Introducing: The Mabon Creativity + Ritual Challenge

A new offering to help you channel the wisdom of the changing seasons and your creative spirit.

Hi my beloved Ink Roads readers. There are a lot more of you this month and I so appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks for being here! I have a special new offering to share that comes straight from my heart, and here’s the short of it:

TLDR: I’ll be sending out emails every other day the week before and after this Mabon/autumnal equinox (September 22), featuring creative and earth-based prompts and challenges intended to help you reconnect with the wisdom of your creative spirit and the earth’s cycles. Future offerings will only be available to paid subscribers, but this is 100% free!

Sign up to receive these emails by subscribing and sending me a message, clicking the link below, and/or leaving a comment on this post!

(Quick note: I had a poll-based sign-up system in here previously but quickly realized that the responses are anonymous. Still learning how this Substack workshop thing works… please make sure to subscribe, and click the above link and answer the survey or leave a comment in order to register!)

Also, I’ll be sending out an email about this to everyone who signs up (as well as a 1-month complimentary paid subscription), but in order to sign up for the challenge, you’ll also need to head to inkroads.substack.com/account and toggle the Eco-Arts Sanctuary tab ON.

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Anyway, here’s the full story…or, why I believe so deeply that we need to worship and honor the changing seasons in order to heal our relationships with ourselves and the earth:

Humans are part of nature, and nature is seasonal. So in essence, we are seasonal beings, meant to live in a reciprocal, cyclical pattern of waxing and waning, growing and hibernating, becoming and undoing and back again.

We are not meant to be constantly producing. But we are also not meant to stop creating or stand frozen and stagnant.

We are meant to flow in a rhythm with the sun and the rain. We are meant to work in tandem with the particularities of our environment and our bodies and our own precious, special minds.

I blame a lot of our disconnect and discomfort in the modern world on our division from nature. So many of us shut ourselves into brilliantly lit offices all day, barely ever put our bare feet on the earth, eat synthetic foods, and suppress our wilder sides in order to perform unreal versions of ourselves all while trying to conform to an illusory standard that has no actual bearing in anything real.

And our disconnection from the earth extends to the violence with which we treat ourselves and each other.

Many of us are very painfully aware of this, and many are looking for different ways to live. I sense a collective awakening occurring as people realize that we are being brainwashed by corporations that are feeding us with addictive, distracting media and forcing us to exist in a way that is completely not in alignment with our true natures.

Our true natures are not constant. They are transforming, shapeshifting, alchemical, creative.

Sidenote: Here are two perfect songs that embody this seasonal transition, for your listening pleasure:

So how do we get back in touch with our true natures? I believe that the answers can be found in getting back in touch with nature itself. By learning from the earth — by watching the way it heals itself by devouring its own waste and converting it into energy, and by changing and transforming based on a pattern set by the solar system itself, and by following a rhythm, I think we can start finding ourselves and healing our relationship with all beings.

This is an idea deeply rooted in Indigenous wisdom, which is widely being practiced and cared for today by so many communities and keepers, and I can only say my most heartfelt thank you to those who have carried this knowledge through centuries and amid unspeakable violence and suppression. (You can donate to support this work here).

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Anyways, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with this Substack, and I’ve realized that my greatest dream as a writer and artist is to help people rekindle their connection with their creative spirits and with the earth.

I thought for a while that I would need to wait until I had many more subscribers in order to launch an offering like this, but I’ve also been studying manifestation lately and one of the key concepts in it is to act as if you already have what you want.

So I’m acting as if I already have an amazing, active community of eco-writers looking to heal their relationships with the earth and themselves (and if you’ve found this, you can thank the cosmos for answering my wishes and bringing you here). And so, in that spirit, I’m just going to push through my fear and launch this offering!

It’s free, but eventually I plan to make these sorts of offerings available to only paid subscribers. You can sign up for the cheapest a paid subscription will ever be — just $4/month — until the end of the summer (and it’s a lifetime subscription):

So what is this offering, you may ask?

Introducing: The Wheel of the Year Creativity and Ritual Challenge #1: Mabon

The holidays of the Wheel of the Year are rooted in pagan traditions, and there are eight of them. Here’s a nice overview:

Starting this September, I’ll be sending out a series of creative prompts and ritual guides during the week before and after each Wheel of the Year holiday in order to help you ease into the new season and alchemize the lessons of the earth’s transformations.

The next holiday is Mabon, or the autumnal equinox, which takes place on September 21-22. The prompts sent out during the week before Mabon will be based on honoring and releasing the summer we’ve had, and the prompts the week after Mabon will honor the awakening of autumn and will summon abundance for the season.

Because I love cycles, I’ll be sending out prompts every other day for a total of 7 custom guides to help you through this seasonal transition. Some will involve outdoor elements, such as altar-making and art-making challenges, and others will include more passive prompts, such as invitations to rest and practice self-care.

So the challenge will look something like this:

Day 1 — September 15: Spend 5 minutes resting in the sunshine (plus links to + sun-inspired music and sun rituals, and a reflection on the sun tarot card and sun deities throughout time)

Day 4 — September 20: Write a letter or create a visual tribute to the summer you’ve had, thanking it for its beauty and gifts

And so forth.

The emails will appear on September 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, and 27. They’ll also look much more beautiful than this, and will be full of visuals and offerings and detailed instructions and references to various reading materials.

I hope they help you ease out of the summer and into the fall, and I truly from the bottom of my heart believe this kind of work can help everyone reconnect to the seasonal, creative, earthy wisdom your body has always held.

So, if you want to receive seven free Mabon-related prompts across two weeks, including rituals that help you reconnect with your creative spirit and the earth’s abundance and infinite wisdom, sign up here or leave a comment below.

(I won’t be sending these out to all my subscribers to avoid spamming everyone with content, but I will be sharing them on the blog under the “Eco-Arts Sanctuary” section. Please head to inkroads.substack.com/account and toggle ON the Eco-Arts Sanctuary tab to opt into these posts!)

We start September 15, and I really hope to see you there. And of course, feel free to subscribe to Ink Roads for many more offerings like this. Paid subscriptions are now on sale for just $4/month until the end of the summer.

Whether or not I see you on the 15th, I’m wishing you a beautiful conclusion to the season and an abundant and generative start to the new one.

And be sure to subscribe and comment on this article, or click the link below to sign up!