The longest day of the year is nearly here and I am enamored with the broad swath of light that extends beyond the bookends of the workday. I find myself writing earlier in the morning and longer into the evening. Magic is afoot: hikes expand into exploratory treks, prose becomes poetry, and practices transform into divinely inspired rituals. It is time to offer ourselves in the full shining beauty of the light in service to everything we reach out to and for this season. What gifts do we find when we step into the brightness and fullness of day? This issue focuses on the light of ritual and beauty as they inspire our writing. 

TEALarbor stories' newsletters offer inspiration, encouragement, and 

Incorporating ritual and writing can be profound, divine, beautiful and transforming. Writing rituals enhance our practices and allow the unexpected to arise in our writing. 

 

I have repeatedly experienced myself, as well as witnessed in others, how the most basic ceremonies or rites imbue the written product with texture and insights that are as stunning as the first wing tip emerging from the chrysalis. WEB DuBois reputedly said: "A budding writer could not emerge from his chrysalis too soon." We can add small tokens and tasks to our writing space and time that allow the beauty within us to break forth - to bare itself to us and bear itself unto the world - through our written expression.

 

Using writing as a part of ritual also enhances the ceremony. Where writing is broadened by the heart's wisdom and held in a container of sacred ritual...and where sacred ceremonies include a written component...they become intertwined: seamlessness between writing and ritual, ritual and writing.

 

This is the light that shines when we reach deep within the body of our most whole and holy selves.

 

With support from TEALarbor stories, learn how you can create rituals that add beauty to your personal writing practice. Please send an email to Jennifer: tealarborstories@gmail.com.