It’s been more than a year since I began doing daily pages. Julia Cameron, whose idea they were originally, calls them ‘morning pages.’ I’m not so good at doing them either in the a.m. or daily, so I figured feeling guilty about only one of these — not both! — was the better part of valour.
It’s actually been almost 60 weeks! I put the number of weeks in the page header, as well as the date. And then I write. No agenda, no prompt, just write two pages (Cameron says do 3 — I don’t). Ideally, every day. And good things begin to happen.
So the other day, I found this story on Medium, about the author (Benjamin Foley)’s engagement with keeping a journal. I don’t call my daily pages a ‘journal,’ as I actually have one of those. And I don’t usually do gratitude lists in it, as I also have a gratitude journal. But I do make time for gratitude practice, in a recycled-tire covered small journal my younger son gave me (thanks, Noah!). And I’ve been doing that for several years now (more than 4…?)
I also have a ‘real’ journal, as noted, what an artist friend calls an ‘artist’s journal.’ Mine is not so much artistic as mixed media: there is collage (printed emails, cutout pictures, ephemera like ticket stubs), coloured calendars, drawings (bad ones!), and more. I stapled in all the plant tags of what we planted in the front garden, for Instance, so I have a record.
I rarely revisit my journal(s) — & almost never my daily pages — which I’ve been keeping for decades. Sometimes, I thumb through one when it’s full, thinking about the changes of the past X months. It’s a constant, of course — such a cliche!
Today I pasted in copies of the renderings my beloved made of a new patio we’ll put in this summer, in a new backyard, behind a new home, in a new town. That’s another change: moving to a college ‘town’ of fewer than 20,000 non-student residents after living in a metroplex of about a million. HUGE change.
My daily pages record all this & more. The birds on the feeders (new ones here, as well as familiar favorites); what funny thing my elder grandson said. The fact that my younger grandson smiled at me (he’s definitely an old soul, at not quite 2 months!). My sister’s visit yesterday, w/ her bff, driving in from 2 hours south.
It’s good Buddhist practice, actually: note what happens, remark it, then move on. If you haven’t tried it, maybe begin gently, w/ ‘weekly’ pages. It’s worth the minor effort. Buy a small journal that appeals to you, & do a couple of pages every couple of days or weekly. One of the easiest forms of meditation I know. Honest.
Tea and Breath 