Witchy Wednesday – Journals

“Do you keep a journal or diary of your experiences?”

And how!  Actually, I think the real answer is more along the lines of ‘sort of‘.

I have a more journals and notebooks than I can count.  I am also terrible at keeping track where they all are.  I’m told it’s a writer thing.

In recent months I have been compiling all my scattered assorted knowledge into a File of Shadows using Scrivener.  I have the file set to ‘Non-Fiction Novel’ and it’s been pretty great so far. Lots of work as I can’t just port old Word files into it (plus the assorted random scribblings are being typed and made pretty), but it forces me to go through everything and add bits here and there and take out things I never really ended up using.

I recently found my dream journal that I used to keep way back in the day from when I first started getting into dream interpretation.  I fell off using it, and it was probably about half full.  Years of experience have shown me that the messages in my dreams are of finite usefulness.  Things manifest pretty fast, and then there is nothing else of use other than a bit of fun nostalgia and a few laughs.  That said, I may start using again if only to fill the pages.

For daily writing, I have a love/hate relationship with diaries.  I have kept them off and on throughout the years to help me work through things.  Once on the other side of whatever crisis lead me to start it in the first place, an unshakable need to purge usually causes me to burn them.

For a long time I felt that this need was something that I should be fighting against and that I should just accept my flaws and not be ashamed of them.  But, a realization came to me a few weeks ago that I had never really considered before.  I am a Witch.  And the sealing of a spell requires that the words be burned and the ashes be offered to the universe.  If I don’t purge, the spell lies open, and it’s energy is not completed.

I love it when it all comes back around.  Don’t ignore your gut, people.  Even if you don’t understand it at the time, there is a reason for those urges you can’t ignore.

Another form of journalling I have tried and failed at keeping regularly is an art journal.  I have a handful of sketchbooks, but nothing that I really keep a finished project in.  I like those to be loose, and in my portfolio.

I think that the only real sort of journalling that I have kept up with regularly over the years is blogging.  I started with a Livejournal account way back in the early 2000s, and then I followed a bunch of folks to Dreamwidth, then I started my WordPress blog (along with dozens of others that fizzled over the years), and here we are.  250+ posts and counting.  I think that is the most steady I have been with anything writing related in a very long time.  And even as I try to make the leap to adding video, I think I will always be a blogger at heart.  It’s in my nature.

Next week we talk about moon phases.  This will be awesome.  Lunar stuff is so much fun – even something as small as watching my daughter’s face light up when I point out the moon in the sky.