I read Grant Faulkner’s substack today–Divination: A divining rod is just another word for a pen. The beginning struck a cord; indeed, aren’t we always looking for signs? A divining rod helps. So does a wand. A pen.

Today, I’m sitting on my patio for the first time in months enjoying the weather. The scorching heat has passed. The temperature right now is a sign of fall, a sign that we won’t burn forever, that there are beautiful days.

I click over to a news website to look for a sign that the war is coming to an end. Is there a divining rod for that? Would I know the sign if I saw it?

“’Water witching’” is much like story witching. A divining rod is a metaphor for a pen. You pick it up and channel the pulse of a story. You listen for your muse. You write a word, just for the heck of it, and then a few more words, and then you surrender yourself to them. They’re electromagnetic forces. They spark curiosity, wonder, play.”

Grant Faulkner, Intimations, A Writer’s Discourse

For a divining rod to work, you have to believe. Well, okay, the science says it’s rubbish, but as Grant points out, Albert Einstein wasn’t completely dismissive. Sure, he probably didn’t mean the rods found water, but they meant something for the person divining. (And how can I not in this lonesome October love something used by so-called water witches?)

The pen isn’t expressly magic. You can’t wave it in the air and call forth a feast. You can’t point a pen and raise the dead. A pen will not point the way to water.

And yet.

Right?

The pen in the right hand does all these things. A well-written description makes the mouth water. It brings out tears for those we’ve lost. It let’s us sail for worlds we’d otherwise never see.

A pen works magic if the holder believes. The writer makes marks on the page, in just the right configuration, and the impossible is created. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, “The [pen] is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time.”

Thanks for reading.

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