Queen of winter writing prompts

Well, it’s been a busy week back setting up creative writing workshops for this season. But so much fun as usual :) And I felt restored after my Christmas break spending time with family.

I just had a lovely, supportive chat with one of my paid subscribers for Gentle Book Writing Club - and I now have more energy for my new Arts Council project, inspired by moon goddesses!

In that mythic vein, this week our Tuesday Zoom creative writing session was inspired by Beira, Queen of Winter - a Scottish story from this book. Beira is a cailleach (or old woman) archetype and is so powerful. She was the mother of all gods and goddesses in Scotland. She was tall and old and everyone feared her.

She was at the height of her power and strength during winter and as spring came, her power faded and Bride took over. I love the description of how she looked: “The aged Beira was fearsome to look upon. She had only one eye, but the sight of it was keen and sharp as ice and as swift as the mackerel of the ocean.” Her skin was a dull, dark blue; her teeth red as rust and her locks were “white as an aspen covered with hoar frost”.

She created mountains and rivers and lochs as well as shaped many bens and glens, then wandered over the land, always followed by wild animals. She protected great herds and flocks of them.

In her book, Hagitude, Dr Sharon Blackie says: “Our old woman is not to be messed with. She teaches us that to be elder is to be strong — strong and hard as the oldest rocks of this Earth, which she personifies. To be elder is to be powerful, and to stay the course — not just to endure, but always to remain fully alive through all the long years until our work here is done.”

Beira is the wild spirit of winter. She is so far away from society’s image of the doddery, frail, forgetful old woman who is easy to ignore. As Blackie argues, it’s time we reclaimed these powerful narratives of female characters from ancient stories.

There is a strength to surviving the cold, harsh months as winter can be painful and harsh as well. But the long nights and cold weather is also a reminder to rest and to save our energy. I find it so helpful to look to the seasons and the stories connected with them as guidance.

And writing with these mythic characters helps with this too.

Writing Prompts

If I were Beira, Queen of Winter, I would…

If I were Beira, Queen of Winter, I would wear…

My body would be…

I would move…

I would look like…

I would protect…

My helpers would…

I would make…

As they are connected, I will also share the journalling prompts from this morning’s Gentle Book Writing Club:

If I listened to my intuition, I would…

If I followed my curiosity, I would…

If I acknowledged my need for rest, I would…