Do you still have old diaries ? When you re-read these records of your life story, do you recognise yourself in what you wrote down maybe decades ago? I find old journals can hold surprising revelations, describing life lessons that had yet to reach their full potential at the time they were recorded, yet already sort of glimmered at the horizon of conscious awareness with thoughts and feelings that years later start to make sense.
Journaling I find, is like talking to a life coach, but then that life coach is you, yourself . It’s a process. While writing, I find my way through, forests, fields, seas and mountain ranges of words and sentences until at some point I find myself ‘out of the woods’ or ”on top of the world’, rescued from my sea of troubles.
Journaling is a very important part of the ritual of mid-winter contemplation. It’s a way of talking to oneself through writing. Giving titles to the dreams one has, helps to become more aware of their meaning. Words and sentences are like magic in that sense. They hold the ability to transport thoughts, feelings and intentions to higher levels of understanding
The gift of expressing oneself – either through painting, sculpting, dance, song, sound or any other form of art is a precious human trait and certainly there for a reason, going as far back as the times when humanity as we know it today was still in it’s early stages. Art may well be among the oldest tricks in town to get in touch with the true essence of who one is.
The first written expressions ever found date back to roughly 3400 years B.C. within Sumerian civilisation, a relatively short amount of time on the scale of human history.
In our present day and age, writing, using language is the main source awareness. Even more so it often supersedes, intuition or inspiration. But just like midwinter contemplation originates from ancient ways of looking at life, the written word also contains deeper meaning. Words have Soul and Spirit. The way we use them tells a lot about who we are.
to read more on how to practice the winter solstice contemplation ritual click here.
On the right side of this blog you can also draw your own card and see what it summons up from within.
