Welcoming March | Lunar New Year

2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse, often associated with intensity, forward movement, independence, and bold energy. Whether or not that resonates personally, it offers an interesting frame for the start of a new month.

Warm-up prompt: Patti Smith on the Lunar New Year (5 minutes)

Choose a word, fragment or line from this short reflection by Patti Smith on the Lunar New Year, from her Substack (including voiceover).

Main Writing Prompts (15-20 minutes)

For our main writing time, there are two prompts below. Take a minute to read through them. You may choose one, write into both, or set them aside and go in your own direction.

Both connect to this moment in the year, the beginning of March and the sense of something shifting.

Prompt Option One | The Spark & The Steady Flame

The Year of the Fire Horse is often associated with boldness, independence, and forward movement. But fire takes many forms. It can blaze brightly. It can smolder quietly. It can warm and persist.

Rather than asking how to be more intense, consider:

Where is there already energy in your life?
Where do you feel momentum, even in a small way?
Where might you need steadiness instead of acceleration?

Write toward the kind of fire that would sustain you this season.

What feeds it?
What protects it?

Write for 15-20 minutes and see where it takes you.

Prompt Option Two | Another Birth

Drawing from Another Birth by Forugh Farrokhzad.

Often remembered simply as Forugh, Forugh Farrokhzad (1935–1967) is one of the most widely studied and translated modern Iranian poets. A bold and independent writer, she became an icon of the modern Iranian woman, not only for her work but for her refusal to conform to traditional social expectations in her personal life. In her poetry, she wrote openly about desire, vulnerability, and inner life, reshaping how both women and men were portrayed in Persian literature.

In this poem, she writes:

“I planted my hands in the garden
I will grow, I know, I know, I know.”

(The full poem appears in her collection Another Birth and can be found in published translations of her work).

Spring rarely announces itself all at once. Growth often begins beneath the surface.

For this prompt, focus on something specific in your life right now.

It might be: