Embodied writing simply means that your body gets to join in.

Just as you use your hands to knead the dough for an apple pie and your nose to check whether it’s ready, embodied writing uses your senses, rather than asking your brain to do all the work.

What you hear, feel, see, taste and smell becomes your starting point.

The writing invitations will take you to places where you smell cinnamon, feel acorns crunch beneath your shoes, and reflect —through your senses as much as your thoughts— on themes such as harvest, balance and letting go.

Our brains are wonderful things. Very useful for practical solutions and wild flights of imagination. But thoughts can also run away with us.

Suddenly we’re an autumn leaf being tossed around by every little gust of wind. Or being peed on by every passing dog.

Not our most dignified metaphor, perhaps.
But you get the idea.

The writing exercises in Dear Season help you put down roots and stand a little more firmly. They’re a bit like an autumn storm and a warm bath rolled into one.

Sometimes they’ll put the wind at your back. Sometimes you’ll have to pedal a little harder. And at the same time, they offer that wonderful feeling of coming home.

Embodied writing is as old as writing itself.

Marloes discovered it through the books of Natalie Goldberg, retreats with Dutch writer Geertje Couwenbergh in an old monastery, and workshops with Madelyn Kent in Berlin. And perhaps most of all by filling dozens and dozens of ordinary ring-bound notebooks with words. Living and working with the rhythm of the seasons gives her both structure and inspiration.

Marenthe has been writing ever since she could hold a pen. She has her own column in Happinez magazine and is currently writing her first book. Best-selling author Christine Pannebakker mentored her during the writing process.