The Witchcraft of Writing: Beltane and Bear Suits

By Heather Hein—

Greetings, Loyal Votarists!

Here’s wishing you all a blessed Beltane as we celebrate spring, the ever-growing light, and of course, creativity! Together we have stoked the fires of winter and cast spells that guaranteed our survival through the long, cold dark without resorting to cannibalism—at least, that is my hope and assumption. As for me, all of my family members are still present and retain their original parts.

May Day (Beltane) is when spellcasters across the globe celebrate the marriage and union of Mother Earth and the God of The Greenwood in an ancient fertility festival, which marks the beginning of the season of growth. What an amazing time to be a writer! When I was a wee witchling, one of my favorite things was the yearly giving out of May Baskets. Small, usually hand-crafted from paper and filled with fresh or paper flowers, popcorn, candy, and other little treats. On May First, we’d take them to our friends, hang them on doorknobs, ring the bell, and run away shrieking with laughter over our cleverness. Like a ding-dong-ditch but instead of flaming bags of poo, we left a smile.

Whether one is seeding friendship, plants and flowers, or ideas, we can use this time of year to apply fertilizer, root out weeds that don’t belong, and celebrate the miracle of the promise of growth. A famous gardening spell goes like this: Dirt plus Darkness and Moisture too…We will make a SOIL out of you. This was not a spell used to help encourage an enemy to take a dirt-nap or to metamorphose a particularly loathsome adversary into literal dirt. But doesn’t this spell tell us that growth requires a seed in the darkness which emerges into the light? That, my devoted wordcasters, is how we write a story.

This is the perfect time for Word Witches and Warlocks and all those in between to consider what we’ve been incubating. Has that novel you finished last November for NaNoWriMo grown lousy with cordyceps on your hard drive, just waiting for the right moment to spread and thrive? Maybe there’s a special poem brewing in your head, or a blog post, or even a limerick that’s ready to anchor itself into the earth and grow. Go forth and spill your words onto the page like blood from a sacrificial knife wound.

Oh, dearest Votarists, look within yourself to find the dark things people hide from. Find some that are particularly juicy, like a Stinkhorn mushroom, and see what happens when you cover them with soil and feed them. Heartlessly rip out those things which infringe upon the genesis of your ideas. Give them room to spread their roots, unfurl their leaves, and tilt their creepy little faces toward the sun. If something unwanted grows in your word garden, just grab your favorite hoe and uproot it.

You may be asking, “how do we know which ones to plant?” Fear not! You can plant as many as you like and then stand back and watch. Some may grow tall, some may grow wide, but the ones that look strange are the ones we should guide. That’s where we find our voices. Besides, you don’t want your own mutant Hubbard squash to look like Mildred’s across the street, now do you? NO! Your flowers will be the next marvel, the most original, the most breathtaking (particularly for the Stinkhorn variety) flora to grace the pages of a book.

Even creepy folks like us can revel in the long, sunny days. Midsommar isn’t just for the Swedish. Just beware of bear suits!

(PS: If you didn’t quite catch the above reference, I recommend watching the movie by the same name. You’ll never look at May Day or Scandinavian folk the same way again. And I can say that because I am positively Swedish.)