Create A Writer Altar For The New Year
Real Writing in the World #11: Believe in your creative dreams
Welcome (back) to the Real Writer, where we turn our writing practice into a writing life beyond the laptop or page into the world with creative adventures and play.
I needed some deep rest this holiday break, and though I have several drafts of posts to finish and share, I instead went hiking, spent the gloomy/rainy days under a blanket reading, and caught up with friends. I hope you have also had time to have fun and relax and write and read.
I love ritual so the final Real Writing in the World writing adventure of the year is to create your Writer Altar to write in 2024 with goals and intentions and dreams. Burning the old year is optional (and please do it safely!)
Today I was thinking about a trip to New Orleans almost ten years ago and this fantastic tour I took which was a sort of Voodoo-vampire-ghost kind of tour, which ended in a shop called Hex (an old world Witchcraft shop with a second location in Salem, MA) that was an atmospheric wonderland. What I loved about it especially was an elaborate altar near the front for people to write wishes, hopes, dreams, messages to the departed (some people had left pictures), as well as anything they wanted released or changed. (Picture of it on their website.)
The altar was jammed with little slips of paper and various kinds of cool little bowls (metal, porcelain, crystal, a skull-shaped one) filled with candles, beads, stones, talismans, which were also draped all around. You name it, it was on the table. At the end of the year, the shop burned all the papers and photographs on New Year’s Eve.
It was November when I was there (for the annual National Assembly of State Arts Agencies conference—I did more NOLA’ing than conferencing) and of course I wrote my wish on a piece of paper and left it. I don’t remember what it was and that isn’t the point. It’s the magic of believing in that moment.
I do believe we need to both release things and name what we want and will act on, then let them go out into the universe (and work toward them too—action is key).
Whether you are an “altar” person or not, what matters is taking time today or tomorrow on New Year’s Day, and focusing on what you want 2024 to look like for you. How you want to feel. Who you want to become. Where your writing is going.
Your altar can be simple or chock full of things meaningful to you. I am still editing and playing with mine (and “playing” is the operative word here. HAVE FUN WITH IT. Believe in the magic of it. Anything is possible!).
Yours could be as easy and simple as a tea light (of any color) if you don’t have a candle, on which you’ve scratched out a brief wish/goal with a pin, and sprinkled the altar with cinnamon for good luck, prosperity, and success (also blowing some of it into the air where you write in your home. Cinnamon removes/blocks negative energy).
Want more? Add a picture of a city torn out of a magazine or printed, where there’s a writing conference or retreat you’d like to attend. Or just write the name of the conference on a piece of paper.
Write three writing goals on a piece of paper, or the name of the project you’re working on and your hopes for its future.
If, like me, you have oracle or tarot cards, ask what you need to succeed as a writer in 2024 and pull a card, adding that to your altar.
Maybe a picture of your favorite writer, the one who inspires you to create. Or a favorite book.
Add symbols of things that support your writing. For me it’s walks/hikes and being in nature so I added leaves and dried lavender from two places I love to visit, and shells and sand from the beach where I go on writing retreats. I dusted some green prosper powder around, included my intentions written in a thank you card (being grateful is important), and added the pencil I used in my writing session in Emily Dickinson’s bedroom with “creative and courageous” stamped on it, as well as a felt cardinal, because for the last two years, I’ve been seeing cardinals EVERYWHERE, in likely and unlikely places. Here are just a few:
I love the “please ask for assistance” message below the one in the shop. And on a car door? Really?
I looked up cardinals and there are many associations. What resonated for me was being creative and not afraid to share oneself, being innovative, determined, and sticking to a goal. These references gave me a light bulb moment.
Beyond the bird reference, I’m a “cardinal sign” – an Aries (fire sign), and while I don’t follow astrology beyond reading a horoscope now and then, I do need to focus more on Aries qualities: courage, energy, passion, creativity, ambition, confidence.
And there’s the obvious meaning: no limitations—be bold and fly.
How about you? Consider any symbols or themes that have shown up in your life this year and draw, print, or find an object you already have to embody that symbol or theme. You can also add the symbol/theme you’d like to experience.
Tonight, on New Year’s Eve and/or tomorrow, the first day of the new year, light your candle and focus on what you are calling in for 2024. Make it unique to you. (Don’t compare yourself to anyone else and definitely don’t look at Instagram first—how about no social media on January 1st?)
To get you started, pick one of the cards below, then check your pick and its meaning at the end of the post.
Share what you chose, or what you have on your altar, or your writing goals in the comments. Restacks, likes, and subscribes are great too! :)
I hope you’ll join me in giving your writing dreams a boost at this special time of the year and wish you a creative, fun, successful 2024!
Happy writing,
Chris
Here are the cards, with meanings (the third card is just the message):
Card #1: The Journey (oracle) by Allison Filice (text & illustration): Take the Leap - don’t get caught up in what other people think or worry about looking foolish. This is your life. Your north star is calling. Take small steps and trust the process to go after your dreams, which might inspire others to do the same.
Card #2: The Sacred Feminine Oracle by Malory Malmasson, illustrated by Marion Blanc: Generous - part of the self-knowledge and expression category - create abundance in your life and others’. Have faith in the generosity of energy. Invest yourself in what calls to you and energies will prosper around you. “Allow new ideas to burgeon inside you and your creativity to express itself by showing generosity, having a novel and fresh outlook, letting yourself be filled with childlike wonder, and sparkling with happiness. (Me: right on!)
Card #3: The Illuminators Amulet by Blaire Porter and Brit June (Threads of Fate): Trust it will manifest. Enough said.