The Illustrated Discovery Journal
‘The key to loving how you live is in knowing what it is you truly love. “To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive,” Robert Louis Stevenson reminds us. Keeping our soul alive and nurturing our creativity is what interests us today.
One of the most pleasurable ways to start finding out your personal preferences is by creating an illustrated discovery journal. This is your explorer’s log as you begin to make your way into the darkest terra incognito: your authentic inner world. We feed our imaginations and get in touch with our authenticity by gathering together beautiful images that speak to our souls. You didn’t know that the sun-drenched colors of Santa Fe called to you? Then why did they keep popping up in your pictures? You thought American country was your style but rose-covered chintz is what you’re collecting on paper? Isn’t that interesting. Here is an occasion when one picture speaks a thousand words. Meditating on one visual image a day can jump-start your creativity and lead to revealing insights.
Today get a blank, black-bound artist’s sketchbook at an art supply store, a pair of sharp scissors, rubber cement, and your favorite magazines. Put them all in a basket and keep it by your bed. At night before you go to bed, when you’re in a drowsy, relaxed, and receptive state, flip through the magazines. When you see an image you love, cut it out and paste it in your book. Don’t try to arrange the pictures in a specific sort of way. Let the collages you are creating simply evolve. Soon they will give you directions about where your heart wants to go. I have also added quotes, sketches, greeting cards, and art postcards to my discovery journal, crafting with paper what the poet W.H. Auden calls “a map of my planet.” ‘- Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
This idea of cutting from magazines and papers, etc., reminds me of when Garrett was in Kindergarten and each week they learned a new letter. For their homework, they had to cut out at least three pictures that started with that letter and glue them to a piece o paper for the letter of the week. For a child who was very Oppositionally Defiant at the time- it was torture! (Gotta love divorce…. NOT!)
Maybe I could make a magazine clipping ransom note?
I am missing the point, hua?
Ok, so I digress. Maybe I am a little ADD as well?
I will give it a try. Not sure I can do a discovery journal every night. That relaxed mode she talks about when you are dozing to sleep is very precious to me. I might not be so receptive as she suggests. Usually, I am putting a baby to sleep myself and the sheer thought of relaxing puts me into a coma.
But, we shall try it.
‘Knowledge of what you love somehow comes to you; you don’t have to read nor analyze nor study. If you love a thing enough, knowledge of it seeps into you, with particulars more real than any chart can furnish.’ -Jessamyn West