Meditation By Journal

I have a confession:  I'm addicted to those little pocket-sized bound books that you find at the counters of bookstores or at stationary shops.  I cannot stop picking them up and adding them to the junk at the bottom of my bottomless purse.

They do get some use:  jotting down story ideas or good one-liners for later use; endless to do list notations; grocery reminders or names of books or authors that get recommended that I want to peruse.

But honestly?  It's the endless array of colorful covers and their promise of increased productivity if I could only use them wisely that calls to me.

I've been journaling in a larger-type bound book for several years now, a la Julia Cameron's Morning Pages concept.  Although I don't quite make it first thing in the morning most days, given my dread of early morning anything and my need for intravenous coffee applications, I do try to write them out the moment the morning rush has concluded.

I find it really helps to spew whatever is cluttering my mind onto the page so that I can clear my mind for real work for the day.  It makes me a cheerier person to be around, and it helps me to organize where I want to go and what I want to accomplish.

So, you'd think I'd write them daily, wouldn't you?

Nope.


Like everything else that is good for me and I know is helpful for me to do, I resist, and some days get nowhere near the journal page.  It's an internal form of rebellion -- I'll be perking along nicely, doing them daily for a while, then think I don't need them and...whammo!...back into the mental knots I go.

Thus, I hereby resolve to stop being a dolt and do my morning pages every day, even if it (shudder) requires me to get up earlier than everyone else in the house so that I can get the quiet time necessary to pull them off.  Which is easier said than done with a 7 year old and a puppy in the house, frankly, so maybe my method of waiting them all out and writing after the hubbub has left the building ot is taking a morning snooze really is the better way to go.  (No, I'm not trying to avoid early mornings.  Why do you ask?)

Lately, I've been journaling while Sunrise Earth plays.  Since we started TIVO-ing this show just for that purpose, I realized I'd established a pattern with it that went beyond my former need to play cello music as the soothing background noise.  Or track 16 from the Spirited Away soundtrack (that scene where Chihiro is at the train station and then riding the train -- I used to play that single track on a repeat loop because it is so soothing and pulls me into a meditative place.  Love it.)

Which made me wonder what other folks do while they journal.  Do you go for a walk and find a park bench so that you are writing in the open air?  Do you get up at o-dark-thirty while the house is silent and write before anyone else moves?  Do you do them just before bedtime to clear your head before sleep?

I'm curious, so please share.  In the meantime, I'm going to pour myself another cuppa coffee and do my own this morning now that doggie naptime has arrived at our house...

(Lovely shot via Amir K.  Makes me want to fill up my fountain pen and take my journal for a stroll.)