It’s that time of year again – autumn always seems to be the favourite season of writers. Our inner nerd must associate the cooler air and autumn leaves with the wide-open prairies of unused exercise books. And we’re off!

Not that there are as many leaves left to turn orange and fall round here after the summer that we’ve had. Summer: increasingly my least fave season, though this year I did enjoy an excellent Zen meditation course as well as a wonderful introduction to natural history with the Natural History Museum. It’s been a weird year – heat and drought and war and politics and divisions, plus loss and grief that never really seems to budge. Perhaps the cycle of the year puts us in a space to start again.

Autumn, though. It’s something about the light, I think – the slant of the light in September, a thinner yellow that catches something: what? It was there in Orleans House Gardens in Twickenham this morning (see above). It was there on the English Channel last week when I taught a Four Elements workshop at the Hastings Book Festival (thanks for having me!). Something that changes in the light makes me see or maybe just feel things differently: a certain lift happens.

Thinking about that: as a writing experiment, take an old piece of writing and rewrite all or some of it by telling it slant.

A different perspective, a new setting in time or place, a fresh register: bring the subject matter in another direction.

Perhaps think about the quality of light this work might sit within, and let that feel its way into the writing. And maybe you could prepare by doing a meditation or visualisation that draws on a particular quality of the light.

To illuminate (ha!) this writing experiment, try this ritual for the Equinox from Bhanu Kapil, first published in the Ignota Diary 2019:

23 September
Ritual for Autumn Equinox
Invert yourself at the edge of the water, so that the top of your skull or your hair makes contact with the current or wave. And if this is not possible, if your capacity to take this posture is restricted in any way, then feel it in your body first. And if that is not possible, or if feeling is not possible in this moment, then take a glass of water and add some pink Himalayan salt, fresh lemon juice and pepper. Drink this. And if this is not possible, then lift your face to the rain. And if it never rains, then wait until the water finds you. Wait for the unexpected emotion that changes or charges your very real heart. And then: step through the indigo door, as Rachel Pollack said, into another world.

All of that! Some Bhanu (and Rachel) magic to send you on your writing way. Let the light lead you into another world of your own creation.

And spookily (or maybe not), as I type this post Bhanu also informs me about this. If you’ve ever enjoyed the great wisdom of Rachel Pollack’s writings, you might want to show your assistance. (And if you are interested in tarot but have never read her Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: you must seek it out! It is widely regarded as the best book on the subject.)

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While I’m here, coming soon:

* Reawakenings, a Four Elements workshop run with Words Away, at a central London location tbc, 26 November 2022. Thinking about the changes we’ve experienced in the last few years since we last came together in person, let’s explore together ways to reawaken our writing: reset or reboot it, rebirth it even!

* Masterclasses on craft and practice, structured around an updated syllabus for my DIY MA in Creative Writing, on Zoom, January 2023 onwards.

Happy Autumn!