two of wands—writing sabbaticals
How do you build rest into your writing practice? When do you let the field lay fallow, and when do you let it grow wild? What is a writing sabbatical, and how can it support your creativity?
This week, I'm answering a reader's question about coming back from a sabbatical from writing.
This is the question:
“After having a fairly consistent writing practice for many years, I took a half-year sabbatical from writing and I'm in a place where I want to rebirth everything: my writing process, style, and approach. My relationship to writing has changed as I stopped living out of a suitcase and started building a home. I'm ready for integration and a deeper process. I'd love your suggestions on how to think and go about that rebirth from a deeper place within me."
Though this question is about an intentional sabbatical, it can also be useful as a way to think about times when we can't write, because of constraints, and how that time can also be a powerful reset to our practice.
The first thing that came to mind when reading this question was the story of Persephone, whose life was starkly divided into two parts of the year: her time in the underworld and her time above ground.
The story of Persephone is a bleak one, as most Greek and Roman myths are, with thoughtless cruelty at its heart. But it is also a powerful metaphorical origin story that explains winter and summer, sowing and harvest.
A sabbatical from writing might feel like a period in the underworld, a time away from the nourishment that a writing practice can bring. But it can also be a powerful moment to reflect, integrate, and ideate.
The card I pulled this week was the Two of Wands, a card about thresholds and gateways. Of oppositions, and decisions. You can't rest and be productive at the same time, and the fear of stepping through the threshold into the underworld can be great.
What the Two of Wands, and the story of Persephone remind us is that rest and recovery are integral to creation. The fields must lie fallow sometimes to retain the richness that sustains life.
Magic, particularly spell craft, is deeply informed by the cycles of the natural world. Intentions have more power when aligned to a new moon. A banishing ritual might require burying objects in the earth.
Writing is a magical practice, and as with all magic, the outcome may not be exactly what you expect.
By tuning in to the cycles and seasons of your own work, you can be surer that your intentions will guide your results. Sometimes, this might mean rest and reflection, as a way to nourish your own writing magic.
Two of Wands
Twos are about harmony and balance, but also about opposition. They represent two halves of a situation, like the story of Persephone.
Wands represent the element of fire, and they give us a spark, a way to generate creative energy.
For some of us, the heat can spark energy in the moment, and for others it means storing up heat, to be used at a later time. If there is too much heat, we burn out, too little and we freeze.
The Two of Wands is about the way we fuel our creativity. How we ensure a stable supply of energy for our art, our work, and our lives.
This image from the Wild Unknown deck is like a gateway. It is an invitation to an adventure, asking you to step across the threshold.
It is also like a wishbone, or two divining rods. It offers a chance to make something happen through the power of intention and divination. There is a clear pathway and if you follow it, you can create something out of seemingly nothing.
This card speaks of the energies of the universe, captured in a single place. What would it feel like to harness that energy? To take the whole wide rainbow and focus it into a point? To create something wild through energetic intensity?
The message of the Two of Wands is that you have your own personal power, connected to the universal. By letting that universal magic move through you, you will move inexorably towards your creative work.
This is a card of discovery, not certainty. In harnessing these wild flames, in claiming them for yourself, you can come back to your work in a spirit of experimentation, and faith that it will work out.
Coming Home to your Writing
The querent asked about how to return to writing after a sabbatical, and how to birth a new writing practice.
They also mentioned that this desire for a new practice coincided with a new sense of home as a permanent place.
The idea of building a home requires a decision to be taken.
You can’t be nomadic and settled.
You have to make a choice.
Any choice can feel painful as it means losing something and grieving something. The Two of Wands won’t let you keep all your options open; it asks you to choose.
This card is about the spark of something new, the creation of a flame, or perhaps a hearth. You took your suitcase and made a home. You walked beneath the lintel and found a place to rest. Like Persephone in Hades, you spent six months without. This act alone will mean the writing will feel different when you come back to it.
This card is asking you to settle in, to make the writing like a home. A place of deep rest and respite. It wants you to take the lessons from the sabbatical and feed them into the work. Integration is key, and it requires space and rest. You can’t just produce, or be on, all the time. It doesn’t need to be six months on and six months off, but that lesson of balance is important.
The word sabbatical is associated with sabbat, or sabbath. It belongs to the language of ritual and ceremony. These moments mark important parts of the year. They allow us to stop, and celebrate what has happened, as well as looking to the future.
The Two of Wands invites you to be wild, and adventurous, to feel the whole power of the universe inside you, ready to be divined. But this is also fiery, magical work, and you need to be able to accept what comes.
Your writing is a sanctuary, and a retreat from the world, but you are still part of the universe, and not working in isolation. Let inspiration in, but don’t be overwhelmed. Know your inner values. Stay on the path. The rainbow never changes.
Thresholds Spread
This spread can be used when you need to find your way back to your writing practice. You can pull cards, or use the questions as writing prompts.
What does home feel like to you?
What are your values as a writer?
How do you know when you've lost your way?
What can call you back?