The Nature of a Nature Witch
It was the year 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown, that I started writing Mirabella Mindful Witch. It was a lonely time, a time of reflection, and what I’ve come to view as a time of restoration. Something was lost, and something was found. Perhaps I’m not alone in this? It was as though the whole world sat in silent meditation, and in that empty space images of who we were meant to be surfaced. Whether it was the return of wild animals to a city park, or a lost dream dusted off for another attempt. Something was lost, and something was retrieved.
Spurred on by a family tragedy of great loss, I tried to fill a gaping wound with something that could not be removed by exterior forces. At first my writing reflected this time of loss, but I quickly discovered that this was an opportunity for reflection on the kind of world I’d like to live in. This was an opportunity for growth.
I understood that it is our thoughts that we see reflected in the world around us. That the way we think shapes our immediate environment. It shapes, first and foremost, our emotional landscape, and this place of feelings can shape the physiological world around us. I did not want to write about more tragedy, fear, destruction, and loss. Instead, I decided to write with the intent of restoration, about the antidote to it all. I decided to write about kindness.
It was the year 2020, and an eight-year-old nature witch called Mirabella was born from a busy mind. At first, she was merely an image of a little witch, an idea floating around in the ether, a painting for therapeutic purposes, but then she came to life.
If the book was a recipe for a magic concoction, the ingredients would read as follows:
One personal tragedy
A magnificently extended time devoid of distraction
A dash of the essence of lonely
An empty space in which to pour new life and purpose
An over-active imagination
A need to heal
A long-lost dream
Words and acrylic paint
Real-life experience at a government school
A reasonably reliable laptop
The instructions were guided by that need to heal and what I had encountered as an education assistant. After all, I had all the time and space to create during the pandemic lockdown, and reflection led to making the choice to create from a mindful perspective. I asked myself what kind of world I’d like to see instead of the broken one I witnessed closing down temporarily.
But first I should backtrack to the person I wrote for to begin with. During the lockdown period of 2020, I had the honour of supporting a student on the autism spectrum through Zoom. This particularly wonderful student had exceptionalities, but none of these were a deficit from my perspective. In fact, I have come to view ASD and other so-called disabilities as superpowers, abilities that should be nurtured and celebrated. This student’s imagination was one of her many gifts. I sensed that in her case, fantasy stories would be the best vehicle of instruction. I started writing stories about Smurfette because the student had a particular fondness for the Smurfs. I created comprehension questions with vocabulary and spelling patterns imbedded in the writing. I soon realized that I was looking forward to writing stories for this student and finding pictures to cut and paste into the story on my share screen on Zoom. I was looking forward to work. That is when hit me: I love writing, and I love writing for the very people I work with--children.
Moreover, I wanted to be a voice for children who are often misunderstood. I had been a child who was often labelled as different or weird. I had trouble focussing in school; I still have excessive amounts of energy and I struggle with emotional regulation. I am supersensitive. Yes, super, which I have come to accept as super awesome. I read the smallest sign of nonverbal communication because of that extra sensitivity. I used to think of it as a deficit, but today it helps me in my work with nonverbal students. My excessive amounts of energy enable me to write without end. My thoughts feel boundless, and they come in speedy succession. What felt like a curse in math class when I was a child, is exactly what empowers me today. And those terribly distracting thoughts were, in fact, the foundation of stories spinning through my head. I can relate to Mirabella, my protagonist, and I hope to create understanding and, eventually, empathy.
My experience as an education assistant working with children with exceptionalities guided the scenes and feelings my characters grapple with. The realization that severe anxiety impacts children as early as kindergarten led to a desire for a solution. I thought, what better way to communicate strategies to combat anxiety than a story about children for children?
Since time immemorial children, young and old, have communicated messages through the vehicle of narrative. The mere telling of a tale entertains, but when it changes how we think, because a collective emotional experience resonates in a story, we grow. We heal, we shift the paradigm to a new way of being. And healing was what I was after in the fragmented world of 2020. This time of solitude brought to light everything that needed healing within myself and the world around me. I had no choice but to look within.
I had a ravenous appetite for spiritual wisdom and consumed self-help books for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I had time. During this period, I returned to a spiritual path and made a conscious effort to make meditation, prayer, and yoga part of my life.
I’ve had a love affair with everything mystical for as long as I can remember, but I never really committed to anything. It was during the lockdown days that I read in one of my many books on meditation about the importance of labelling our feelings. In other words, developing an awareness of what we are feeling, and where and when we feel it. I tried to apply this knowledge to myself and, in turn, to my protagonist, Mirabella. You see, Mirabella is a nature witch, and her thoughts and feelings hold the power to change the weather, or the physical environment around her. Her anger brings about thunder, her sadness creates floods, and her excitement causes a blizzard. In some way, we are all like Mirabella because our thoughts and feelings have a direct impact on our environment. Thus awareness of our feelings and thoughts is the first step to becoming more conscious or mindful. How we approach our circumstances can shape the way the world responds to us. Every reaction begets another. So we shape the world, one thought, one moment of resisting to react, at a time. In my attempt to combat my own feelings and find mindful ways to cope with fear, anger, and sadness, I hoped to create a tool for others through my book. But “tool” sounds boring, and Mirabella is full of fantasy, silliness, and colour. A big spoonful of sugar, just like that of Mary Poppins, to make the medicine go down.
We talk to children about being kind, we even have an entire day dedicated to it. Social emotional learning is considered a core competency for the school curriculum. We explicitly teach values that are universally applicable because the world so desperately needs it. In an inclusive society, there is no room for teaching one particular religious ideology in schools. But most religious ideologies teach the same basic principles of compassion. If we could apply these values, insert them into stories, teach the way we always have, then perhaps kindness will no longer be an abstract idea in the minds of children, but something they recognize and are able to apply practically. It’s one thing to say “be kind,” but what does kindness look like in action? This is where the great art of storytelling becomes the best vehicle for the communication of deeper messages.
Narrative that teaches the universal values of equity, kindness, and inclusion is no longer an option. It is essential. And that is what I aimed to create: a reflective tool, a story that teaches kindness, an opportunity to grow.
The first four chapters are divided into the essence of the feelings or state of mind of the four zones of regulation that we often teach children at school to help them understand their feelings. Successive chapters deal with feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety, and finally the balanced state of alert calm.
The story is fantastical but grounded in real-life situations. It culminates in a magic duel, complete with fire-breathing dragons, and an opportunity to test out the skills that my protagonist, Mirabella, has acquired along her journey of awareness. But the magic duel rages against the backdrop of an ordinary elementary school so that the reader can relate, despite the story’s fantastical nature.
My protagonist makes mistakes, and lots of them. She becomes a little more mindful as she becomes better acquainted with her feelings. She uses “magic breathing” as a tool to combat intense emotions and, most importantly, she learns what kindness looks and feels like in action. Mirabella’s experiences mirror my own attempts at becoming more mindful: as she learns to conquer her impulsivity and reactions to feelings, I have been making changes to the way I approach my own thoughts and feelings. If you cannot change your circumstances, you can change the way you respond.
I began to think of mindfulness as an essential tool in social emotional learning, and since I happen to be a yoga and meditation enthusiast, Mirabella Mindful Witch was a natural story for me to write.
Did I mention I’ve been obsessed with witches and all things fantastical since childhood? I have, and I still am.
I believe an artist is just a child who refuses to stop playing. I played my stories as a child, and today I write them down. Either way, I cannot, will not, stop playing.
Stella Corbett