BY STEPHANIE VALENTE

It's Valentine's Day and we love you, darklings. Here are some love-day date ideas that you can do with your lover, your best friend, your coven, or your fabulous, bad ass self.

1. Pull some tarot cards. Perhaps you want to do a general reading for the day's (or night) energy. Perhaps it's a love reading. Perhaps it's something more.

2. Attend a lecture or a reading. Cities and towns are chock full of art shows, poetry readings, social science lectures, and more. Open your mind and pick something outside of your comfort zone. And, if there isn't anything in your immediate location, tons of schools, galleries, and institutions have online talks and literary readings. Watch or join one.

3. Take a candle-lit fitness class. Just relax and breathe at a night-time yoga or meditation class.

4. Do an aphrodisiac food crawl. Savor oysters and hunt down the best dark chocolate treats.

5. Dance, dance, dance. Whether it's your living room or an electric local joint, let your body loose to some sensual and sultry jams that make you feel powerful.

6. Build a fort. Seriously. Camp out in your abode or even outside. Grab a book. Zone out. Enjoy.

7. Host a dinner for you and those you adore. Everyone brings a dish or a sweet treat. Bonus points for hosting a warm, self-love ritual, too.

8. Cook something new. It's a great, mediative process to wing solo or with a partner. Even better if it's combined with #7.

9. Plan nothing. See where the whim takes you.

10. Look at art. Flying alone? Write a journal entry about what you saw and felt after. With others? Mix it into your discussion at drinks or dinner after.

11. Learn something. Whether it's teaching yourself something in the craft like rune reading or dipping a toe into sex magic, or perhaps something non-magic related, take some time to research and open up a new part of yourself.

Stephanie Valente lives in Brooklyn, NY. She has published Hotel Ghost (Bottlecap Press, 2015) and waiting for the end of the world (Bottlecap Press, 2017) and has work included in Susan, TL;DR, and Cosmonauts Avenue. Sometimes, she feels human. http://stephanievalente.com