Imbolc, the power of imagination and the use of interpretation

My blog post today is more of a random rambling than a focused topic, but sometimes life calls for random topics; or at least, I think so. The past week has been a bit of a blur. Storm Chandra at the start of the week, a hospital appointment at the end of the week and all the while, trying to carry on with life as normal.

Even when my writing life is on pause, my imagination always rumbles along, churning out ideas. Some are good, and I save them as tidbits for my writing and others are just nothing more than interesting thoughts as a byproduct of an overactive imagination.

The picture above shows one such byproduct of my imagination. While doing one of my 24 hour intermittent fasting sessions a couple of days ago, I made myself a Himalayan salt tea; it staves off leg cramps and headaches during ketosis by replacing electrolytes. Anyway, after I sprinkled the salt in my mug, I then added the boiled water and watched the salt disperse in the strangest pattern. As a horror fan, it seemed to me to form a rather intense eye staring up at me from the bottom of the mug. Creepy.

My hubby didn’t think so, taking the view that it resembled something much less sinister: a heart. Not one to be left out of a random musing, our son then added his thought that it was shaped more like a fried egg than either a heart or a staring eyeball.

I suppose the point is that what one person interprets may be completely different from the next person. Many things in life are subjective and influenced more by individual interests and viewpoints in life than anything else.

Writing is one of those things that is completely subjective and open to interpretation, even when intended to be on a set topic, or fixed genre. A writer might have an idea in mind when working on a manuscript draft, only for a reader to perceive it completely differently once it’s a published book out in the world. I speak from experience here, having read one or two reviews of my books where the reader had a fun interpretation of what was happening in the story, completely different to my intention as the author. I always love to see how readers perceive my stories.

Getting back to my interpretation of a staring eyeball in my Himalayan salt tea – today is Imbolc, the halfway point between Yule/winter and Ostara/spring. It’s also a Snow Moon tonight. Imbolc and a full moon both symbolise new beginnings. My hospital appointment a couple of days ago culminated in an urgent medical procedure; one that stopped a potentially serious health issue that had been developing in 2025, and is now hopefully manageable going forward. I like to think my salt tea eyeball was a watchful guardian warning me of the necessary minor surgery that occurred, even if I wasn’t expecting it to happen on that day. Retrospect can fuel such an interpretation, of course. Why not? It powers the imagination, a writer’s arsenal, doesn’t it?

Happy Imbolc and Happy Snow Moon, folks!