The idea is that you can then go back later and see how the different
things effected your results and use that information to improve your
practice.
It's not just spells and rituals either. I have seen similar
instructions for meditation, dreams, energy work, divination, or even
just a daily journal.
Just thinking about writing all this stuff down (not to mention the
process of going back through later to review and evaluate it all)
exhausts me. I think if I were to try to do it, I wouldn't get much
done because I would be spending all my time writing about the one
thing I had managed to do.
Another problem I have run into with the paperwork side of things is
that there is so much going on, that I start forgetting moments as I
am writing. And while I am doing whatever practice it is that I am
going to record, I am so focused on trying to pay attention to all
these crazy details and remember them so I can write them down after,
that I am not really focusing on the moment the way I should.
Not to mention that when it comes to things like meditations or
dreams, sometimes there are things that I just can't accurately put
into words.
A part of me really wishes I could record well though. I love the
idea of journaling. I have tried a few different types of journaling
practices, and I know that there are more I would like to try. I
love the concept of keeping a journal that uses symbols or shorthand
(or even color coding) to help keep things organized (and concise).
This might be another one of those places where the two parts of my
brain are holding me back by working against each other. One of the
things I have read a lot about dream journaling is that you shouldn't
try to write the dream out in longhand like a story, but jot down
notes, draw symbols or pictures or just write out key words. And you
should keep this journal by your bed and do the journaling as soon as
you wake up (including in the middle of the night if you wake from a
dream).
This completely doesn't work for me. Firstly, I am not the only one
sleeping in my bed, and I know my husband would probably make me
sleep on the couch if I started turning lights on in the middle of
the night to write down my dreams! I'm not that great of a sleeper
anyways, so it has been a long journey for me to learn how to go back
to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night, and limiting the
amount of light that I am exposed to is a big part of that (I don't
even fully open my eyes to go to the bathroom if I need to). I am a
pretty solid dreamer, so it is not uncommon for me to have several
different dreams over the course of a night.....trying to even make a
few notes for each one would make for a very fitful night of sleep.
And I just don't do key words well. I don't feel that I always know
what is important in a dream, so I feel compelled to write down every
detail I can remember. And as I'm writing down the start of the
dream, the end is already fading.
What I find that works best for me is to treat journaling like
reflections (and boy wouldn't my high school English teacher get a
kick of of that statement). When I was in school, whenever we had to
write something for English class, we would then have to write a
reflection on our own piece. Typically it would be after we turned
the piece in, and the reflection would be our thoughts on what we did
well or poorly as well as really any observations we had on our
writing process or comments we had gotten from classmates who had
read it. I hated writing these.
And yet, if you look through my journals, that is what I write now:
reflections. If I attend a ritual, I might right about a part that
was particularly moving for me, or a thought I had about how
something we did could be adapted to my own path, or something that I
might like to read more about. I tend to try to write down any names
involved (either of deities, spirits, paths, or practitioners),
because I know those are things I tend to forget the quickest, and
those are also the easiest place for me to jump into research mode
with.
I don't tend to go through my journals with the intent of writing
more on past events, though I do sometimes read through them if I am
needing a boost. Being primarily solitary, sometimes I need to read
about things I have done with others, or even just particularly
special moments I have had in my own path. For me, it is like
reaching out to like minds, even if the mind is my own. I also
sometimes feel like I am at a loss for which way to go or what to
work on. By reading over things I have done in the past, I can come
up with branches I didn't pursue, or projects that I never finished.
I also sometimes write down ideas that come to me if I am currently
too busy to work on them, knowing that some day I will come back to
it.
My journaling has very little organization. I have books all over:
binders with loose leaf papers in them (which tend to be more
organized), bound blank books (typically devoted to particular
topics), more spiral notebooks than I care to admit (which are the
least organized) and files on the computer (and tablet now) which may
be little more than a bunch of unrelated sentences, each one pointing
me in a different direction.
It is a valuable trade off for me. I would rather end up retracing
my steps or taking longer to progress because I might not have kept
proper records than loose my interest or pull away from my path
because it no longer fills me with joy and instead feels like a job.
No comments:
Post a Comment