Stillness.
Thoughts to record.
Discovery.
Divine, self, others.
Stillness.
Summer is here and the rhythm of life is slower; reflection may come readily. Get yourself a notebook that you like; one that invites you to put something in it. Or create a new “journal” folder on your computer. This journal is not a recording of your days, but an account of moments in a day about anything you wish to preserve and return to later. From a quiet space within, you record the story of a moment that you wish to preserve. Consider this, you may not want to write but you have a passion for drawing. Your Journal may be filled with sketches of people, things, animals – whatever subject that engages your thoughts and observations. Skill is not required; all that is necessary is that you will understand the meaning of the dated entry when you return to it later. You are putting your thoughts, feelings on paper or in a folder on your computer. Dating the work will give more clarity to the entry whenever you return to it in the future – near or distant.
Keeping a journal frequently means writing to capture something during a given day. However, the journal may take different forms for different people. If you are a musician, an original tune or musical interlude may come to mind, so in your journal, you may write out initial musical scores. If you sketch, drawings may fill your pages or computer folder. Perhaps faces or buildings or nature capture your attention. Whatever it is that rivets your attention, you put the first sketch in your journal. Is photography your passion? you may use your iPhone or camera to take many photos which you eventually study and select the key items to put on your computer journal. You just might be a poet, and the first drafts of the poems are in your journal. The first drafts of films, the first drafts of dramas, the first drafts of choreographies, first drafts of fashion designs—a journal can be a document of first drafts. Your journal may be filled with culinary ideas of your own creations or notes about a dish that you ate, and you want to note the possible ingredients to replicate, add or omit when you prepare it.
The point of the journal is to preserve important moments, ideas, revelations in a concrete form to which you can return later to duplicate or refine. Equally important, in the time that you are confining your entry to your book or computer, you will find yourself quiet, focused, and more relaxed, because you are capturing something that is important to you. In maintaining a journal, you will make fascinating discoveries about life around you and about yourself. You will find that you are continuously rejuvenated by new perspectives, skills, possibilities. In the stillness of a few moments, capture life, your gift(s), your creativity.
Reflections
This journal is not a diary of the day, but the capture of moments, activity, creativity in a day.
- What kind of journal would you do? Writings, sketches, etc.
- In the last 12 hours, what single entry might you have placed in your journal?
Dorothy Watson Tatem, D.Min., ACC
Senior Associate
Next Step Associates, LLC
Cassandra W. Jones, Ed.D.
CEO & President
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