KENETLO

Written By Sally-Shakti Willow

A prayer-poem woven in petalled ink

White feather
               floats - 
a study 
       in flow:

Bliss me
    this
Nettle 
         Kiss;

S(t)inging
               kin

come close
       with ancient
      roots
of tangled 
                myth.

Riverstone
         blood &
                   bone

Sink fingers
         into 
             mud, marsh,
                             meandering - 
                             remembering - 
                                         (kommano)...

Red Kite
           Old Mother
      in flight.

KENETLO
              take me 
                        home :
on tattered
wings.

Words & Water

Poem woven from the Ritual Writing Walk at Avebury Neolithic Stone Circle, during the recent Avalon Visionary Writing Retreat - Ostara 2026.

Written in Mulberry Botanical Ink from Tom’s Studio.

Completed at Glastonbury Chalice Well, Good Friday, 2026.

Image includes the Intention-Setting Sigil I created for myself at the start of the retreat.

Prayer-poem includes Bronze Age Proto-Celtic words from Carolyn Hillyer’s Her Bone Bundle.

Kenetlo - kindred, kin, clan.

West Kennet Long Barrow - the Burial Place of the Ancestors.

Kommano - memory, remember.

Welcome, word-weavers.

I’m Sally-Shakti Willow.

I write (about) transformational nonfiction, literary activism, visionary writing craft, and author business alchemy.

I’ve always known words are magic. They shape the world in which we live and participate and co-create. The more intentional we become in our writing, the more responsibility we get to hold in becoming the sovereign, empowered, participatory, co-creative, reality-manifestors we are here to be.

We’re all, always, co-creating.

I work with soul-centred visionary leaders who sense they’re part of the movement to birth a new consciousness into being, and who have a book to write, a story to tell and a method to share with their community. Transforming hearts and minds. Leading with authenticity and vulnerability. Guiding from the place of lived experience as medicine.

If that’s you, welcome. Writing & Thriving is here for you.

Sally-Shakti Willow

Writing my PhD in Utopian Poetics showed me what it means to be a writer. I wrote four books of poetry and a 50,000 word thesis, and I started journaling as a way to ground and heal myself.

While I was studying, I also wrote and maintained the Contemporary Small Press website, writing regular reviews of new fiction and poetry published by small presses. I was on the judging panel for the 2018 Republic of Consciousness Prize for literary fiction from the small presses. So I was reading a lot of great writing too. And I co-developed and taught a series of workshops called WELLBEING WHILE WRITING for doctoral researchers at the University of Westminster.

WELLBEING WHILE WRITING used practical techniques from Creative Writing pedagogy to support PhD students of all disciplines with the work of WRITING their thesis. I also used my knowledge and experience of yoga and meditation to provide MOVING & BREATHING FOR WELLBEING workshops to graduate students at the University.

I’ve been teaching English since 2004 and I’ve been teaching Creative Writing at the University of Westminster since 2017.

https://www.writingthriving.com
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