BY STEPHANIE ATHENA VALENTE
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then
I contradict myself
I am large
I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman
Words are magic and their power is seemingly limitless. Experimenting with word magic can seem a bit daunting. But, don’t fret. Why not stir your pen in the pool of poetry? Start small and let enchanting wonders bloom like an ethereal cauldron of surprises.
Our intentions are directly connected to our mind’s eye and our words. Let’s focus on channeling our energy and focus into word magic in small steps. Before diving head first into a magical poem-spell, get playful. Swim in words like it’s a private lake you discovered, a collection of stars that turned into water.
Swimming, like writing, is about letting go and surrendering. Moving your body along the water is an act of art. Poetry is about the unknown, the unsaid, and the mystery. Infusing words and magic will give you the key to unlocking a voice. A means of articulation. My sister, the poet and witch Joanna C. Valente said, “In a way, the poetry can give voice to the feelings we have, but can’t always articulate.” Let word magic help you articulate your inner desires, dreams, and manifestations.
Journal writing
How can you start this multi-dimensional process? Get comfortable with your voice. Emotionally and psychologically, journal writing can improve our moods, self-esteem, confidence, and engage in the healing process. I experienced the life-changing magic of the writing process myself. Simply put, expressive writing is a powerful and transformative tool.
Journal writing is about surrender. It can be a trance-like process in which our pens take over the paper or our fingers furiously type on the keyboard and paragraphs and paragraphs come spilling out. It’s almost like being possessed, but there’s something deliciously freeing about it all. Instead of being bound with severe iron chains, expressive writing unlocks the handcuffs. So approach journal writing as a conduit for freedom. You are the conductor of your life, and expressive writing is the song.
Look at your journal as its own special divination tool. Perhaps you clear a space for it on your altar, dressing it with a trifecta of quartz crystals: rose, clear, and smoke for the utmost love, purity, compassion, and protection. Your journal itself is a vessel, a place that holds your innermost thoughts and emotions and transposes them into a chrysalis. A place of change and growth.
And as with any divination tool, you can make it as fancy as you want. I write morning pages every day in a simple composition notebook with a gel pen. It’s not expensive and the paper feels weighty enough (I press hard when I write), and the color pens are cheeky and fun. While my emotions might be serious at times, I’m a very fluid and playful person and my journal expresses that sentiment. Choose your writing tools as their individual parts of a spell: the pen, the book, or even your laptop. How you decorate it with sigils, protection, and charged intention is up to you.
I am not offering expressive writing as an endgame for healing, instead use it as one tool in your divination process to unlock a deeper connection with your light and shadow selves. Unlock the mysteries abound within you. Drink from it deeply, like a vampire full of hunger. It is there to nourish you, guide you through this process. Approach your expressive writing as a ritual; set aside time every day to jot a few notes or even pages. Cast a protective circle before putting pen to paper or opening your laptop. Journal writing is a sacred time and space, and honor it as such. By casting and closing a circle after the ritual, you are also acknowledging that you are holding space for your emotions and experience. It is your time and yours alone.
Writing can seem like staring into the void: an empty page waiting to be filled. You don't have to have a topic in mind. Just start writing, and the more you write, you get closer to a harmonious balance within. You can write as if you’re in a fever dream, just go and don’t stop. Even if you begin with: “I have no idea what I’m doing or saying right now…” You are expressing yourself. Expressive writing is a vessel for empowerment and a deeper connection within. You can also journal to your guides, guardian angels, and work with the goddess.
Write every day. Write with abandon. Write in the mornings or in the evenings. Write in the bath. Write after a deep stretch session and your body feels warm and juicy. Write when you’re sad. Write when you’re uncertain. Write when you’re in love. How can you, the poet, contract deeper spells alongside the universe’s knowing wonder without channeling these emotions? Expressive writing is spell casting. Once your emotions exist outside of your body, they are tangible, powerful forces.
Wherever your journal writing exists or lives, make it sacred and personal. Keep it filled with pleasure. Supporting yourself one of the world’s biggest divine pleasures. Write for yourself, because you are the one who matters most.
I keep expressive, emotive journal writing as a separate notebook filled with daily pages, affirmations, and random lines of poetry that filter into my head out of thin air of a moment’s notice. As my poetry lines get a bit more concrete and fully formed, I transfer them over to my grimoire if it’s a spell, or a separate notebook if it’s for a different creative project. By giving my journal it’s own special space, I’m able to give it bother sacred respect and power.
Affirmation enchantments
Keep flirting with language. The more you flirt, you’ll begin to enter a dizzying romance with words. Supercharging your love of words doesn’t have to be pages and pages of pure emoting. In fact, it’s even better if you keep it small and simple.
You might begin or end your days with a simple affirmation ritual. It should be easy and short, like repeating or writing out an affirmation a few times, such as: “I am poetic. I am magical. I am powerful.” This is a key starting point, but perhaps you are thinking of making your affirmations more individualized and more enchanted. I revel in affirmations. They only have two end goals: to bring me closer to my magical practice and to manifest my inner self-power. I pass these two wishes along to you.
So, let’s take a closer look at affirmations. Affirmations are supportive and transformative words of power and optimal encouragement. Affirmations are a way to conjure the magic within, starting with self-empowerment. Through this ritual, we can deeper connect to cosmic enchantment or deepen your work with a specific goddess (i.e. Venus or Artemis are my personal faves).
In this specific ritual, which you can complete in your journal, you’ll be looking at the intrinsic power of affirmations. Affirmations are totally radical because they’re tiny bits of magic specifically just for you. Seriously.
An affirmation should be a word or phrase that you believe and yet deeply want to manifest. Like poetry, the more direct and specific the words, the deeper your manifestation. Everytime you repeat an affirmation – out loud, mentally, or handwritten – your enchanted words inspire the magic to take clearer and clearer action.
Before you begin your grand and personalized affirmation, go to a sacred space or nook in your home. Play some high energy and inspiring music. Perhaps you made a special writing playlist just for the occasion. Light a candle. Anchor crystals like quartz near your writing space for harmony and charged support. Grab your journal and open to a blank page. Make a box and brainstorm words and phrases that stand out to you.
Remember, this chart is just the tip of the iceberg, as affirmation can target specific goals or even give gratitude for your very own being! Look at the chart and mix in adjectives, adverbs, and nouns that have a profound meaning just for you and only for you. I conjure up affirmations all the time, depending on what I’m trying to manifest and solidify within the cosmos. Whether you’re harnessing your power between cosmic spaces or bringing magic to self-empowerment, these affirmations are key rituals in any writing practice.
This writing practice straddles between the veil between speaking enchantments and poetry magic. Words are power and the stronger and sharper the words mean to you, the keener the words conjur. At the same time don’t get tripped up with finding the prettiest or fanciest words or phrases. Keep in mind one of the most powerful affirmations you can say to yourself each and every day is “I am a witch.”
Create your chart without pretense or worry. Fill in words and images as they come to you and don’t lift the pen off of the paper until you are done. Don’t rush to get as many words into the chart as possible. A few are fine, but if you’re feeling anxious set a two minute timer on your smartphone to see what you can come up with.
Use the chart below for reference:
Sit with your chart for a few moments. Study the words and picture the imagery each specific word conjures. Choose a phrase below that calls out to you immediately. Circle the words in a different colored pen or pencil in your journal.
Underneath the chart, write out the phrase ten times. Decorate the page with lines, shapes, filigrees, or colored highlighters. Make the affirmation stand out on the page. Read and admire your blessed work. Repeat it back to yourself. Eventually, you might even want to transfer your sacred affirmations to your grimoire. And viola! Then your affirmations are ready to join you for rituals, spell-casting, and magical poetry writing.
Above all, have fun with expressive writing and affirmation exercises. Be fluid as these writing tools evolve just as you do. Affirmations are like tiny waves, floating and moving with you to a charge water source that is manifestation. Use affirmations to take a few moments out of our day to set the one or simply engage in a small, restorative reset before engaging in your alchemical writing work. You can say affirmations before you begin writing a poem, as you apply glamour magic makeup, on your commute, while sending a text, looking at yourself in the mirror, before falling asleep, and more.
Stephanie Athena Valente lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her published works include Hotel Ghost, waiting for the end of the world, and Little Fang (Bottlecap Press, 2015-2019). She has work included in Witch Craft Magazine, Maudlin House, and Cosmonauts Avenue. She is the associate editor at Yes, Poetry. Sometimes, she feels human. stephanievalente.com