebrated Imbolc, maybe you set new intentions and resolutions already. Here are some more ideas for developing your writing practice at this time.
Balance your writing practice. How can you create more balance in your practice? Are you pushing yourself too much in terms of marketing and not spending enough time on your writing? Are you concentrating on plot and not enough on character? Are you focusing on word count and ignoring your playful, creative self? Think about how you can find more balance in your writing practice and endeavor to use this time of balance and new beginnings to reset and begin new practices around your writing process.
Start something new. As the buds begin to bloom on the plants, think about where you can also begin new growth. This is an awesome time to start a new project. A new draft, a new book, a new genre, a new job, a new writing ritual. What project have you been waiting to begin? What changes have you been wanting to make? The time is now!
Be playful and childlike. There is a childlike freshness to this time of year, and you can embrace that in your writing practice as well. This is an excellent time to take yourself less seriously, to inject some play into your writing practice.
Let yourself be reborn. You may have ideas about what kind of writer you are, and sometimes these ideas need to shift and change. Are there ideas about your writing or about yourself as an artist that you need to let go of? Maybe you think you are not creative enough, not fast enough, not prolific enough. Now is a time to let yourself be born into the writer you were meant to be. What can you do to begin to embrace your potential and new growth as an artist?
Be intentional about the seeds you are planting. Take some time to think about what you want to see grow and blossom in your writing practice. Make a plan to take concrete steps to develop that. Maybe you want to develop a daily habit, be more inspired, read more. This is a great time to plant those seeds so that you can harvest what you have sown later in the year.
Do some planning. It can be invigorating and exciting to make a plan to start something new. This is a great time to use the energy of new beginnings to start planning and goal setting in new ways.
Embrace your creativity. Ostara is all about fertility and creativity. It is the perfect time of year to tap into your creative juices and the fruitfulness of your writing practice. Here is a ritual you can do to enhance your writing practice and really open up your imagination.
Creative Writing Prompts for Ostara
Use these creative writing prompts to support your creativity and writing fertility.
What’s new this spring?
Write about something just beginning to emerge.
Do an erasure in which you delete exactly half of the words in order to make a new poem or story.
Write about an egg that hatches into something unexpected.
Write about the world restarting, being reborn completely anew.
Go outside, and let the way the earth is changing inspire you. It’s a great time of year to take your writing outside and look for the small details. They are growing into something beautiful.
Write about the dawn of something new.
Write about someone who is green.
Write about someone who finds a strangely decorated egg.
Write about overabundance, the problems that can happen when you have too much of a good thing.
There is a folktale about Eostre changing a bird into a hare, which is why the Easter bunny is said to bring eggs. Write about an unbelievable transformation that radically alters the way the character gives birth or brings life into the world.
Write a story that takes place completely at dawn.
Write a story about reconnecting with your inner child.
Write an aubade, a morning love song about the ways that lovers have to separate as the sun comes up.
Sit with your back against a tree (bonus points for birch, ash, or alder!) and listen. Write the story of the tree. What does it see? How does it experience the world differently? What kinds of stories can it tell?
Write about someone emerging from a long period of darkness.
A routine can be great for creativity. But it doesn’t need to be stuffy or mundane. You can unlock your creativity by just taking small steps to create that magical space where you can connect with your imagination and your muse. Here is a writing ritual to inspire creativity and overcome writer’s block each time they sit down with their words.
Why Do a Writing Ritual?
Here I am, staring at the blank page. I know you know this feeling. The trepidation before starting. The pressure to choose just the right word to start. Perhaps even the worry about what that person would think if they read your writing.
Sometimes it can be difficult to get the creative juices flowing. You know you want to write. You know you want to create, but you just don’t feel like you’re in the right mindset.
One thing we can do to help inspire creativity is to create a writing ritual that helps set the stage for our brain to enter that special space where ideas can flow. Having a writing ritual can help you develop a writing habit and routine, because it’s a way of creating a separate time and space for writing to occur. A ritual can help us limit distractions so that we can focus on the task at hand.
It can also lower the threshold for beginning the act of writing. If just sitting down and getting started is too intimidating, the small actions of a ritual can get you moving in the direction of your writing with much less at stake. It can be so much easier to light a candle than it is to start that next chapter, or the first line of a poem. Making your first step in your writing process something simple, easy, and an act that you can do without thinking (or overthinking) allows you to get started without the pressure of the blank page.
The atmosphere you set while writing can also help you be more creative by encouraging you to stay in the present. Music, candles, your favorite beverage—anything that engages the senses can help keep you mindful of what you are working on and where you are in the moment so you don’t drift off into the regrets of the past or the worries of the future. These small cues are signals to our brain that this moment is where our attention should be.
Finally, going through the motions of a writing ritual can also make it more likely that you will write again next time. There is a lot of emphasis on pre-writing rituals, and the things you do before you get creative can certainly help prime the pump. But there is also value to closing out your writing practice. A little bit of gratitude or taking stock of what you’ve accomplished at the end of your writing session can give you a little push of motivation to get back to the desk the next time you want to write.
Here is a ritual to help get you in a creative frame of mind.
Writing Ritual to Tune in to Your Creativity
You will need:
Something scented: a candle, incense, essential oil, wax melts. These can be especially powerful if you have something in a scent that will help inspire creativity specifically, like lavender, clary sage, eucalyptus, jasmine, or tangerine. Look here for ideas about which scents can help increase your creativity. You can also choose a scent that you enjoy, or one that makes you feel more confident or transformed.
Directions:
Dim the lights. Just a small change in atmosphere can make a big difference and dimming the lights is scientifically shown to enhance your creativity.
Use your scent. Light your candle. Cleanse the room with your incense. Dab your essential oil behind your ears or turn on your wax melts. The idea here is to start using a scented trigger that will tell your brain that it is now time to start getting creative.
Meditate. Spend a few minutes meditating. You might prefer to do this in the quiet alone with your thoughts, but if you need guidance, you can check out this short and effective meditation on YouTube.
Set your intention. You might want to set an actual goal for this session, like “I will finish Chapter 23.” Or you might want to say a few affirmations. Some of my favorites for creativity are: “I am connected to the inspiration from the universe.” “Ideas and words flow easily out of me.” “My imagination is limitless.” You can look here for more affirmations that might inspire you. Whatever your intention is, say it out loud three times. Then let it go and trust that it will be done.
Write. This is, of course, the most important part. The stage has been set. All you need to do is show up and let your words fly.
Give thanks. When you are finished writing, close your ritual by giving thanks. It’s been shown that gratitude can help boost your creativity. So thank your muse, yourself, the universe, or whatever power you connect with for giving you the time and space to write.
A Creative Daily Routine
The more often you do this ritual, the more it will help prime your imagination and inspire your creativity. Each time you do it, you’ll be sending the signal to your subconscious that it’s time to open the imagination floodgates and slip into your writing.
Of course, this is just one example of a ritual that you can mold and make into your own personal routine. You might want to create a ritual that focuses on productivity, focus, or intuition.
We artists can be individual and fickle, with our own quirks and processes, so you could think about creating a ritual that is individually suited to your own style. Maybe you get motivated by music, or by wine, or by Pomodoro sprints. Maybe you work better in certain places or even in certain outfits. To create your own personalized routine, check out this definitive guide to writing rituals. It contains ideas and suggestions for each stage of a ritual to help you find what works best for you.
For more inspiration and help getting started, you might like these writing prompts.
Let me know if you’ve tried this, and if you’ve made it your own.
What is a writing ritual and what are the benefits? How do you create a writing ritual that boosts your creativity or your productivity? How do you find that special set of actions that will inspire you and help you beat writer’s block? This post is a deep dive into the idea of writing rituals: what they are good for, how to create your own, some examples of writing rituals to try, and how to choose the best ritual for you.
Writing Rituals
I don’t know about you friends, but sometimes it can be hard to get in the mood.
Get your mind out of the gutter. I’m talking about writing.
It can be difficult with so many of life’s distractions to find the time and the space to write. There’s dishes and the post office and three-year-olds trying to show you what they made. There’s Facebook and Netflix and nature just outside beckoning you to take a walk. How do you find the room in your day to write? The answer is you don’t. You don’t find room. You make the room.
You hear this advice all over the writing world. When I first heard it, I thought it was harsh. It seemed to imply that I needed to cut other things out of my life so that I could write. Spend less time with the kids. Sleep less. Don’t do anything for fun. Just sit at the keyboard and bleed, was what I heard every time someone lectured me about making the time and space to write.
But I am realizing I have been thinking about it all wrong. Making the time to write doesn’t have to be so harsh. What if making the time to write just means creating a special time, a special place where you can really just focus on your creativity? A special experience outside our mundane expectations where you can let yourself get lost in the words. You make the time and the space to write by creating a ritual around it.
There is a long tradition of writers needing rituals. We’ve all heard the stories of idiosyncratic writing rituals of famous writers. Fredrich Schiller reportedly needed the smell of rotting apples to write. Colette would pick fleas from her bulldog until the muse arrived. Dan Brown hangs upside down and Victor Hugo could only write nude. Creativity requires a bit of magic, a bit of being outside of ourselves and being open to a wider, larger perspective. So how do we become more creative? More productive? How do we beat writer’s block and connect with our muse? We create the right conditions.
What is a writing ritual?
A writing ritual is a particular set of actions that you do over and over again in order to better your writing. It’s something that you do time and again to make the sacred space for creation. A signal that you are leaving all your worries and cares about the mundane behind and giving this time over to connection and grounding in your practice. It doesn’t have to be magical or woo-woo. It just has to be something that works for you. That special sauce of things you know you can do that will help you get in the mood.
Why do a writing ritual?
What are the benefits of creating a daily writing ritual that works for you? There are actually quite a few. You can think of it on a magical level, as if you are calling your muse, or you can think of it as something scientifically proven to help you get into the flow. Either way, there are clear benefits to having intention in the actions and atmosphere around your writing. Here are some reasons to create a ritual to help your writing process:
Creates a separate space and time that’s devoted to writing. Creating a writing ritual allows you to transform yourself or your space into something special where you can let go of other distractions and concentrate more fully.
Primes your brain for writing. The little things we do can send signals to your brain that it is time to write, and therefore help you begin sooner. As Stephen King puts it, “The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon.”
Lowers the bar to get started. Psychologically, creating a writing ritual helps you lower the bar to start. It’s easier to light a candle than it is to write the first line of your novel. But all you have to do is take that one first step, and then the next step and the next. Creating a writing ritual allows you to control that first step, perhaps even the first few steps, to make them small enough that you never have an excuse not to start.
Allows you to connect more to the process and the muse. There is quite a bit of talk of pre-writing rituals—about what to do to get started. But I think it is equally important to take stock of our actions while we are writing. Creating a ritual around your writing can help you stay more in the present moment and broaden your senses to things you don’t ordinarily stop to pay attention to.
Increases motivation by creating time to take stock. In the same way that your actions before and during writing are important, so are the actions you take right after you finish. How do you leave your writing or story in such a way that you are eager to come back to it?
Parts of a Writing Ritual
Part 1. Separation: Setting the tone
To start your ritual, you want to set the tone and mark it as a special time and place. This should be an action that helps lower the bar to starting, something that is easy for you to do and tells your brain “Ok, it’s time to write!” Here are three ways that you might begin to prepare yourself to write and separate yourself from your daily distractions.
Open and welcome. This is a chance for you to light the spark. Choose one small thing to be your opening signal, the signal to yourself and your muse (or perhaps your family) that the sacred time has begun. It’s good if this first step takes very little time, in fact, just a moment is best. Think of this as the moment that everything begins. Here are some ways to begin marking the moment: Ring a bell. Dim the lights. Light a candle. Say a special phrase that inspires you. Maybe your way of opening and welcoming is to gather with a group. Join a Discord group or plan to sit down and work with a friend. Community can be a powerful motivator.
Transform yourself. You can transform your state of mind, by meditating, taking a walk, going outside, doing yoga, having coffee, etc. What puts you in the right mindset? Or you can transform your outer appearance. Maybe you throw on your most comfy sweater to settle in, or your most sassy lipstick. It could be as simple as taking a shower, or saying a prayer. Or it could be as ornate as getting all dressed into your “author” costume. Say affirmations to get yourself in the right mindset. Maybe you even free write for a few minutes. Get all those other pesky ideas out of your head so you can concentrate on the creativity in front of you. Have a glass of wine, even. Whatever you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind to write.
Create a sacred space. What could you do to make the space special, to make it different than your living room or kitchen table? Or the place where you do your schoolwork? Sometimes it only takes a very small thing to transport you to a sacred space. Lay out a cloth. Put on white noise or ambient sound. Change the way the space smells with essential oils or candle melts.
Part 2. Liminal Space: Doing the Work
You’ve welcomed the muse. You primed your pavlovian writer-dog. You’ve set the stage for writing. It’s time to do the work of the ritual. Make it happen! The universe is supporting you. All the conditions are right. Then make it so. This is the part where you write! You have transformed your space to make it sacred, made yourself sacred. Now manifest it. Get writing!
Set intentions. What are you going to make manifest while you are writing? Is your intention just to write the most authentic piece you can? The most beautiful? Maybe you want to finish the next chapter, or write a certain number of words. Maybe you are editing, and your intention is to transfigure the rough draft you have into something beautiful. Maybe your intention is to spend some time looking within, or to connect with someone or some truth. What’s your purpose for this session? Write it down. Say it out loud. Keep it in mind. Hold it close.
Be mindful of your time and your actions.Set a goal—an amount of time, an amount of words, finishing a chapter. You might do writing sprints, taking mindful breaks. Or write until you reach your daily goal. You might set a meditation bell timer to ring every fifteen minutes to remind you to stay on track. How can you keep yourself focused on the work at hand?
Engage your senses. Play music that inspires you. Light incense. Lay out crystals that help empower you. Use your favorite pen. Pour a cup of your favorite tea. This is about keeping yourself in the experience. The more you engage your senses, the more present you will be in the moment, and that’s exactly how you get into that beautiful state of flow.
Part 3. Reassimilation: Coming Back
Honestly, I think this is one of the most important parts, but also one of the most overlooked. You need some way to bring the power of what you’ve created and the sacred time and space you created back into your everyday life.
Though ritual creates a special space, the idea is that the work we do in the ritual continues to impact our daily lives. Maybe we leave the writing at the desk, but the growth we’ve experienced because we have created, the ways we have been changed by our characters, by the worlds we build, the lessons we force our characters to learn because we also have to learn them ourselves: these are the things we need to bring back with us as we re-enter the world of laundry, mac and cheese, and finally cleaning the oven.
This makes the symbolic return to the world pivotal part of the ritual. This is the step that carries us through until the next time we get to visit the sacred space. Here are some ways you might honor that closing time.
Give thanks. Once you’ve done the work, it’s important to recognize what has transpired and to give thanks for it. Find ways to be grateful for the work you’ve done. Wherever you think your creativity comes from, any beauty that we can create is a gift, and sometimes all we need is to recognize that we are creating and give thanks for that. Find your favorite line and share it with someone. Thank yourself, or your muse, or the universe or your creator or whatever source you feel your inspiration comes from.
Recognize your progress. Sometimes progress with writing can be slow. It can help keep the motivation up to celebrate every win, to recognize that every word you wrote was a step in the direction of your dreams, or of your work getting out in the world. You might keep a short journal of how you felt each day. Or back up your draft and make it so! Check your goals from this writing session off your list. You might even give yourself a reward of chocolate or stickers.
Plan to be back. Blow out the candles and promise to return. Set a goal or intention for the next session. Do one very small thing to let the universe (And yourself!) know that you are finished, but only for now.
How to Create a Writing Ritual
I am not suggesting that you do all of these things every time you write, of course. Some of these will work for you and some will be a waste of time. Think of this list as a menu. Choose one bit from each “course” to try.
See how the music affects you. See if you are drawn to certain smells. And then choose the ones that seem to make an impact on you and the way you feel about your writing.
It’s important to make sure that your writing ritual supports your writing and does not take away from it. The elements of the ritual shouldn’t take so long that it eats into your writing time. You want these to be things that support your writing, not procrastination, and it’s important to keep that in mind.
The point is not for it to be something stereotypically “magical.” It just needs to be transformative to you. You are creating this experience for yourself. You are conjuring this other world and these other people in your writing. You are creating the magic. What makes sense to you?
Daily Writing Ritual Examples
This post is all about creating the perfect combination of actions to get you in touch with your creativity as quickly as possible. My advice is to choose one from each of the above parts of a ritual that feels like it speaks to you and give it a try. That being said, here are a few examples of writing rituals that might help spark your creativity or give you more focus:
Light a candle. Do pomodoro sprints for a preset amount of time. Track your progress and thank your muse and/or yourself for showing up.
Put on your favorite writing outfit or article of clothing. Set your goals for this writing session. When you’re finished, read through what you have written and choose your best line. Express gratitude for that line.
Lay out a cloth. Play some music that inspires you while you write. Set an intention for the next writing session, committing to show up for yourself.
How to Choose a Writing Ritual
Here is the thing about us writers: none of us is quite the same, which is why we all have something peculiar to say. This also means that finding yourself as a writer is in large part a journey of finding your process.
Writers give all kinds of advice: You must write every day. You must write by hand. You must write first thing in the morning. You must write drunk and edit sober. I call bullshit on this kind of advice. Some of us are binge writers, and write best one day a month. Some of us have overzealous inner editors when we are too loud when we’re by hand. And I, for one, felt like I never wanted to write at all when I tried writing first thing in the morning.
Your writing ritual is going to be the same. You have to find what works for you. This may sound counterintuitive, but I think we should treat our creativity, our inspiration, our magic, and our connections to our muses like science. Try different things. See what works. Record how you feel, or how much comes out.
So here is my advice: try anything that speaks to you and record how it affects your work. Maybe you want to put on your sassy writing lipstick before each writing session for a week. Record how it goes. Then try a ritual with lighting a candle and some music. How does that go? Use what works for you. But in order to find out what works for you, you have to do some trial and error, so definitely find some way to keep track.
So much focus on craft (both the craft of writing and the craft of magic) is about doing things the “right way” and places value on what’s received. But connection with the past isn’t the only reason to do a ritual. People pass on this kind of wisdom because they find it works for them. Try things that have worked for others, but also try things that feel right to you.
You know what resonates with you. Are you a person inspired by goal-setting and planning? Choose a ritual that speaks to that. Do you know that you respond to sensory experiences? Maybe a candle and music is right for you. The best person to craft a ritual for you is yourself.
Remember, Edith Sitwell used to lie in a coffin to get ready to write, so you do you.
Do you already have a writing ritual? What other things help you reach that state of flow? What do you do to inspire your creativity?
At 11:00pm on November 30, 2021, I snuck in my last words just as the deadline was nearing. Now, I did not finish this novel. I still have a few chapters left. But I did write 50,041 words in the month of November, which is huge for me!
Last year was the first year I won NaNo, after trying it for several years without success. But, last year I wrote almost all the words in the last few days.
Check out this crazy graph from 2020.
One of my goals for this NaNoWriMo was to be more consistent. To be honest, I felt like I had failed, because on November 29th, I was still 10,000 words from reaching my goal, and my graph was very up and down. I was frustrated that I didn’t sit down to write every day, and generally not feeling great about how it went, even though I knew I could make it to the 50,000 goal.
2021 Stats
But actually, if you compare the two graphs, I was way more consistent this year than I was last year. So, definitely progress!
