your guide to navigating may
a syllabus for tending what's already growing
May is the month that signifies vitality, growth, and new beginnings. Named after the Greek goddess Maia, the season arrives in full bloom when the Ancient Romans celebrated the Floralia festival. It brings forth viridescent skies, longer evenings, open windows, pollen-dusted pavements, and the quiet stretch of insistence that you should be reaching towards the light.
This is your guide to navigating the month of May, a small, curated syllabus of rituals, readings, playlists, and pleasures to carry you through all thirty‑one days. May doesn’t ask you to reinvent yourself. Instead, you are allowed to tend to your garden and step outside a little more often than you did in April.
“The word May is a perfumed word... It means youth, love, song; and all that is beautiful in life.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Your Soundtrack for May:
A curated playlist to ease you into the month. Opening soft and cinematic with Lana Del Rey and Sade, before blooming into floral, windows-down spring energy with flowerovlove and Clare Rosinkranz. Then we close out our listening sesh with dreamy bedroom pop from BETWEEN FRIENDS and PinkPantheress.
For late-night walks, golden hour drives, and everything in between.
Your Reading List for May:
Dearest Reader: epistolary novels that unfold letter by letter
This Is How You Lose The Time War — Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
The Correspondent — Virginia Evans
Furry Friends: easy, heartwarming reads about our fuzzy companions
The Best Dog in the World: Essays on Love — Alice Hoffman
Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm — Charlie Mackesy
Eccentric & Electric: offbeat, clever, and slightly unhinged (in the best way)
Read according to mood, dog-earing without guilt and annotating aggressively along the way.
31 Journal Prompts for May:
What is something you are pretending not to care about but deeply want?
In what ways are you making your life harder than it needs to be?
How are your daily actions helping you build the life you want?
What identity are you trying your hardest to protect, even if it no longer serves you?
If you stopped trying to manage others’ perceptions of you, how would you show up differently?
What’s one way you could offer yourself the validation you are craving?
Who or what triggers you into playing a smaller version of yourself?
What are you proud of yourself for surviving that you haven’t admitted out loud?
What patterns keep repeating in your life, and what beliefs drive them?
What habits do you engage in that your highest self wouldn’t entertain?
What decisions are you putting off and why?
How often do you ask for advice instead of trusting yourself, and why?
What relationship patterns in your life feel familiar but also tiring to you?
How do you make yourself smaller to avoid rejection?
How does your relationship with money mirror your self-worth?
What would you create if you weren’t afraid of it making you enough money to live on?
What’s one thing you forgive yourself for today?
How do you speak to yourself when no one is listening?
What did you need most as a child that you didn’t receive?
What protective behaviours did you learn as a child that you no longer need?
How does the highest version of you handle disappointment?
What emotional skills has your highest self mastered that you’re still practising now?
What does emotional freedom mean to you?
What is no longer yours to carry?
Who showed you kindness recently, and how did it impact you?
In what ways do you resist the path of least resistance?
What signs has life already given you about the direction that feels most natural and easy?
Name one challenge you’re grateful for because it made you stronger.
What small win did you experience today, and how did you contribute to it?
What compliments do you reject or minimise, and why?
What part of you resists going with the flow? What are you afraid will happen if you trust life to unfold as it is without controlling anything?
On a final note, May arrives just after the year’s first crescendo, when spring is at its most anticipatory. The semester is winding down, and the tax year closes its spreadsheets. Deadlines loosen their grip. We are on the cusp of seasons, not quite at the fever of June, and not quite stuck in the dormancy of winter. This is the pause between holding your breath and releasing.
Love,
Sennett <3
Creating and sharing my writing for free is important to me, but it does take time. If you enjoyed this post, I’d be honoured if you considered buying me a coffee! It would mean the world to me xx
Love these journal prompts.
Love this! The journal prompts are fantastic ✨