When I was writing my first short story collection, I bought an enormous red candle. The thing had three wicks and was thick as a tree trunk.
I burned that sucker for eight months straight. The odour of cranberry and hot wax filled the room such that my husband would hold his nose when he walked in. When I got stuck on a scene, I would play with the candle: shaving down the sides and feeding tiny morsels of wax into the melted pools at the centre.
The smell of that candle said WRITING. The moment the scent wafted towards me, my brain seemed to shift to a creative wavelength. A Pavlovian response.
For one reason and another, I have stopped lighting candles as a writing ritual:
- They don’t travel well. You can’t light candles in coffee shops or libraries.
- I have little kids in the house who should not be playing with matches.
- I’ve gotten tired of fake floral/fruity scents.
- Sometimes I forget to snuff my candle when I leave the room. We have a cat. Enough said.
Last week I read this section from Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s book What We Ache For: Creativity and the Unfolding of Your Soul:
When I crawl out of bed in the morning, I get a cup of hot water and lemon and go to my altar. I light a candle and burn some dried herbs in an abalone shell, moving the smoke over and around my body. One of the things we know about rituals is that they carve a pathway into a particular state of mind and body. If they are meaningful to those who do them, ritual actions can create a sacred container, a space that is set apart from the everyday chores and logistical concerns that sometimes threaten to consume us.
We are sexual — physical, sensual — beings whose state of mind and heart is often triggered by what our senses perceive. One of the strongest triggers for the human mind that will conjure remembered times and states of consciousness is scent. Ceremonial smudge is a mixture of dried herbs — cedar, sage, sweetgrass, and lavender — used by many traditional tribal peoples to both cleanse themselves and their ceremonial space and to signal to unseen forces that they are about to send out a voice, to open themselves to being conscious of what is within and around them. I have used this way of beginning ceremonial time for almost twenty years, so the scent of the smoke that rises and curls around me as I burn the herbs is a powerful indicator to my conscious and unconscious mind that I am crossing a threshold, leaving smaller concerns aside for the moment to focus on what matters. It is also a signal to those living with me that I am temporarily unavailable, that I am engaged in writing or prayer or other inner work. You could use any fragrance that has meaning to you with a scented candle or aromatic oil as a way of reinforcing your movement into a time of creative practice. I know one author who sharpens five or six pencils just before he begins to write each day, confessing that it is the scent of freshly shaved wood and lead that signals to him that the writing is about to begin.
And I thought, well, shoot, Oriah, you have a point about scent being a “powerful indicator” to my consciousness and all, but I am NOT going to be doing an herbal smudge in the food court of the office building where I write in the mornings. Nor am I sharpening pencils that I won’t use. I’ve already written off candles and I am not a perfume kind of girl.
If you read the headline of my post, then you already know where this is going. As I was stamping my foot and giving reasons why I could not manage this kind of scent ritual for writing, Ginger Altoids popped into my head.
Certain of my Dutch readers will be familiar with the conditioned response evoked by the rustling as dozens of worshipers pop King Peppermints into their mouths just before the Sunday sermon begins.
I’m not keen on peppermints but Ginger Altoids, now . . . I’d never tried them but I love ginger and Altoids are cool, n’est pas? The other night I walked to Sugar Mountain and brought myself home a package. Sturdy metal case, fancy parchment wrapping, and that Curiously Strong® flavour. Perfection.
So now I have a bona fide, travel-friendly, Oriah-approved writing ritual. Only three calories a pop. I think I’ll have one right now.
So tell me, do you use a smell or taste to get you in the writing mood?
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