note: if you are a woman, these journaling prompts can also be structured according to your menstrual cycle. menstrual — new moon, follicular — waxing moon, ovulation — full moon, & luteal — waning moon. because the moon is instrinsically tied to femininity and embodies cyclicality, the corresponding themes align well with our mental states during these phases. for example, during our luteal phase we are much more introspective, more energized during ovulation, etc. use this to your benefit and reach a deeper flow state ;)

lunar journaling prompts

new moon: beginning, rebirth, hope

• write out your hopes and dreams for this month, week, or day.

• what are you hoping to accomplish this month?

• what does inner clarity feel like?

• what are some intentions that you can write down for future reference?

• if success was guaranteed, how would you spend the next 30 days?

• what do you deeply value in life?

• what are some lessons you need to learn?

• pick a goal and brainstorm possibilities - be as open as you can.

• write down a few wishes you’d like to see fulfilled - no matter how absurd or delusional.

• in what areas of your life are you resisting change?

waxing moon: expansion, growth, movement

• what do you wish to cultivate? identify your goals and write down actionable steps for each.

• how can you support yourself in the process of bringing your intentions to fruition?

• what are some obstacles you’re currently facing? how can you move past them?

• what is in your control right now that you can use to move forward?

• what tensions or unresolved issues have been coming up recently?

• what ideas have been lingering at the edges of your mind recently? write them out, create room for them to be expressed without expectation.

• visualize one of your dreams coming to life — write it all out and carry the feeling with you.

• refine your visions: take your goals and intentions from the past phase and write them out in full detail. get clear on what you want.

• what makes you feel confident?

• what is one bold step you can take this week?

• remember why you started. write it down, again. keep these reminders in sight.

full moon: emotional intensity, abundance, energy

• what has recently brought you joy?

• write down everything you’ve accomplished over the past month, and take a moment to reflect.

• how can you celebrate your recent progress?

• what went surprisingly well in the past few weeks?

• what things in your life are reaching a state of completion or fullness?

• which emotions have you experienced most intensely this week?

• what are you grateful for? journal about all the abundance in your life. don’t take anything for granted, feel the gratitude for even the smallest things.

• what patterns have you slipped into these past few weeks? do they truly bring your towards your goal? if not, release.

• what is something small but meaningful you have learned or noticed this week?

• how have you grown in the past few weeks?

waning moon: release, forgiveness, introspection

• write down your recent worries and anxieties. then write a letter of reassurance to yourself, addressing each anxiety with grounded, comforting truths.

• what did you struggle with this month? what do you need to do in order to let these struggles go?

• what are you proud of?

• write out any negative thoughts and feelings that have lingered. let them go, preferably burn or tear it up.

• how can you create more balance in your life? notice which areas of your life feel out of touch or unbalanced.

• what lessons has the past month taught you?

• which patterns don’t align anymore? how can you replace them with new ideas or routines?

• reflect on how far you have come, tapping into all your positive energy.

• where have you been rushing? do you need to be rushing?

thank you so much for reading, until next time ⋆˚꩜｡

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the creative life today is a paradox. in its dichotomy of truths, i am torn between impossibilities, suspended between two extremes that are increasingly polarized in the modern world: the online and the offline. how can i stretch myself from one end to the other?

one the one hand, i need to be chronically online in order to build an audience and gain any recognition for my craft. the digital sphere is a wonderfully accessible place to promote my work, but also requires an unwavering presence and demands my constant attention. especially on substack i sense an unspoken, irrational pressure to stay hyper-aware of internet culture so that i can be the first to write about it. doomscrolling has become “stuff” for writing, and i lose sight of what makes a real subject. additionally, content creation has subtly made its way into the job description of the writer—we are now expected to do the marketing, design, promotion, etc in putting ourselves out there. publishers want a pre-established, organically grown audience that can put a face to your name and is not only invested in your work but also in your personality, your perfectly curated personal brand.

however, writing itself is something that is done behind the scenes, originating in my inner life, the void of the mind, and spilling out into the world as an expression of an idea that could not be realized in any other form. writing requires a deep solitude and ability to retreat into oneself to reach the consciousness, and it comes as no surprise that many writers are private people, often introverted—essentially, people not particularly drawn to creating and maintaining an online personal brand. our strengths are being compromised for the jobs we are weakest in, the jobs we run from.

the online world is therefore a vortex of pressures and external obligations, driven by an attention economy and a permanent sense of impending doom. but it is also a giant third eye, an ever-present gaze that perpetuates even outside the screen. the whole point of putting yourself out there is to gain visibility and recognition, but this requires extreme vulnerability and acts as a self-directed spotlight. i was not made for this degree of visibility, and yet if i don’t step into that spotlight i will fall away in the shadows and cracks of the internet as wasted potential; a “flop” to put it bluntly. and if i accept that failure and go out in the “real world” to get a “real job”, my potential employers might stumble across my digital footprint: personal essays and abandoned social media accounts. behold the stakes of publishing your writing (heart & soul) on the internet.

on the other hand, however, i know that creativity is quite simple. it only becomes this complex, problematic phenomenon when in conjuncture with modern notions of capitalism and the role of the digital world. my creativity requires stillness and quiet of me, a kind of presence that can only be experienced in the offline sphere. i asks me to slow down in my experience of the world so that i can alchemize it and create something with my bare hands. i need to fill my cup so that my creative energy can overflow and crystallize into art that lives on outside of me. really, my creative needs are quite simple: solitude, nature, freedom in my sense of time, peace and quiet, a space to lose myself in momentarily, preferably a room with a view. life experiences are necessary for raw material, but everything else is just noise and distraction, which is concentrated and magnified through the little rectangle of light in our hand.

and yet, i’m also reliant on it. it’s how i can reach you now with my writing. and there is so much inspiration to be found online, so much to learn. ideally, i would let my online and offline presence coexist in healthy balance. but the tension runs between them like a tightrope strung high over the abyss of being nothing at all. attempting to balance the nuance and complexity of creativity is a leap of faith into the liminal space where so many creatives get lost, hit a wall, or lose their footing. it’s a constant renegotiation, a living paradox. in the world of social media, success is measured by visibility; visibility i strive for while desperately trying to be invisible. i write from the heart under a pen name, juggling authenticity and anonymity. i create, and erase myself in the process.

but in the real world i find myself. i fully exist in the body that moves, i feel alive when the sun touches my skin, i know myself through the world my senses take in. inspiration springs and flows like an abundant inner well. the offline world is the one i intuitively know and cherish; it is the digital i still need to learn how to navigate. in the meantime, my digital footprint is something i’m willing to risk in exchange for the fulfillment of offering my creative work to an audience. i’m glad you’re here.

thank you so much for reading, until next time ⋆˚꩜｡

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books

• things fall apart by chinua achebe

  • ★★★★ this was a reread of a book i read in high school, and i was able to appreciate its depth so much more the second time around. i think this novel has a lot to offer to decolonial discourse, in an accessible way.

• wage labour and capital by karl marx

  • i had to read this for class and it’s pretty short so i debated putting this one on the list. but ultimately marx’s ideas are important background knowledge for a lot of my reading, so it counts.

• vaster than empires and more slow by ursula le guin

  • ★★★★★ i enjoyed this one so much that it made me rethink my dislike for scifi. excellent material for literary analysis as well.

• my friends by frederik backman

  • ★★★★ backman never fails to make me contemplate my entire life as i’m laughing and crying my way through his book. he just gets it. one star deducted for the humor being so extra.

music

• love deluxe by sade

• dianna lopez instrumentals

• lux by rosalia

• ambient soundscapes such as this album

• submarine by the marias

articles

milquetoast

how to plan a book pt. 2: plotting

I’ve written 4 books now, each draft only took me several months at most, and I owe it all to the magic (and horror) that is ~plotting~, so here’s how you go from having absolutely nothing to a draft-ready outline…

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6 months ago · 53 likes · 9 comments · Katie Wu

crystal clear

you escape competition by figuring out who you are

In the past couple of years and during the research I did while I was writing my first book, I spoke to a lot of people about how they navigate sharing their work and their art online, how they build “a personal brand” (for lack of a better term), and how it feels being a young, creative person in the age of social media. One thing that kept coming up a…

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7 months ago · 875 likes · 45 comments · Erifili Gounari

Cameron Nuttall

Letters from Hanoi - heartbroken, alone and in love with life.

Flying from London to Hanoi…

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8 months ago · 146 likes · 21 comments · Cameron Nuttall

video / podcast

• cam does it (cameron nuttall on substack)

• anna howard

• dianna lopez

• no ai lofi

february favorites

• the two spring days we got at the end of the month. i went to a park on both days, ignoring my duties and choosing to make the most of the sunny moment because winter is still clinging to this part of the world.

• doing mundane tasks by candlelight.

• warm beverages. making my own cappuccino or matcha, cafe study sessions, pouring myself a big comforting mug of herbal tea and refilling it throughout the evening like i am slowly turning into my mother.

• thermals to wear under my layers and beat the cold.

• discovering new music, especially instrumentals to play in the background

• writing everything by hand and taking time to ponder. creating feels so good, even if no one will see/read it. the practice of creating something that is not guaranteed to become anything is another type of devotion.

• bridgerton season four.

• searching for signs of spring, treading lightly. the first flowers have started to bloom, and this year i made sure i was the first to notice and appreciate. you can spend all winter long wishing for spring, and then let it pass you by when it arrives so quietly. this spring, no daffodil goes unnoticed.

visions of march

books i want to read

• hamnet by maggie o’farrell

• black skin, white masks by frantz fanon

• piranesi by susannah clarke (reread)

• the creative act by rick rubin

march themes: sunny days in the park, candles burning long hours, daffodils, vocal jazz, blossoming trees, spring showers, hot matcha, morning fog, tulips, literary magazines and newspapers, bike rides, life imitates art, bouquets

thank you so much for reading, until next time ⋆˚꩜｡

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for a long time i couldn’t relate to the magic of “perfume time travel”, partly because i used to never wear perfume and because i am still young. nostalgia is a relatively new concept for a girl just entering her twenties. since childhood i have moved many times, and there are significant gaps between the different “eras” of me, pauses in time widened by distance and change. each era is lonely and contains its own distinct memories, complete with all five senses bottled up into imagery that comes to me in dreams or moments of deja vu. they adorn the walls of my life’s museum like silent statues, coming alive to the call of the mosque with its trembling song, or the smell of the earth softening as it drinks from a long-expected rain shower. there are so many younger versions of me lined up, they make me feel old. and so far away from the golden days of my childhood. storm clouds don’t let much light through.

there’s something uncanny about the process of feeling nostalgic for the first time about an era like secondary school. sometimes i forget i ever left; the current moment so often feels like a transitory phase in the grand scheme of a life that will forever loop back to childhood and adolescence. these years feel like yesterday, but here we are, three perfumes later. sweet vanilla of high school, the floral scent of spring blossoming into summer, and the perfect cappuccino/wool sweater blend of the perfume i’ve been wearing since last autumn. but my favorite scent portals are the ones that take me back to my childhood.

the perfume of slow mornings: top notes of the choir’s song from the catholic church on the corner, birdsong and distant traffic; heart notes of unrushed presence, the comfort of the only home you had ever lived in back then, and promises of the full day ahead; and finally the base notes of security and forever.

the perfume of sentimentality and simplicity: top notes of dragonfly wings and flowers; heart notes of journals and moon songs and handwritten letters; base notes of homesickness, youth and an innate appreciation for beauty.

the perfume of the budding mind: top notes of cursive and creative crafts, national geographic and sudoku; heart notes of make-believe games and experimentation; base notes of books and curiosity and the little girl writing stories on the family computer.

the perfume of rainy school days: top notes of mud and slick frogs and wet dogs; heart notes of all the ways we’d conjure up warmth, classical music in math class, the green of the earth refreshed and renewed; base notes of unconditional friendship and nourished souls.

i admit this piece isn’t really about perfume, though it did originally inspire me to write about nostalgia. it’s about the home i’ve made in my memories. the world in my head which consists of the past and what the past could have been. nostalgia as a way to dissolve time, nostalgia as a way to breach the gaps in the self, nostalgia as the warmth of everything i miss, nostalgia as the stinging aftermath of loss as well as the soothing remedy to the painful letting go. i’m homesick. but i’m also homesick for myself. so the best i can do right now is slow down, and sit with myself in the current moment. being present with the person i am today, who will also someday be fossilized into a perfume and sit with her embalmed sisters in the museum of me. to live in the present moment is to constantly be reborn into another version of myself, so why would i waste my life digging up graves?

in order to create a perfume of memories, you must first stop and smell the roses.

thank you so much for reading, until next time ⋆˚꩜｡

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this belief had kept my creativity on a tight leash; if i could only write what i knew then i would be horribly limited. for me, writing is an act of extending beyond myself, a pushing of boundaries, an exploration in and of itself. my best writing comes in the form of questions, a curiosity, a hunger for the world outside my door. i always return to writing about what i don’t know. foraging ahead, letting my sensitivity for the world be my “feelers”. writing is how i think. do you spend more time thinking about what you know or wondering about the things you don’t?

a lot of people are holding back for fear of treading in unknown territory; they want to draw themselves a map first. you might be holding out on starting a blog, writing a book, creating something about the world or for the world. you think you don’t know the world yet. you’re waiting to travel, to hold a degree in your hands, to have read enough books, to be smart enough, to know enough so that you have something to offer. but you can’t know the world unless you know yourself, and that is enough because you are a microcosm of society. to understand yourself is to understand the human experience, and what else is there to know?

you know the full range of human emotion. you know dreams, grief, loss, ambition, questions, love, loneliness, passion, rage—your experiences are endless. write from there. write from your emotions, the gut feeling you tend to ignore, the delusions you’ve kept locked away. this is everything already.

you know everything, and you know nothing. sometimes they are the same: “all i know is that i know nothing” (socrates). ignorance is in our nature, but so is consciousness. all you have to do is pay attention. you don’t need to become someone else or move to another place. notice the world from where you are, notice it as the person you are today. being present in your thinking holds so much value — being authentic makes your perspective unique and original because no one else is standing in your shoes or thinking with your brain.

write from who you are, where you are. everything else will fall into place.

joan didion wrote a well-known essay titled “on keeping a notebook”, a reflection on the use (or perhaps uselessness) of writing things down as you observe them: lines of dialogue and the irrelevant details of any given day. “remember what is was to be me: that is always the point.” (slouching towards bethlehem, p. 89) i think this sentence encapsulates the plight of the writer.

the writer collects moments and weaves them into a story. the writer immortalizes a feeling, an experience, a person. the writer materializes their own existence on paper. put simply, writing is a way of being. and you will never be any other being than you are now. as homer says in the iliad:

thank you so much for reading, until next time ⋆˚꩜｡

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in theory, going analog should help us distance ourselves from the big tech companies and away from our salesy screens into the quiet space of a notebook. it should be a refuge from capitalism, but somehow it easily becomes just another form of consumerism. now everyone wants an aesthetic leather-bound journal, everyone is buying the same sudoku book that an influencer displayed on her coffee table, already the second-hand ipods and digital cameras are selling out and becoming harder to find. how long before companies start capitalizing on this trend with newly produced and overpriced “vintage” ipods and cameras (which, by the way, are not even truly analog)?

one the one hand, opting for an analog lifestyle is 100% worth investing in the physical materials it requires. but on the other hand, i can see how corporations will jump on the opportunity to sell us more things we don’t need. it won’t take much for this analog lifestyle to become an aesthetic that is turned into a commodity that we consume. after all, a leather-bound journal can cost $60 while google docs is free. a record player costs $200+ while spotify costs a tiny fraction of that. i even hear people talk about buying a flip phone (nice idea, but buying a second phone??). analog implies material. materiality directly relates to production and therefore capitalism. the ensuing consumerism causes things to lose their original value and depth, and they will only become more expensive and lower quality (think thrifting). it’s unsurprising that people get upset when their favorite hobbies or items start trending, because it immediately becomes more superficial and loses its originality. it’s almost as if capitalism taints everything we love by its own sick love for money.

but we don’t need to be pessimistic about this sudden urge to go analog. it’s there because it’s something we love, before consumerism ever takes hold of it. we can just do our best to resist the capitalist schemes that will try to sell you an analog life. but the truth is, you can’t buy it—you live it. so how can we embrace analog without feeding into capitalist consumerism?

• look through what you already have.

• use old notebooks and journals. you don’t need an expensive louise carmen or a paper republic notebook to journal and write. i’ve seen a lot of people making their own leather-bound notebook and i love that if you are able to! but of course this comes down to personal preference.

• don’t buy things for the aesthetic or the brand. often they are just subconscious status symbols but we’re so convinced we need this particular thing. ask yourself, do you need this item from this particular brand? usually you can buy something cheaper without sacrificing quality, once you stop caring about the brand name or how it will look in your social media posts.

• thrift and buy things second-hand. there is so much used stuff on the earth that will just end up as trash; i thrift most of my books and clothes but you can also thrift puzzles, craft supplies, etc.

• buy from small sustainable brands instead of big corporations like amazon. also make use of your local bookstores and libraries

• learn to diy

• pick up a low-cost analog hobby: scrapbooking, journaling, writing, art (you don’t need fancy supplies to enjoy it!)

lastly, don’t be afraid to love something just because it’s trending or because you’re afraid to buy into consumerism. be bold if you’re passionate about something, but don’t be blind to the dark side of capitalism.

thank you so much for reading, until next time ⋆˚꩜｡

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knowing how closely language shapes our reality, this statistic terrified me. not only is it obvious that we are losing touch with nature, but the decline of nature-related words also inevitably has a snowball effect on the way we interact with the earth. words have the power to determine what we perceive, how we think about things, and what we pay attention to. so what happens when we lose the words to perceive, understand, and pay attention to nature? will blossoming almond trees and bluebells cease to exist within the human consciousness? the dystopian idea of our kids someday asking us what polar bears were might be closer to reality than it seems. will we have the words to tell them what earth was like when we were kids? do we remember, or has our memory blurred the patterns of seashells and the specific hues of the wild flowers whose names you never knew? has it all faded into the backdrop of our busy lives, neglected by our fleeting attention?

the loss of language is equal to the loss of self-expression, self-awareness, consciousness, and most importantly community. it is how we make sense of the world, formulate original thoughts, and convey those thoughts to others. it allows people reach a mutual understanding and shared connection, and for culture and knowledge to take shape and grow within a society. but what has happened to the mutual understanding and shared connections between people and nature? that relationship is mediated by an unspoken language of community. the decline of nature-related words is not the real cause or effect of our withering relationship with the earth. it is simply one of the harbingers that signals a deeper truth: we’re losing our community with nature, we are losing that unspoken language. the language modern societies like to write off or dismiss as mysticism. it’s not “mystical” or “esoteric” to care about the earth, it’s a vital necessity.

we’ve reached the point where caring about the earth is considered something of the “spiritual” realm, a performative ritual to make one feel better about the state of the world or perhaps to find meaning in the monotony of everyday life. but how much would change if we started to focus on the community that humans and nature are both part of? if the loss of nature-related language has led to the loss of our attention and consciousness being directed towards nature, then i think it is no wonder we also lose the motivation and instrinsic desire to take care of nature. we no longer see nature as our home, but merely as the ground we step on and the resources we extract from it. if we do not develop a deeper emotional relationship with it, humans will have no intrinsic motivation to preserve nature. this explains the lack of action on the climate crisis. sure, everyone says they care, but overconsumption remains rampant and companies are happy to hop on the greenwashing bandwagon because now, ironically, sustainability sells. along with nature-related words, we will lose nature itself as we know it.

as climate change accelerates and nature perishes at our hands, i feel ever more drawn to botanical art, poetry and literature as a way to be in an intimate relationship with nature. to value the earth so much that i expend my time and energy on a seemingly useless and impractical endeavor. i imagine people tend to think the earth would be better off with conservationists than poets. art is unprofitable and inconvenient. but isn’t that love? to labor through the act of creation and bring to life an idea, a worldview, a passion. maybe this is the kind of love that is needed now, a love fierce enough to sustain life.

i have long lamented society’s departure from the art nouveau practices that frame nature as art, using it for inspiration and paying homage to the beauty of the earth that freely gives itself for us. instead we destroy it, our only home, for the love of money. we, the intended stewards of the earth, once served as its voice, expressing beauty and emotion and meaning through the medium of art, a reflection of nature. now the earth is silent. silenced. perhaps, when it is far too late, the earth will regain our voice in a eulogy.

in desperate times, artists and writers are more important than ever. though criminally undervalued by modern society (take for example the fact that artists are systemically impoverished), these roles are brought into the limelight by trouble and hardship. they are often the ones who bring about real change when government policies and political activism have failed. art has the potential to transform a society. it therefore has the power to preserve and sustain the natural earth. even if you are not at the frontlines of climate activism, your art and writing can still make a difference—you can create momentum for positive change. this is why the results of richardson’s study should incite us to bring nature words back into our writing, and to create “nature art” in general. maybe by letting nature inspire and exist in our human expression, we can put nature back at the front of our minds, and become more aware of it as it lives in our “consciousness”. can we put nature back in the center of our lives? perhaps when all else fails, we will realize that in order to care, we needed to restore the connection between humans and the earth. art and language can bridge that chasm. after all, i think that the meaning of true connection can be stripped down to the raw material of words.

books to help you incorporate nature-related words back into your vocabulary:

• braiding sweetgrass by robin wall kimmerer

• watership down by richard adams

• where the crawdads sing by delia owens

• gathering moss by robin wall kimmerer

• prodigal summer by barbara kingsolver

thank you so much for reading, until next time ⋆˚꩜｡

“translation is like a woman: if she is beautiful she is unfaithful, and if she is faithful she cannot be beautiful.” — french proverb

i came across this quote while researching the beauty of translated texts, and found it quite striking. comparing an unfaithful translation to a beautiful woman says more about a society’s understanding of women than about its appreciation for translation. the saying expresses the sublime impossibility of a perfect translation, but also reflects the double standard for women. a little below that surface lies the anxiety of men.

the tone reads insecure; a quasi-witty line patriarchal societies might have used to cover up the feelings of shame around being “cuckolded”. or perhaps it’s about the fear of failing the sisyphean task of transmuting meaning from one language to another, and the inevitable shortcomings and imperfections. thus rejected by women and spurned by foreign texts, the only way to maintain that patriarchal power is to relegate them both. translation becomes feminine, subordinated as secondary to an original ideal. both are labeled ‘unfaithful’ for being beautiful on their own.

reading this quote, i can hear the laughter of the men. the silence of the women. but also the music of translation: through transmutation, a feeling becomes a universal language. the magic of connotations that reach across languages, the carefully constructed scaffolds of syntax that can withstand the earthquake of rewriting, the alchemized sentence whose meaning becomes tenfold within the complex web of language. here gather authors, co-authors, translators and readers, coming together to contribute to the orchestra of a text transcending boundaries.

similarly, women are constantly crossing the lines that men set out for them. thus it happens that women translators are the ultimate paradox that can turn this proverb inside out. theorists such as barbara godard1 have suggested that female translators are deliberately unfaithful to the original text in order to be faithful to their own desires and readings; this decenters men and shifts our focus away from the infidelity of woman to the woman’s bold fidelity to herself. it simultaneously rewrites the narrative of translation’s significance in culture and globalization. instead of relegating translation as a mere copy, we emphasize the value it can add to a text as well as the role it plays in enriching both the text’s origin culture and the places it travels to.

translation is like a woman: if she is beautiful she is unfaithful, and if she is faithful she cannot be beautiful. if translation is like a woman, and the woman is faithful to her own reading as opposed to male interpretations of “woman”, then translation can be faithful to its own beauty, however ambiguous that may become as it moves between languages. the quote places two minorities in the same sentence in an attempt to dominate both, but in effect reveals the shared characteristics of undefined, independent and unobtainable beauty. their meanings are elusive, always evolving. they contain contradictions and defy standards that lack imagination. and each is a metaphor for the other: women are perpetually translating themselves, and translation continues to birth new meanings.

thank you so much for reading, until next time ⋆˚꩜｡

“kiss me hard before you go, summertime sadness” — lana del rey

it’s easy to feel like summer is slipping through your fingers. there is a certain pressure to experience these months as an infinite span of time that must be optimized to achieve its fullest potential, yielding a maximized sense of enjoyment that saturates every day. but i don’t perform well under pressure, and summer is always ending. how can i savor what has not been perfected yet? i’m falling behind, trying to fill up my hollow days with superficial fulfillment. am i chasing a myth?

summer is the trembling fruit, precariously attached to its thin stem, weighing down the entire branch with its ripe fullness. threatening to plummet to the ground, where it splats into a sweet, rotting mess, trampled over and swarming with flies. summer is the wildflower, felled by a single shower of rain. the oppressive heat that smolders on pavement before the storm. the aggression of the wasps and bees, insatiably hangry now that the sweet nectar of the spring blossoms has been depleted.

yes, summer is the violent heat before the weather changes and autumn rain washes it all away. but what if it has been raining softly all summer, on and off in a game of hide-and-seek with sunshine? it plays with the light; gently washing the leaves a viridian green and then transforming their glistening surfaces into sparkling light that dances with the wind in rustling symphony. the deep blue canvas of the summer sky is dotted with clouds, shapeshifting pockets of precipitation. they burst like seed pods, continuously morphing into their next life as they evaporate and recollect themselves into whatever shape will hold them. like clouds, my summer has been fluctuating, wavering, capricious.

— whimsical (whim·​si·​cal)

• resulting from or characterized by whim or caprice

  • especially : lightly fanciful

• subject to erratic behavior or unpredictable change

the word “whimsical” comes from the archaic word “whim-wham”: a trinket or strange fancy. this was shortened to “whim”, which we know to mean a sudden wish or fancy. and this in turn led to the words “whimsy” and “whimsical”. considering the weather has been acting on whims, one could say my summer has been whimsical.

a change in perspective can change everything, even the uncontrollable passing of time. i can pick the hanging fruit and know that the volume of energy that went into growing this fruit was all for me; it was predestined for me all along and nature holds no grudges. i stop to smell the flowers while they are still here, and it’s okay if they wilt on their stems instead of in a vase. they die all the same, decaying and decomposing in the warmth of summer, allowing the soil to become fertile and nourish little seedlings next season.

summer is also the sweltering afternoon that melts into honey when golden hour softens the day into mellow evening. the burst of juice that trickles down your wrist after that first bite of fruit. summer finds you at the right moment, even if you don’t feel collected yet. all it requires of you is presence, which turns the idle passing of time into the experiences that make up your life.

like the moment the rainclouds make way for the expanding radiance of sunlight after a long period of gray skies. the first green leaves of spring sprouting in tiny dots on the branches, only perceptible to the searching eye. the last leaves of autumn clinging to the trees before winter collects them in dying heaps. the first snowflakes. not everything has to be said in the language of trees and clouds. but i find nature to be the best metaphor for the ever-changing world and the impermanence of moments, people, places. because the earth knows how to handle it with grace and somehow finds the strength to remain beautiful and kind even though she is hurling towards her end, resolute in her belief that creating and sustaining life is still worth it.

and sometimes that’s what life feels like — hurling towards the end and trying to make something of it along the way. but when it’s summer, it stops for a moment. and this throws us off, like motion aftereffect, also called the waterfall illusion. you’ve been moving at a fast pace in one direction for a while and when you stop, the world seems to be moving in the opposite direction. the motion detectors in your brain are still firing and the sudden contrast between forward motion and stillness creates a backward sensation. maybe this is why summer feels like emotional motion sickness to me. the stillness sends me back.

still, the rain is reminiscent of spring and autumn, and the mild weather reminds me of my old home where there were no such seasons as summer and winter. it relieves some pressure; even the earth doesn’t live by its own rules sometimes. there are times when the clocks are ticking away to a rhythm that doesn’t match your heartbeat. there are seasons when the crop fails, tides that rise and sink the small boats, nights when the moon does not show even the slightest sliver of her shining face.

and sometimes i rain in summer.

thank you for reading. <3

꩜ spiral into yourself: the way out is in

i believe in signs, symbols, and metaphors. i think there are subconscious motifs that we have ascribed meaning to, and when you notice one it’s because it holds meaning for you in that moment. when your mind is attuned to something, you start to see it everywhere. for me, that motif has been the spiral symbol. it keeps reappearing in my life as if trying to tell me something, and i keep noticing it as if it means something to me. it’s never been particularly significant to me before, but in the past few weeks i’ve noticed it in my everyday vocabulary, the swirl of my coffee, the pictures on my pinterest feed, the trinkets and jewelry i admire, and has even been brought up randomly by content creators i follow. what does it mean?

the spiral is one of the oldest symbols of human spirituality. it represents expansion, growth, rebirth, evolution, the spiritual path, the cyclical nature of life, and connection with the divine. it has been understood in many different ways in different cultures and contexts, but at the heart of it all lies the idea of the process of evolving. our life path is a spiral, a trajectory we follow in order to expand. tracing this course with our actions and choices brings us further and higher.

it’s a scary thought, spiraling further and further away from our center. perhaps that center is our inner child, or maybe our core values. but in truth we don’t leave it behind; we are the spiral in its entirety, a process of becoming fully ourselves. as we expand outwards, our circular movement brings us back to places we have been before. a person, a passion, an experience. we revisit them with a more mature mind as a more experienced version of ourself. maybe there is a lesson you didn’t learn right the first time, and thus a person comes back into your life or you find yourself once again in a situation you thought you had overcome. but here is an opportunity for us to relearn the lesson and move on, taking us a little further than last time. it’s about patterns but also about the breaking of patterns; of returning to the past but also of letting go and moving on.

“life is a wave”, they say. cyclical in its ups and downs, coming and going like tides on the shore. in the same way, seeing our personal evolvement as a spiral allows us to ride the waves of life, embracing difficulties instead of resisting them. each wave that rolls onto the shore in graceful rhythm with the incoming tide advances a little further than the last. imagine a shell, carried by the waves and gradually nudged higher onto the beach, wave by wave, inch by inch. that shell is the lesson. when the tide recedes, it remains on the beach to be buried by a crab in the sand or picked up by a delighted child. but the water is pulled back into the ocean, each wave seemingly weaker than the last. ebb and flow. building up patterns and breaking them down. returning to memories and then letting them go.

the term spiraling, in the context of mental health, is commonly used to refer to the phenomenon of catastrophic thinking. one negative thought builds on the next, escalating and causing a snowball effect that drags you down into anxiety and depression. but if you give the spiral a direction instead of letting gravity drag you down, perhaps this snowball effect can be attuned to positive thoughts, to creativity, to kindness and compassion. with focus, it is possible to spiral upwards.

downwards or negative spiraling is also more of a loop than a spiral. you repeatedly get stuck on negative thoughts, and it becomes a pattern of despair and frustration. a problem with no solution. a whirlpool with an inescapable vortex. the loop is a pattern your ego clings to in order to stay comfortable and stagnant. a better symbol for catastrophic thinking would be the ouroboros: a snake eating its own tail. but the spiral is intuition. a gentle reminder as you pass through paths you have taken before: things can be different this time. it encourages you to make tiny changes for the better, small steps towards a better you. it is alignment, it is purpose, it is the process of becoming.

you can't go back in time and change the past or fix your mistakes. but the spiral of your life takes you back to those situations, giving you the opportunity to implement what you have learned and do things differently this time. and that is how you can rewrite your story: not by rewriting history, but by rewriting yourself and your identity.

for me the spiral symbol is an invitation to reflect on where my life is going and on who i am becoming. the path of life is not linear but it’s also not reversible; i must choose my steps carefully and learn the lessons life gives me. always be learning. i am spiraling both out of myself and into myself, a constant metamorphosis. no matter what state i am in, i am always the butterfly.

in the time it took me to write this essay i came across the spiral symbol five times while scrolling, so either my phone is spying on me or it’s a conclusive confirmation of everything i just wrote about in this post. either way i am happy to return to substack with this particular topic, it feels very aligned. hope you enjoyed <3

꩜ love, laurel

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despite going mostly unnoticed upon its initial publication, the book gained popularity in the late 1900s and is now a widely recognized part of sapphic vampire1 literature. it is easy to see why: the narrator, a generally relatable young female, defies the homophobic society she grew up in and engages in a sexual relationship with a lesbian vampire who is stealthily draining the life from her, in the literal sense. the 18th-century text was revolutionary for its time, predating bram stoker’s dracula by 25 years, and touches on subjects that were strictly taboo. it is also one of the first novels of the time in which men act as passive characters who remain largely in the background, allowing for the story to be voiced by a female. however, these admirable qualities are all tainted, if not completely overthrown, by a male-centered and homophobic perspective.

the novella reinforces dominant discourses of queer attraction and female sexuality, presenting victorian norms as self-evident “truths” to maintain power structures, thereby purporting harmful beliefs about lesbianism through exclusion. foucault’s analysis of social inclusion/exclusion illustrates how society ostracizes and marginalizes people based on the dividing line between sanity and insanity, reason and unreason, etc. madness was considered an illness, as was homosexuality and any other identity that did not conform to victorian norms, a phenomenon that is exemplified in carmilla. vampirism and lesbianism are both portrayed as a “malady” or contagious disease2, reflecting the victorian practice of diagnosing queerness as a mental illness, thereby categorizing it as “insanity” and “unreason” and invalidating its identity in order to exclude it from positions of power in society.

exclusion was practiced through prohibition, which defined the discursive parameters, or the boundaries of what was socially acceptable to say, through censoring and labeling certain subjects as unspeakable and taboo. exclusion also ostracized people by means of division and rejection. authorities in victorian society used binary oppositions to create an “other” to the norms or “truths” they established. this is how they normalized certain beliefs, such as the notion that queerness is an illness, leads to corruption and destruction, and that queer relationships are dangerous and predatory. queerness was considered “other”, a belief that is perpetuated in the novella carmilla. often, authorities turned to institutionalization as a method of enforcing these “truths” and dissipating any deviance from the norm.

other practices of exclusion include surveillance and discipline, a concept that is illustrated in foucault’s panopticon: those in power use the fear of being watched to enforce obedience and social conformity among people. by maintaining power structures in these ways, dominant discourses are able to consolidate power and thus marginalize certain identities to maintain the status quo. they define identities by constructing the “normal” and “deviant”, and control behavior by stigmatizing certain behaviors and enforcing social conformity.

foucault’s theory of power-knowledge argues that power produces knowledge by shaping it according to the intentions of those in power, and power is based on knowledge. this idea permeates carmilla. it pathologizes queer attraction by reinforcing queerness as the “other”, portraying it as inherently unnatural and abnormal. carmilla is strongly vilified and plays the antagonist of the story, and her queer attraction is portrayed as “monstrous” and alien (le fanu, 54).

scholars such as emilee camaletti3 and danyelle ribeiro pimentel4 argue that this novel brought queer attraction and female desire into the public conversation around queerness by pushing the discursive parameters, and therefore facilitating the normalization and acceptance of lesbianism. however, my view is that carmilla perpetuates victorian norms and the dominant discourses of queer attraction, because the novel’s use of vampirism as a metaphor for queer sexuality and desire ultimately leads to sapphic erasure.

carmilla is indeed a powerful female who refuses to conform to societal expectations of women as being passive and subdued (signorotti, 614), but this does not actually empower women or normalize queerness and female sexuality. her character defies victorian norms and challenges traditional thought (signorotti, 611; veeder, 199), but in the end she is destroyed by the men in the story, who restore the power hierarchies and defeat the threat of queer attraction and female desire.

additionally, the narrator laura is the perfect embodiment of victorian values and fulfills societal expectations of what a young woman should be. the story is told through her perspective; she is an instrument of the dominant discourses of queerness and female sexuality. carmilla contains no positive female agency or lesbianism.

the novella portrays female sexuality and power through the male gaze, victimizing and objectifying women in order to reinforce the superiority of men and repress or project their own unacceptable desires. while signorotti argues in her essay “repossessing the body: transgressive desire in carmilla and dracula” that carmilla is a symbol of women taking back their power and refusing to suppress their sexual desire (615), the novel is inherently centered around male desire and upholding traditional power structures. building on claude levi-strauss’ theory of women as objects of exchange, signorotti says that "le fanu allows laura and carmilla to usurp male authority and to bestow themselves on whom they please, completely excluding male participation in the exchange of women" (608)​. however, this still objectifies women, and signorotti’s argument ignores the fact that both female characters are victimized in this process of exchange. while carmilla is a powerful female, she is still portrayed as being victim to her own nature, just as laura is the victim of carmilla’s vampirism.

additionally, carmilla is an unconventionally female social predator, but is still characterized by typical male attributes such as aggression and power. this undermines the argument that she is a symbol of female empowerment because she is almost made to be “male” in a female body. laura is a passive victim who is subjected to the authority and power of a stereotypically male character.

bringing back foucault’s power dynamics: carmilla’s identity as a social predator gives her “superiority” and places her in a position of power over laura, but in the end she is defeated by men. whatever power is granted to a female in this novel is ultimately dispelled and restored to men. in response to the argument that sees women as signs in a power dynamic, signorotti claims that in carmilla, the women exchange themselves and thereby claim power and status for themselves, usurping male authority and challenging patriarchal systems (608). yet, these transactions within the power dynamic still serve men and utilize women as objects in the social hierarchies, and most importantly are always taken down in the end. female empowerment is temporary, if present at all.

during the publication process, the prologue was added: a note written by laura’s doctor regarding the events narrated in carmilla. by doing this, le fanu framed this “feminist” story through the male lens of a medical authority. this demonstrates how the novel allows male authority to shut down any form of female agency the story could have represented.

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additionally, i would argue that this novella is voyeuristic in how the sexual interactions are written for the male gaze. carmilla embodies the socially unacceptable desires and sexuality of men in the victorian era. the concepts of repression (freud, 147) and projection (freud, 30) explain how carmilla’s character represents male desire as well as the perceived threat of queerness and female sexuality in victorian society.

in “repression”, freud says that repression “acts as a defense mechanism by excluding from consciousness desires and ideas that are in conflict with the individual's or society's moral standards." (148) in order to avoid confrontation, victorian society relegated queerness and female sexuality to the unconscious or to voyeuristic literature, such as carmilla. novels like these would depict sexual/queer desire as monstrous or transgressive, illustrating how moral boundaries shaped queer and sexual discourse. social anxieties about sexuality were projected onto marginalized groups in victorian literature, as freud’s theories of projection in “the ego and the id” corroborrate. “femme fatale”5 characters such as carmilla were portrayed as dangerous and deviant, embodying victorian society’s projections of queerness and sexuality.

furthermore, carmilla demonizes the female body through its grotesque descriptions of carmilla’s body in moments when she desires or sexually interacts with laura. she is portrayed as an evil “monster”, once menacingly described as “a large black object, swelling to a great, palpitating mass”6. by turning carmilla into a dangerous supernatural entity, victorian “authorities” repressed and projected their own unacceptable desires and transgressive ideas. gothic literature is widely known for the utilization of paranormal elements to reject or express certain societal fears and anxieties.

in his essay “the uncanny”, freud argues that “the 'uncanny' is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar." (123) this further emphasizes how sapphic vampirism in carmilla was a way of rejecting inner desires by projecting them externally. repressed desire can emerge in unsettling ways, in this case leading to the supernatural gothic novel.

carmilla also glamorizes violence in queer sexuality and sapphic vampirism, portraying queer desire as predatory and centralizing male desire. carmilla’s aggression and lust is described as a fervent, passionate love, even though there is no genuine love involved (le fanu, 108). the vampiric relationship is symbolic of the sexual relationship, which implies the queer relationship is parasitic. it may appear mutual at first but it is ultimately a predator/prey relationship, suggesting that queer people exploit others to satisy their own desire. again, this is a manifestation of male desire and sexuality which has been projected onto carmilla.

the male gaze is prevalent in carmilla’s sexualization of youth and innocence. in the first chapter, carmilla molests laura as a child. she subverts victorian expectations that women should be maternal, but her queer desire is also demonized and violent. male desire continues to be centralized, as carmilla embodies unacceptable male desires through this eroticized scene. her victims are constantly portrayed as innocent, young girls rather than the adult women they are, taking away from the “female empowerment” aspect that many scholars praise this novel for.

carmilla is an ambiguous cultural object, full of nuance and questions that are still being asked today. it played an important role in society by opening up conversations to taboo topics and facilitating the discourse of queerness and female sexuality, ultimately pushing the discursive parameters beyond the fields of medicine and religion. however, the novel is permeated with victorian societal fears, and uses vampirism to pathologize and reject queer deviance and female desire. having said that, carmilla’s limitations were heavily influenced by the social context of the victorian era and the pre-existing landscape of gothic literature. as i previously discussed, the discourses of queerness and sapphic vampirism were contained within certain parameters determined by those in power. yet this novel transcended those boundaries by exploring sexuality through a complex and nuanced form of symbolism, which would influence queer literature for centuries to come. its relevance today is unequivocal, but whether it should be interpreted through a queer and feminist lens or through the homophobic lens through which it was written is still up for debate.

works cited

foucault, michel. the history of sexuality.

foucault, michel. the archaeology of knowledge.

freud, sigmund. repression.

freud, sigmund. the ego and the id.

signorotti, elizabeth. “repossessing the body: transgressive desire in carmilla and dracula.”

veeder, william. “carmilla: the arts of repression.”

“january, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer’s forehead.” — colette

what i read in january

carmilla by sheridan le fanu (2x)

i reread carmilla twice this month because i chose to write my final essay about it. i first read this book in december and absolutely loved it, then decided to challenge myself and write an essay about the harmful beliefs carmilla purports about queerness and female desire. i find that my best essays are the ones full of (implicit or explicit) nuance. when i love something yet still manage to write 2300 words tearing it apart, my argument gains a kind of complexity i would otherwise never attain. i’m working on revising this essay to be slightly less formally academic so i can post it on substack soon :)

letters to a young poet by rainer maria rilke

this month i read the following three books simultaneously but finished none... with letters to a young poet, i’ve been reading one letter/chapter at a time in order to give my brain space to reflect on each one. they have been so insightful and contain so many original ideas — definitely something i needed to read, as the topic of creativity has been on my mind. i only have a few letters left but i think i may need to go back and take notes!

white nights by fyodor dostoyevsky

i’m rereading this because it’s winter and white nights is unequivocally a winter read. however, it’s been less than a year since i first read it, and i think i may have picked it up again a little too soon. i keep putting it down after a few pages, even though i devoured it in one or two days the first time.

hour of the star by clarice lispector

hour of the star is my first clarice lispector read and i have very high expectations. i’m not very far in yet but so far her writing feels so raw and original — i keep flipping the page in curiosity and strange wonder. i hope she does not disappoint.

what i wrote

• very lengthy very dense essay about carmilla, mentioned above

• a few pages of progress in my short story about a girl/bug

• a small amount of progress in my novel (+ spent a few long hours reading my wip from the start to where i left off - cried)

• 2 substacks

january at a glimpse

• crocheting a navy blue & white striped sweater for spring

• hot chocolate mix

• dopamine hits from new years goal-setting

• reading too much foucault and spiraling

• buying myself flowers

• playing chess, crashing out

• frost, snow, fog

• spending time with family

• new piercings

• expanding my horizons

• gloves, hand creams

• waking up to my sunrise alarm clock

• dark chocolate

february book recs

• frankenstein by mary shelley

• just kids by patti smith

• eileen by ottessa moshfegh

• notes from underground by fyodor dostoyevsky

• babel by r. f. kuang

• war and peace by leo tolstoy

• if we were villains by m. l. rio

• crime and punishment by fyodor dostoyevsky

• the goldfinch by donna tartt

• dracula by bram stoker

poets to read

• sylvia plath

• robert frost

• christina rossetti

• edgar allan poe

• mary oliver

poems to read

• a christmas carol by christina rossetti

• oranges by gary soto

• stopping by woods on a snowy evening by robert frost

• sonnet 97 by william shakespeare

• february by margaret atwood

• february evening in new york by denise levertov

my february reading list

• finish the books i’m currently reading (mentioned above)

• the four agreements by don miguel ruiz

• murder on the orient express by agatha christie

• circe by madeline miller (reread)

• daughter of the pirate king by tricia levenseller

• the book of disquiet by fernando pessoa

february vibe check

the first flower buds, crafts, writing yourself love letters, reading for fun, cold sun, steam rising from hot drinks, meditation, lace and ribbons, lunar phases, living in the moment, fresh starts, candy

note: this post contains affiliate links to bookshop.org, an organization that supports indie bookstores in the US. purchasing through one of my links supports both me and a local bookstore of your choice, at no additional cost to you!

the web is oversaturated with posts titled something along the lines of “how to be a certain way”, “how to do this or that”, “things you need to buy”, “this is what you are doing wrong and this is what you should be doing instead”, etc. stop talking to me. talk to yourself. don’t “give” me anything but your thoughts, raw and unfiltered. those things you can only bring into existence by giving them to yourself. allowing your words to tumble out in a jumbled mess. like this. no one asked for them, and no one is waiting for them. but how often have you stumbled across a random 20-something-year-old girl’s words and thought they were wondrous? did you not peruse her entire online existence, drinking in her aura and being momentarily infatuated with a stranger’s persona? looking at the letters of her name and picturing your own in its place; realizing how off and unfitting it would sound. getting high on the blue light from your screen. scrolling hours away in a space full of mystique and genius expression that almost succeeds in inspiring you to get up and make something of yourself like this person has, only to fall back into the black pit of reality the moment you switch your phone off.

i need help, you think. you type “how to be” into the google search bar, and just as you’re trying to put your aspirations and dreams into words, google assures you it already knows what you’re looking for. the cascading list of suggestions appears before you.

how to be pretty. how to be rich. how to be smarter. how to be more confident. how to be feminine. how to be a man. how to become a millionaire. how to be that girl. how to be yourself.

and yet, nothing you click on resonates. nothing resonates the way that one girl’s brain vomit resonated. something she probably wrote in her notes app, tipsy and heartbroken in her kitchen. talking to herself in the dark, knowing the internet had no reason to read her words; the algorithm would cast her aside as another wannabe “sylvia plath meets joan didion”, another confused and depressed girl searching for some form of comfort. but still you found beauty in it, in her, and you felt her soul through the phone. her words carried you with her, but you were invisible. you were with her in that yawning darkness and turbulent open sea that swallowed her up, yet still she felt isolated and contemplated giving up. the distance between you and her is so miniscule and yet so great.

readers, viewers, and consumers have the world at their fingertips. everything noteworthy is just a click away; whatever is not, is irrelevant. creators, on the other hand, must feel the vast expanse between them and their audience. the gaping rift that can only be bridged by something great, something brilliant that will lure the audience in, pique their interest and appeal to them enough to click on a creator’s content and bring their finger to the like button. it takes extraordinary genius to be considered worthy of three minutes of a chronically online person’s time. “but that is simply how capitalism works. competition, inequality and self-interest - all part of it.” well, yes, when it’s a product we’re talking about. but it is ourselves we are putting on the market. identity, soul, essence, the self. are these now products?

the commodification of our self expression forces us to stay inside the lines, to be neatly packaged inside a box that can easily be shipped by large corporations to earn them money. all the while making ourselves small and average. and what do we get out of it? fleeting validation in the form of little red hearts and one-word comments. or at least, that’s all a creator sees on their side of the screen.

when i feel low and want to give up on trying anything, i try to remember that one girl whose essay from three weeks ago i am still thinking about, or that one micro-influencer who inspires me but doesn’t know it, or that one substack i binge read over breakfast. i imagine broke artists selling their work on the streets in a final attempt to make something of themselves — and i imagine someone buying their painting, falling in love with it, and framing it to hang on their wall for the next fifty years. i think of vermeer, emily dickinson, van gogh, franz kafka. all of whom died before they saw success, who died thinking their art and writing had never impacted the world. i picture anne frank, writing her heart out in a dusty attic, oblivious to the way the words from her young mind would later work their way into the hearts of millions. i remind myself: you never know.

you never know what your words will say to others. what pictures your art paints in the minds of others, how your photos can open someone’s eyes. there is always a butterfly effect going on: a flap of one butterfly’s wings creates a miniscule disturbance in the air that escalates to a hurricane only weeks later. tiny, seemingly inconsequential actions in one place can create radical change somewhere else. yet the butterfly isn’t aware of the role it played in any of it.

so do people leave little traces that turn into blessings and scars; they heal, stain, and grow. we plant seeds that bloom and punches that bruise. somewhere, an ocean away or perhaps not that far away at all, we are making an impact. nothing is ever nothing.

so i write. so i give you my thoughts, even though i am talking more to myself that to anyone else, and i put it out there. so i do everything my intuition has ever told me to do, and follow up on every impulse from the heart. so i banish the fear of leaving parts of me out there in the big unfeeling world, for others to see and judge. so i try.

and so should you. it matters.

love, laurel

we are three days into 2025 already; how has the start of the new year been for you? if you are feeling behind, especially if you’re comparing yourself to those who started planning their 2025 all the way back in november, you aren’t the only one. the good news is, it’s not too late to dive into all the new year’s rituals and planning! remember, january 1st is just another day. you can choose to start afresh any day you like, whether that is halfway through january or in september. your resolutions and goals will not lose their value or effectiveness, i promise :) that being said, here is a post all about how to make the most of the new year’s days, helping you plan for 2025 and achieve all your goals. let’s get into it!

organizing your goals and tracking your progress

regardless of what your planning style is, i think it’s necessary to be at least a little bit organized. the best way to do this is to organize your goals by different areas of your life: personal development and mind, career/school, health and fitness, spirituality, relationships/social, finance, and fun/hobbies. you can adjust or add on to these categories according to what your life looks like, but this will help you gain an organized overview. not all categories will receive an equal amount of focus, and that’s fine. but personally, i try to grow at least a little bit in every category and set goals accordingly. towards the end of this post i will include a list of ideas for 2025 goals, habits, hobbies and resolutions so you can get inspired to create new routines that serve you and your purposes.

once you’ve set goals for each area in your life, you’re gonna want to find a method to track your progress. again, this will vary depending on how organized you like to be. however, tracking your progress has many benefits: it helps you stay motivated and consistent, keeps you accountable, and allows you to see your improvement over time. it also helps when you set smart (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, because you will be able to easily track that progress and have a clear vision of how and when you’re going to achieve your goal. here are a few apps, websites, and methods to track your progress:

• notion: this is a website and app that is great for staying highly organized while customizing it to fit your needs and wants. it takes some time and patience to figure out the system, but once you get used to it notion is an amazing tool to get organized with pretty much anything. you can make your own templates, or search for already existing templates that you can use.

• habit/selfcare apps: finch, habit rabbit, habitica, habitnow, etc. there are dozens of these and all you need to do is search “habit tracker” on the app store. i personally struggled to find an app that works for me, but maybe this is the thing for you. having an app is great if you need constant reminders and would prefer an easy method to log your progress and habits on your phone. you can also use an app specifically to track your daily water intake, which should be on your habits list ;)

• document or notes app: you can easily track your progress in a doc or in your notes app. this allows for flexibility as you can set it up however you want! you can create weekly/monthly goals, document your wins, break your goals down into smaller increments that you check off as you achieve them, etc. for example, i like to do a monthly “roadmap” of habits and goals that i want to focus on for each month. this helps me not get overwhelmed feeling like i have to achieve everything at once, but rather spreading it out and making it feel much more achievable. experiment and see what works for you!

• calendar/planner: managing your time efficiently is so important for achieving your goals. consider using google calendar, a physical planner, or something else to manage your time. i use google calendar but for a long time i used the app structured, which is very similar but it’s just nicer (now i’m considering switching back…). planning your day/week will help you time block and make space for the goals you want to achieve in 2025, rather than just living your life in exactly the same way as you did in 2024. different results requires different routines and systems.

speaking of systems…

set systems, not goals (why your goals don’t bring you happiness)

the phrase “set systems, not goals” comes from james clear’s book atomic habits (a great read i highly recommend). that is not to say you should not set goals! let me rephrase it: set systems, not only goals. the point of this is that you are able to stay consistent and implement sustainable routines that will not burn you out. setting a goal is easy. anyone can say: “i want to get my dream body this year.” but how many of those people will actually put in the work of going to the gym every day? how many of those people will actually opt for the healthier food despite their cravings? there is a reason so many people fail at their new year’s resolutions by february. they get the dopamine hit from setting a desirable goal, but they have no system set in place to actually achieve that goal. according to james clear, “goals are good for a direction, but systems are best for making progress.”

setting goals makes you feel good in the moment. but the sweat and tears you endure throughout the journey is what makes it all worth it in the end. so many of us attach our happiness to a specific goal, thinking that “one day, when i get my dream apartment or my dream body, then i will be happy.” but we always want more. when we get the apartment, we’re already looking to the next goal, the next dream that will bring our happiness. why do we place our happiness in the future, when in reality happiness only exists in the present?

when you focus on the journey to the goal rather than the goal itself, it allows you to appreciate everything around you. it allows you to find joy in the progress you are making, in the seemingly mundane moments of your life. and there are so many of those! imagine all the happiness and joy you could’ve been missing out on if you had attached your happiness to an achievement, to a standard you’ve set for yourself that you will never reach.

ideas for 2025 goals, habits, hobbies, and resolutions

this list is to inspire you and get you started on brainstorming what you would like 2025 to look like for you. push yourself to be better, but don’t set unattainable expectations for yourself either. try to create a healthy balance and incorporate a bit of everything. some of these you may have achieved already (congrats) or do not wish to achieve, which is cool too :)

goals

• start a business

• get a job

• get a tattoo

• learn a new language

• learn/start investing

• run a marathon

• save X amount of money

• learn a new skill (coding, graphic design, editing, self defense…)

• make new friends

• pick up a new sport

• pick up a new hobby (see list below)

• get all A’s in school/uni

• read X amount of books

• fix your posture

• get your driver’s license

• learn how to cook or learn new recipes

• eat healthier (research and implement!)

• lose/gain weight

habits

• drink [2 — 2.5L] water a day

• weekly solo dates

• sleep 7-9 hours

• exercise 3-4x a week

• 10k steps every day

• wake up early (set a specific time)

• stay organized with a planner/to-do list

• pray/meditate every day

• journal every day

• reduce screen time (set a specific timer)

• practice gratitude

• weekly time in nature

• take supplements

• treat yourself (buy yourself flowers/gifts, etc)

• stretch after you wake up

• meal prep

• declutter your space

• compliment others

hobbies

• crocheting/knitting

• chess

• learn how to play an instrument (guitar, piano, violin…)

• pottery

• painting/drawing

• learn a language (french, italian, japanese…)

• sport (football, running, volleyball…)

• singing

• vlogging/editing

• photography

• writing

• reading

• gardening

• hosting dinner parties/brunches

• yoga

• hiking

• baking

• surfing/swimming

• wood whittling

• horseback-riding

• astronomy

• music production

resolutions

• cultivate a positive mindset of gratitude and abundance

• be present in the moment

• do things that scare you

• positive self talk (and reducing negative self talk)

• be more mindful about consumption (food and media)

• become more confident and self-validating

• make time for your passions and hobbies

• have a balanced lifestyle (work-life balance, etc)

• be more open to meeting new people and talking to strangers

• live with more intention

that’s all i’ve got for you today! i hope 2025 will be a year of rest and relaxation (iykyk) as well as a year of incredible achievements and personal development. i wish you all the best.

love, laurel

i was born with a dream to become an author. i have no memory of making this choice or coming to any conclusions; this dream has been my compass for as long as i can remember. i can say nothing more about it other than it simply feels right. and feeling, intuition — these are things creatives thrive on. we need that connection and alignment between our body, mind and heart to be creative. it allows for true self expression, which in turn creates the little touch of innovation i refer to as the creative spark. tiny in the moment, yet crucial in the long run. so difficult to acquire, yet so easily lost or overlooked. unfortunately, i speak from experience.

before i knew it, the world started catching up to me. suddenly i was 14 and no longer made my own jewelry, stopped digging in the ground for clay to make little figurines out of. i stopped seeing everything as an opportunity to create something beautiful. i left all my crochet supplies in the house we had to evacuate during covid, and realized at 16 that i had not crocheted in years, that i had abandoned my once-favorite hobby without thinking twice about it. i was unbearably “stuck” in my writing journey, and struggled to even crank out half a novel over the next two years. i had a few passion projects along the way, sure, but by the time i graduated high school, my creativity had been reduced to an occasional drawing, some substandard poetry in my notes app, and informally playing two instruments.

i blamed it on school and the chaos of moving countries several times in a few years. true, those things took up a lot of my time and mental headspace, but creativity doesn’t stop for them. i know now that there were other factors at work in diminishing my creative energy. to sum it up: social media, perfectionism, and a fear of being perceived/judged led me to experience creative burnout. this phenomenon can be defined as a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion around creative work. in case you are lucky enough to have never experienced it, you can only imagine the pressure of suddenly feeling nothing but overwhelmed, stressed, or bored by the creative activities that used to bring so much joy and passion into your life. the core of my very identity was at stake, and i didn’t know who to be if i couldn’t be creative.

i have been speaking about this using past tense as if it’s something i have shed like a snakeskin along the way, but the reality is that i’m still severely struggling with being creative. social media still causes me to compare myself to others who seem to be doing it much better, to take away from my authenticity and instead adapt to what i think others will accept. the commodification of creativity has now been ingrained into my brain, reducing its capacity for original thought. i’ve lost the spark.

as i reflected on my 2024, it struck me again that my dreams are gathering dust while i stand by and watch despairingly, doing nothing to change it. and it hit me; i need to do things differently. creativity isn’t something you wait for; it’s something you must create room for. to get the spark back, i need to fan the embers and provide kindling to sustain it. building a fire requires attention and focus, and as they say: where attention goes, energy flows. whatever you focus on, grows.

that is one reason i am now starting this substack newsletter. i need something tangible to focus on, something i can pour my energy into, something i can grow. it’s a space for my creativity to flourish, unhindered. writing helps me live my life with more purpose and intention — writing about my thoughts and experiences is my most authentic form of self expression and i look at the world differently when i hold a pen in my hand. that is not to say i don’t face obstacles in writing this publication. for instance, i still have a fear of being perceived or judged, more specifically a fear of “being read”. moreover, i hate to be vulnerable. writing an introduction post that is this personal is terrifying to me. these are by no means unique challenges, but for years they have held me back and stopped me from doing the things i know the happiest version of me would do. it’s a choice between the discomfort of “living small” and missing out because you don’t want to be seen, or the discomfort of putting yourself out there whilst doing the things that make you happy. so, in a way, the decision to start this newsletter is a small step towards the latter.

the intention for “inner alchemy” is to inspire you to be the architect of change in your own life. i love the idea of an “alchemy of the self”, or a process of transformation that starts from the inside out. alchemy can be understood in a variety of contexts, but the meaning i attribute to the word is one derived from the philosophical approach. it takes the medieval practice of alchemy, or the attempt to transmute base metals into noble metals such as gold, and sees it as a metaphor for the physical or spiritual universe. “inner alchemy” can therefore refer to a personal process of refining and transforming one’s inner self, drawing on concepts of self-discovery, introspection, creative expression, and healing. i see it as a poetic way to describe a journey of self-improvement and inner growth.

i hope you will join me on this journey! “inner alchemy” is still very much in the developmental stage but i would love it if you stick around and read my little rambles <3 also consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to support me and my work.

love, laurel