Welcome to our penultimate #AcWriMoments post, the culmination of a yearlong experiment in purposeful scholarship creation. On the first day of each month in 2024, we’ve offered you a guidepost with a unique theme and simple prompts for living out the theme as a scholar and a human. We’ve invited you to return to the guideposts all month long, anytime you needed support for cultivating SACRED (strategic, artisanal, creative, reflective, embodied, delicious) moments of communion with yourself and your work. We hope these offerings have encouraged you in your pursuit of whatever goals and visions you deem worthy of your attention—the most precious resource you have. Read on to learn what we’re planning for 2025!
Theme for December 2024: ENVISION
How do you plan in times of high uncertainty? When all you can see ahead are unknown unknowns, is it possible to access a visionary frame of mind? These are apt questions at this particular new-year transition, when apprehension is the pervasive mood for many of us. At such a time, how can we conjure a vision to guide us into 2025 with courage and hope?
A clue is nestled in last month’s #AcWriMoments post. The theme of the month was CONJURE: “create space and moments to leave your mark.” We shared the following experiment:
Choose an inspiring image to guide your next conjuration. In magic, a sigil is a powerful image, usually a pictorial symbol, that guides the process of manifestation. Choose an image that evokes how you want to feel in your work or what you want to create. It could be ancient or modern, abstract or culturally specific, printed from online or copied by your own hand. Place the image somewhere you’ll see it often. Meditate on it regularly. Notice how the image guides, nourishes, and course-corrects your process over time.
This prompt articulates one of the ways your agency can never be taken from you. No matter where you are or what’s happening around you or to you, you can choose which symbols and scenes to hold in your mind. And as you take charge of your own imagination, the effects can ripple outward in unexpected ways. By being a real and genuine presence in the world, you can become the change you wish for.
If you can return to your own creative vision again and again as your life unfolds, then over time, your life becomes an unmistakably meaningful one, held together by threads of coherence. And you remain always at the center of your own story, making the meaning.
For this penultimate #AcWriMoments post, we offer you the theme of ENVISION. The word refers to the imagining of future possibilities, connoting positive ones. To live this theme, you don’t actually have to believe that good things will happen: you can envision yourself as the good thing happening. You are happening right now, and you will continue to happen for as long as you’re alive and living on purpose. This is the energy that can lead you through 2025 and beyond.
We’ll be back in touch at the end of December with some end-of-the-year announcements.
In the meantime, here are some Reflection Questions and Experiments to wrap up 2024 and set the stage for an intentional 2025, full of meaning…
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Trace a through-line. Who have you always been? What have you always valued? Where do you come from? What have you been working on for years? These questions help you trace a through-line of your identity. Choose a through-line, and think of one small way you can help yourself remember this thread of your identity in the days ahead.
Revisit a monthly theme or prompt. Remember you can always return to past #AcWriMoments posts from 2024 whenever you need help envisioning a monthly theme to live by. Or, for a quick writing prompt to facilitate a single SACRED moment, check out the prompts from our 30-day #AcWriMoments experiment in November 2023.
EXPERIMENTS
The sunset of #AcWriMoments marks the dawn of a new initiative: Tarot for Scholars!
On December 16/17, we’re excited to host a live Zoom conversation and workshop exploring tarot as a tool for navigating scholarly life. Register here to attend this free WriteSPACE Special Event or to watch the replay afterwards.
On January 1, we’re launching a new Substack newsletter, also called Tarot for Scholars, to help you integrate the deep wisdom of tarot into your scholarly process. Subscribe to receive daily posts throughout the month of January, followed by weekly posts through the remainder of 2025 (and beyond?)
As we close the year with the theme of ENVISION, what is one thing you intend to do or be in the months ahead? What resources do you already have on hand to help you in this process?
Thank you for joining us for #AcWriMoments! We’d love to hear from you. Please drop us a comment to let us know what you’re learning, trying, and discovering this month.
&COURSES & MEMBERSHIP: Write more, right now! Join Helen and fellow writers from around the world in the WriteSPACE, the ultimate membership site for scholarly and professional writers who aim to lift their writing game. To try free for 30 days, click here and enter the discount code SNEAKPEEK.
CUSTOM WRITING SUPPORT: Imagine and build your unique body of work with support from ScholarShape. As the creator of ScholarShape, Margy offers a suite of resources and services designed to help you cultivate and share your scholarly genius. Click here to learn more about Story-Argument Support Services.