A Conjuring Spell
By Badger Compain
This month’s Words to Write by is an exercise inspired by the liminal shift that settles intself into the seams of late summer. This past August has been smoky in Seattle, not decidedly sunny or warm, but muggy and indifferent to its role of closing out the summer. September is the exhale of one season and the gentle sigh of another as we situate ourselves into Fall, slowing down, and reflecting inward.
In this writing prompt, we will conjure a shift. This exercise is an invitation to engage in ritual and embrace this foggy time of transition. This spell might support a shift from one feeling to another, a release of something unwanted, or invite something new. Of course, this exercise does not need to be a literal conjuring but may be a spell with any degree of symbolism and metaphor you like (we are writers after all).
The idea of symbolic spellcasting in writing has been sparked for me recently by conjurers such as Dakota Warren and Tom Waits. These writers have been inspiring the romance of a moody shift into Fall and the darker days ahead. I am grateful to these creatives and many others who have prompted this exercise.
The first step, the pre-first step, is to set the intention for what shift it is that you would like to conjure today. Have you been wanting to draw more in or let more go? Have you been wanting to energize or ground? Will your spell fill or empty? A spell might be as elaborate as conjuring your creative spirit with a series of offerings, or might be as simple as conjuring an easeful shift into a new chapter. Once your intention is quite clear to you, we may begin.
Collect a list of five or so items or images, physical or not, as ingredients for your spell. Don't choose too many items; trust the potency of the few that come to you first. These are the things that embody your intention, that hold the spell within them, waiting for your words to draw them out.
Ex.
An empty bathtub
A forest of cigarette stumps, littered in an alley
A precious secret
A dog yelping upstairs
A moon, like a saucer, looming
Consider how each of your gathered ingredients interacts with the others. This is the time to ask why each of these things came to you. Are they friendly companions? Quarreling lovers? Distant strangers passing who feel they have met before? Perhaps you note their significances, perhaps not. What do each of these things have to do with your intention?
Ex.
a secret whispered at the base of a cigarette
Collapsing in the hands of the one you love
Remembers a yelp inside, a drowning, a peace
Found hope in the scratches etched into the bathtub- knowing there were many before you, many yet to come.
Watched by the moon, a constant.
2. Use your now constellated ingredients to create your spell, a ritual with these ingredients. This ritual may be as casual, literal, silly, profound, practical, or simple as you please. Please be safe throughout the process of this exercise and consider the well-being of others. If you are able, carry out this ritual, whatever it may be, with whatever degree of complexity, but remember it is essential to lace your intention through the entirety of your creative process here.
3. Congratulations! A shift is well underway. Now is the time to write. (You’ve been wondering where the writing is in this writing prompt?- here we go.) Sit in a place you like to work and reflect on this process. Perhaps you write a journal entry about your experience, or sit quietly with a warm cup of tea, reflecting (a ritual in itself). Then, alchemize this experience into a poem, an essay, or a short fiction scene (an entire story may linger in this experience waiting for you to free it). Write without stopping for as long as you may, trusting what comes up.
4. Well done. You have created something, and now it is time to take a break. Pause for a day, a week, or simply long enough to brew another cup of tea. This is your spell; wait however long feels right. Do not skip this step, for it is essential- time and breath are the most potent catalysts in conjuring a shift of any kind.
5. Once you are ready to return, come back to your ritual. Write another poem, another scene, or rework the essay, trying to approach the piece differently. Rethink the relationship between ingredients. What might you have missed previously? What shifts have occurred already?
Enjoy your conjuring and happy Fall!