The Non-Ritual Ritual of Writing
Kira Rosemarie

Reactions when I tell people I’m a witch and reactions when I tell people I’m a poet are remarkably similar. Both paths, to the outsider, seem to be shrouded in secrecy. You start with nothing. Then, through some wild alchemy, there is something. 

Spellwork was historically structured and often rhymed for ease of memorization in times of low literacy rates. In the first witchcraft books I read when I was eleven years old, most of the spells rhymed and used common objects. For example, there was a spell in which you spoke your rhyming intentions to a dime and flipped it to divine your future. A witchy heads-or-tails. 

As I got older, spells got more complicated, and so did the writing. Rhyme? We couldn’t rely on it anymore. Free verse was the only way. A clearly-defined structure left readers blasé, and for spellwork I needed so many ingredients I felt like an apothecary. How was I supposed to find these things? How was I supposed to work them into a spell, a poem, a ritual, a life? 

I stopped for years. Writing, witchcraft. All of it. The rituals were prescribed. School, restrictive grimoires, copywriting best practices. Reddit threads telling me which spells I could and could not do, editors telling me what they would and wouldn’t accept. 

But then I remembered the alchemy of it all. Of taking a feeling and concentrating it through a method of my choosing. There are structures for both writing and witchcraft that help us hone energies, but first we have to deeply understand what those energies mean to us. The understanding is the hard part. The ritual follows. 

I’m sure you expected this piece to talk about how my morning pages are the most valuable part of my writing practice, or how I do a special spell before every writing session. None of that is true, and it probably never will be. 

To me, ritual is how you treat yourself. The ritual is listening to your body, your mind, your knowledge, and your surroundings in a way that nourishes you. This doesn’t have to be regularly scheduled or steeped in history or grounded in proven methods. It just has to be powerful, and it just has to be you.  

I’m sure meditating before writing time has helped many. I’m sure morning pages have kick-started thousands of writers’ routines. Yet, I challenge you not to try my ritual or any others. I challenge you to make your own. 

Write the most beautiful thing you can think of, then throw it in a fire. Sit in a snowstorm until you can’t feel your fingers and see what you can manage to write. Avoid writing for months until it hurts so badly you simply have to write again. 

If you are magic (which you are) and you are a witch (which you can be), then these invitations don’t sound unnerving. They sound exciting. They sound like alchemy. They sound like the next step. 

Writing Exercise 
How do you care for yourself before you write? While you write? After you write? Before beginning a writing session, record your plan for care and apply it.

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