Working with the elements to support your writing practice: Water

Simple practices to root your writing into the wisdom of nature

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Water is connected with our deep depths and our biggest emotions: Like air, it's constantly moving and shifting, and asks us to connect into its energy as it exists in a given moment, rather than assuming it will stay the same over time.

Working with water in your creative practice offers a few benefits:

-It's a way to tap into the emotional resonance of your work itself, or your own emotional landscape in relationship to the work.

-It offers a way to check in with yourself emotionally and get a read of this moment in time, and to get curious about the deeper layers underneath whatever is evident on the surface.

-Water is often also a part of cleansing and clearing rituals, and can be really helpful for that here, too, when you've got some stuff you need to move out.

I've outlined some practices below that help me work with water to support my writing: Whether or not you engage with this as a magical practice, connecting your writing to this element can help you keep energy and emotions moving, and be more aware and intentional as you write.

Many of these practices might already be ones you do: But when practiced with intention, and with space for reflection on how the practice supports your creativity, they can powerfully transform and nourish your creative ecosystem over time.

How I use these practices:

There are two ways to work with this list. The first is to choose one from the list by letting your intuition guide you. What feels good that particular day? Pick a practice based on what you need in the moment.

The second is to commit to a practice over a period of time: Connect with a natural water source for a week, for example, and notice how you feel at the beginning and end.

In both cases, it's helpful to reflect on how your chosen practice has impacted you: in general and in terms of your creative work.

Do you feel energized? More calm? Do your ideas flow more smoothly and easily? Do you suddenly have new ideas, or new connections between ideas, after working with this element?

I like to journal about what I learn, but even just a few moments of reflecting can be a beautiful intentional practice.

Practices for Water-inspired creativity

I divide these into a few categories, so you can choose a practice depending what you need in a given moment.

Grounding practices:

For when you are feeling scattered or anxious, or like you have an excess of energy that you need to release.

Water helps us ground in a different way than, well, grounding in the actual Earth because we're rooting our attention into a shifting, moving element. This makes 'grounding' not so much a permanent state as a state of being comfortable with fluidity and change, and of bringing awareness to our emotions.

Spend 5 minutes meditating, by turning attention inwards and focusing your attention on somewhere in your body that feels tense and tight, or alternately feels really relaxed and open, or is otherwise calling for your attention.

Just let your attention sit in that place, and with every emotion, thought, or even conflicting thoughts that come up, just let them exist in that space and welcome them without judgment. You aren't saying any of these thoughts are the definitive truth, or overthinking them, you're just noticing them and allowing them to exist.

This can be a good way to get a read on how you're feeling, but also how those emotions are anchoring into your body. Close out the session by letting yourself release any energy or emotion you want to release into a water source, to be cleared and recycled, imagining it flowing down the drain or into a nearby body of water.

Journal about how you're feeling right now: Maybe you describe your emotions and your relationship to your creative work as actual water (is it a lake, river, ocean? How is the water moving or not? Is the surface still, choppy, full of big waves?)

Journaling about change can also be beneficial: Especially when we're facing a variety of changes that can feel overwhelming. This is not an activity to claim ownership and control over changes beyond your control (think government policies) but rather to find your own emotional and energetic point of balance as you stand in shifting waters.

Write down each change that's personally influencing your life right now: Which changes can you shape and influence? For changes that are primarily outside your control, how can you navigate those changes in a way that's prepared and intentional, rather than catastrophizing (which can lead to freezing, and not doing anything)? What resources can you draw upon to stay balanced in changing waters? For changes that feel uncertain, what can you use to build your anchor to stay moored?

And remember, not all change is bad: This is a great place to journal about what is exciting about changes in your life, and what possibilities a new change opens up. The more you can lean into that excitement, the more fun you'll have navigating the waters.

You can also reconnect to the nourishing energy of water through regularly going out to natural water sources and swimming, soaking your feet, or just being present. Spend some time in silence noticing the water's interaction with each of your senses: How it sounds, how it feels on the skin, etc.

If you're seeking insights, you can also ask the water for inspiration, guidance, for cleansing and clearing, or whatever else you need.

Just being near water can really help you feel grounded, clear stagnant energy, and leave you feeling nourished, so time in nature around water can be a valuable practice whatever you're experiencing.

Clearing and cleansing practices:

For when you feel like there's a weight on your chest, the world feels heavy, or you feel stuck or overwhelmed.

First of all, DRINK LOTS OF WATER. I mean it. Staying hydrated has many many benefits, and we feel better, think more clearly, and can move more easily when we're properly hydrated. Want to feel better consistently? Then hydrate consistently.

Visualization is a powerful practice here: Imagine water moving through your body and washing away whatever isn't serving you, opening up space for fresh new energy and ideas.

Or imagine water doing similar work in your environment (like clearing out old stuck feeling energy around your desk after finishing up a particularly difficult project).

You can also visualize powerful bodies of water that are important to you (e.g. a favorite waterfall or beach), close your eyes and imagine the sights and sounds of that place, then imagine that power building up inside of you and waking up your own inner power.

Some people anoint themselves with water, particularly from personally significant natural sites (note: don't ingest water unless you know it's potable). You might place water on your third eye for clarity of vision, if that speaks to you, or on your hands to guide your work, or just spritz yourself with water to feel refreshed and energized. This can be a magical practice or can just be a nice ritual to fold into your days (I keep a spray bottle of rosewater in my kitchen and spritz my face in the mornings while I make my coffee to wake me up a bit).

You can also use this water to cleanse the tools you use to do your work: Magical objects like stones, for example, but you can also use it to wipe down pencils or spritz (lightly) on the cover of a notebook. For obvious reasons, this particular practice doesn't work with electronics.

And some people do water workings: For example, take water from a place you love, write a dream or idea on a piece of paper, and drop it in the water. Or, charge water in the full moonlight (or under the new moon, or in the sunlight, depending what you want to do) and perform a similar practice. Where you need a lot of energy to get stuff moving, rainwater collected from a thunderstorm can help.

H. Byron Ballard talks about working with water in Roots, Branches, and Spirits and in Staubs and Ditchwater. For those interested in Appalachian folk magic, she's an incredible source of wisdom.

If you make flower essences, you can also work with these as water-based energetic medicine: The most important aspect, to my mind, of working with flower essences is to treat the plant(s) and water as collaborators in bringing about a new way of being, rather than the detached way we normally pursue our well-being (e.g. take a pill and expect a magic cure).

If you have questions about making flower essences, please ask me! There's also a great step-by-step tutorial over at Worts + Cunnning.

Energizing and nourishing practices:

For when you feel sluggish and unmotivated, or when you have lots of ideas but are struggling to make focused time to work on them.

Again, stay hydrated. This is the simplest and most nourishing water-related thing you can do.
Find herbal teas you like or whatever your beverage of choice is, and find ways to make it special, attractive, and delicious so you're reaching for it often. You might (for example) make an energizing digestive tea with mint and ginger, or make ice cubes from cooled tea or with flower petals frozen inside, you might have a favorite juice on hand, or just float a round of lemon in a glass of water.

Speaking of freezing water, water is SUPER powerful for getting energy moving: But when we don't feel our emotions or let them move through us, we freeze just like water does.

One way to keep things moving is to adopt the energy of water: Viewing our emotions or our current in-the-moment circumstances like waves that wash over us and then go on their way. The waves will continue to move and flow: But we can jam up the works when we grab onto one and try to over-analyze it or focus on it for longer than we need.

This visualization is helpful for me, as a deeply feeling person, and is also helpful for acute, annoying situations (like frustrating customer service calls or traffic delays): Treating it like a wave that will soon be on its way helps you put that moment in its larger context.

Play around in water. Go for a swim, splash around, go to a water park, jump in puddles, run through a sprinkler. It's refreshing and energizing and a simple way to both get your body moving and connect to your playful spirit.

Move your body like water. Big wave motions, moving your hips, whatever speaks to you. This helps loosen you up and get things moving and is a nice way to bring some physicality into the "my emotions are waves" visualization (while also helping you physically release those emotions).

Other flowing motion-based practices (like Qi Gong or Hatha yoga) can also be useful for keeping energy moving.

If you're feeling sluggish and tired or struggling for inspiration, here's another visualization practice for bringing in new energy and ideas. In addition to visualizing water moving through your body and clearing out old sludgy stuff (like we did above), you can also imagine water as carrying in fresh energy, or new ideas, or whatever you want to draw to yourself. Feel yourself being filled up with that new energy and ideas as the water you're visualizing moves through you.

You can also add a physical component to this practice by visualizing your ideas and energy filling up a glass of water and becoming infused in it. Then, as you drink the water, imagine those ideas flowing into you and becoming a part of you. It's a powerful, tactile visualization practice that also helps keep you hydrated: A win/win.

If divination is a practice that speaks to you, water gazing can be used similar to a crystal ball. Just use a still bowl of water for your gazing practice, preferably in a relatively dark space without distractions.

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