Another year
Today we began a new season of monthly
expressive writing/ art journaling workshops. It has been a full year
since my colleague Nelly and I started running these groups on a regular basis –
So it seemed like a good time to start a blog as a way to keep our journaling
community apprised of the entire goings-on.
Drawing on daily meditations from Pocketful of Miracles by
Joan Borysenko, PH.D.
and using concepts rooted in Jung's
philosophy of the unconscious, we began the fall season with an exploration of
the word “Awakening.” This exploration took us inward rather than outward, as
it might in the spring. But fall is the season of darkening, lengthening
shadows, entering into dreamtime, the spirit world and our inner selves.
Four enthusiastic journalers joined
Nelly and me around the table in the studio -- three of them longtime participants
and one new face. We began by contemplating awakenings in ourselves through
meditation and deep breathing, and then dove into a translation of those
sensations by creating individual mandalas. This was followed by a timed writing
exercise.
Then we energized as a group by
shouting out any and all awakening-related words that came to mind: brightness, dark, polarities, fear, trust,
letting go.... After that, we let it RRRRippppp! - With a magazine
ripping frenzy, to produce a pictorial group collective unconscious, which we then
used to create our own mixed-media dreamscapes or awakening landscapes in our
art journals.
--Mia de Bethune
JOURNALING PROMPTS
Continued work on the subject of “Awakening”
this month could include an exploration of your own dreamscapes. What do you
become awakened to through the subtle
clues of your unconscious? How is this awakening reflected in your daily
life? How does your shadow side show itself in your daily life? Are you awake to your shadow side? Draw
and write to your shadow side as a way to integrate it into your life.
