Changing Journals, Re-setting Priorities
On Tuesday night, I finished out the last journal I had been working in, which dated back to 2007. These journals are simple blue lab notebooks I pick up at the university bookstore here: they're durable, light, page-numbered, and the perfect size to fit in a MK VII gas mask bag.
The journals aren't really "journals" in the usual sense of the word, though they often fill that niche. This one had the original draft of the Teutates story and the story of Tailtiu, prayers from many festivals and individual workings, a list of amulets druidkirk's Druid Monestary could sell, and omens from nearly all my rites.
As I flipped through the past three years of my spiritual life that this little journal represents, I started digging for unfinished projects and things I came back to time and again.
The first thing I pulled form the book to place in the new one was the monthly DP schedule I had worked up. Often, I teach straight from the outline when I do these meetings, and having the schedule pasted to the inside cover was vital, I felt.
The second thing I pulled was the Prayer to the Ancient Wise. While I have it pretty well memorized (enough, for sure, to be able to sing it with a group and not miss any words. . . it's the most-played .mp3 on my iPod), I have found it helpful to have on-hand for others who stand next to me in rituals where it is used.
The third and fourth things I pulled out were related to one another: the list of Nine Sacred Woods that I am using for the IP course I'm still in process on, and the tools associated with those woods. This project had been supplanted by others I felt needed some priority, but the release of Ian's new Initiate Path work, the Book of Nine Moons, has also given me a kick in the pants, as did seeing the way my newest creation, the DP WotY Journal, came out when it arrived yesterday.
The most interesting thing about the process of moving from one journal to another, and carrying forward select items as I have done here, is that this whole process seems to focus my attention on things that are not yet completed, which had languished in the pages long since turned-past in the old book.
Now, those things have found new life, and it seems that they have also stirred within me a desire to begin again on the spiritual things that have been lacking by necessity recently: I have not been writing and reading as much as I wish, though my hearth shrine has never gone dark over the past few months. Looking at these projects (particularly the Nine Woods), I see it is time to dive back in and deepen them as they are supposed to be deepened.
There is much work to be done, and I look forward to the renewed sense of purpose I seem to have carrying me through in the near future.
And today is a beautiful day, with robins filling the tree outside my window. Dare I seek the spring so soon?
The journals aren't really "journals" in the usual sense of the word, though they often fill that niche. This one had the original draft of the Teutates story and the story of Tailtiu, prayers from many festivals and individual workings, a list of amulets druidkirk's Druid Monestary could sell, and omens from nearly all my rites.
As I flipped through the past three years of my spiritual life that this little journal represents, I started digging for unfinished projects and things I came back to time and again.
The first thing I pulled form the book to place in the new one was the monthly DP schedule I had worked up. Often, I teach straight from the outline when I do these meetings, and having the schedule pasted to the inside cover was vital, I felt.
The second thing I pulled was the Prayer to the Ancient Wise. While I have it pretty well memorized (enough, for sure, to be able to sing it with a group and not miss any words. . . it's the most-played .mp3 on my iPod), I have found it helpful to have on-hand for others who stand next to me in rituals where it is used.
The third and fourth things I pulled out were related to one another: the list of Nine Sacred Woods that I am using for the IP course I'm still in process on, and the tools associated with those woods. This project had been supplanted by others I felt needed some priority, but the release of Ian's new Initiate Path work, the Book of Nine Moons, has also given me a kick in the pants, as did seeing the way my newest creation, the DP WotY Journal, came out when it arrived yesterday.
The most interesting thing about the process of moving from one journal to another, and carrying forward select items as I have done here, is that this whole process seems to focus my attention on things that are not yet completed, which had languished in the pages long since turned-past in the old book.
Now, those things have found new life, and it seems that they have also stirred within me a desire to begin again on the spiritual things that have been lacking by necessity recently: I have not been writing and reading as much as I wish, though my hearth shrine has never gone dark over the past few months. Looking at these projects (particularly the Nine Woods), I see it is time to dive back in and deepen them as they are supposed to be deepened.
There is much work to be done, and I look forward to the renewed sense of purpose I seem to have carrying me through in the near future.
And today is a beautiful day, with robins filling the tree outside my window. Dare I seek the spring so soon?