Seven of Cups
Fixed water: hopes + fears, unknown pleasures, the void
The holy and haunted passions of Projections are a type of unknown pleasure – a world that is conjured into being through imagining something new.
Fungal Magic and Mycelial Networks
Cardinal air: mycelial networks, field notes, fungal categories
In The Museum of Atheism, each chapter begins with a description of the fungus that has taken over the town of Rosewood, where the action happens. These descriptions act as field notes about real and imagined fungal forms
Voice and Style
Mutable air: research, reflection, voice
You unearth your work like an archaeologist discovers treasures, or a farmer pulls up crops.
Everyday Witchcraft in Sian S. Rathore’s Wild Heather
Fixed earth: wild animals, practical witchcraft, poetry
Rathore’s poem ‘Alison Device (1594-1612), named for a Pendle witch, is a beautiful meditation on mortality and desire.
Ritual Support System for Writers
Fixed air: systems, ancient wisdom, collective practices
This can become the container for all of your rituals, devotions, and divinations, and a space to process what your subtle body is experiencing when you generate, edit, and share creative work.
Tiny Acts of Witchcraft in Aase Berg’s Hackers
Fixed air: hacking, repurposing systems, linguistic play
Berg’s collection offers this small hope, this tiny act of witchcraft in a collection that both reproduces and interrogates patriarchal violence and its necrotizing effect.
Haga, Haxan, Hag, Hawthorn
Cardinal earth: rapaciousness, growth, deep roots
Hedges, like lawns, are of no use to the witch unless they are overgrown, wild, and generative.
Rain-Sown Wheat
Fixed water: unfinished business, deep emotions, divination
We record this by leaving the work unfinished and unresolved. The absence is a space for grief.
Writing as Devotion
Fixed water: shadow, will, integrity
Writing is an act of devotion, the same as any other magical practice.
The work of writing is as integral to their lives as any other form of ritual, ceremony, or prayer, and their devotion produces magical results in their writing.
A Ritual for The Underworld of your Writing
Fixed water: petrichor, deep wells, decay
The sun doesn't disappear. We just can't see it as much as in the height of summer. There is treasure in the void. There is gold in the dark.
The Moon: Excitement of the Unconscious
Mutable water: the unconscious, hallucinations, psychic plane
Rachel Pollock writes that “in divinatory readings the moon indicates an excitement of the unconscious.”
A Spell for Writer’s Block
Fixed water: working through, deep release, breaking open
You can work with this ritual to come back to creative centre whenever you are feeling blocked.
Year Ahead Spreads
Fixed air: future visioning, collective energies
What happens if you think about your projects not in terms of word counts, but in seasons? Could you be guided by a full seasonal cycle, from solstice to solstice, or Samhain to Samhain? Or could you work with your solar return?
Temperance: Genre Alchemy
Fixed fire: alchemy, energy, creative flows
Have you been feeling like you could use a change in your writing routine? Perhaps you would like to find a regular weekly slot to work? Or even something more drastic like a complete change in direction?
Two of Wands: Writing Sabbaticals
Fixed air: portals, balance, opposition
How do you build rest into your writing practice? When do you let the field lay fallow, and when do you let it grow wild?
The Devil: What is Story?
Cardinal earth: ambition, architecture, boundaries
When we read a story, temptation only works when we agree to it. Like the two figures here, we must submit to story.
Five of Pentacles
Cardinal earth: cathedral, winter, resources, the unknown
The Five of Pentacles appears to be about stuckness, and scarcity, but it can teach us a lot about the luminous mysteries.
Ace of Pentacles
Fixed earth: receptivity, plenty, earthly pleasures
If we keep frenetically trying to force our way through the world, we will lose sight of the luscious opportunities being handed down from the clouds.