Teneice Durrant, creator of Tenth Fox Tarot, will mark each full moon with a tarot reading, ritual for releasing creative blocks, and writing exercise. Writers, drop your vices!
Full moon in Aries
This month’s Full Moon is in Aries, which is ruled by Mars. Don’t be surprised if the combination of Full Moon in Aries and the end of Mercury retrograde makes you feel like you’ve been shot out of a cannon. While we might be ready for this propulsion forward after twiddling our thumbs for the last few weeks, we have to be careful about mistaking passion for impulsivity and immaturity.
This moon is called the Hunter’s Moon for a reason. It’s time to release the frivolity and lightness of summer and turn our attention to how we are going to survive the winter. It’s easy to distract ourselves from serious tasks (and serious thoughts) in the summertime; but as we settle down for the winter, anything we didn’t prepare for will become glaringly obvious when we have nowhere to go.
Since Aries is the youngest sign in the Zodiac, this shift might make you feel like stomping your feet or thinking that someone else will take care of it while you have fun. Aries energy tends to make us a little rambunctious and a little self-centered, so it’s possible that you may be tempted into some self-soothing methods of avoidance. The writing prompt for this week will address releasing childhood crutches for one of your main characters (or you if this applies).
Writing exercise
First, because awareness is key, you need to identify an emotional crutch—yours (if you’re writing nonfiction) or your character’s (if you’re writing fiction). Go back to childhood and consider how that behavior developed.
Once you identify the vice or self-soothing method for yourself or your character, write out the inciting childhood incident that caused this behavior to develop. You may not end up using this in your story, but for you or your character’s sake, you have to know how they got it and how you or they have learned to cope with it. Have another character mention the vice in passing and write out a scene that begins with you or your character reacting badly, childishly, to this mention. It may or may not be a big deal, but you or your character beg to differ! Write the escalation of tension until one of you/them says what the real issue is.
Explore that underlying conflict, and the moment when both characters realize there is a bigger problem. Do they resolve the issue or rebel against this new awareness? Hold onto the vice or release it in favor of growth?
Until next time, find my tarot podcast at anchor.fm/tenthfox.
What did you think of Teneice's offering for this month? Will you try the exercise and see where your writing takes you? Share with us in the comments.
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