The mental part of our Self is not satisfied with simply accessing our intentions and motives. Our minds want to know what they mean and how they affect us. Our conscious, rational aspect craves order, information, comprehension. We humans seem to have a basic need to organize, classify and characterize the world around us. When we apply this same need for knowledge and understanding to our inner world — our emotions, thoughts, instincts and intuitions — we are able to extract their value. What can we learn from what we feel? And how can we use these feelings to our benefit?

By keeping track of the circumstances and situations of our lives and our own conscious and unconscious responses to them, we can plot our course, chart our progress, project our aspirations, alter our habits, adjust our attitudes and plan our actions. “The decision to write a journal,” writes Christine Baldwin in Life’s Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest “has been the most important decision I have ever made, because it has led to every other important decision I’ve ever made. The existence of the journal provides writers with confidence and courage that we can travel as far as the mind allows, and find our way home through the act of writing.”

The blueprints and maps for our lives can be found in the documentation that we keep. When we record our thoughts, feelings, dreams, coincidences, ideas, inspirations and omens, we have the raw data that we need to figure out what it is that we already know as well as what we still need to learn. I call this practice, “Noting the Process of Noting the Process.” I use the term “practice” advisedly. Practice implies attention, concentration and discipline. But the mental effort and dedication required is well rewarded by the Self-knowledge that we stand to gain.  

The word “practice” also serves to remind us that there is no perfect. Whether we maintain a spiritual practice, a creative practice or a professional practice, we are always in the process of learning, adapting, accommodating, growing and changing. The only end comes when we die. In the meantime, all we have is the means, the very process of living, itself. We try, we move forward, we trip, we fall behind, we start again, and eventually we become, while not perfect, perfectly wonderful Queens.

Note the Process of Noting Your Process

Keep track of your life and living.

Keep written, recorded, and/or visual journals of collages, drawings, or photographs that record and comment on your:
Dreams
Feelings
Goals
Happenings
Hunches
Interactions
Impulses
Instincts
Memories
Miracles
Omens
Physical concerns
Thoughts

Keep your inherited and personal herstorical records:
Address Books
Almanacs
Autograph Books
Calendars
Common Books
Date Books
Diaries
Family Bibles
Letters From You
Letters To You
Photographs
Scrapbooks
Year Books

If you do any sort of divinatory readings or consult any oracles, keep notes on these sessions:
Astrology Charts
Automatic Writings
Crystal Ball
I Ching
Palm Readings
Psychic Readings
Runes
Tarot

Put ’em all together and what have you got? Bibbidi-Bobbidi-YOU!

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For your information there are two upcoming Spirit Support Skills Teleseminars all about the joys of journaling and Noting the Process of Noting the Process:

JULY 7
WEDNESDAY, 8:00 PM EDT

SETTING IT WRITE:
Journal Keeping for Healing, Sanity, Clarity & Wisdom
A Spirit Support Skills Teleseminar with Mama Donna Henes, Urban Shaman

Learn how to track and express your innermost feelings, ideas, plans, goals, ambitions, aspirations and experiences, and turn them into your own psychic support system.

$25
$60. if you register for all 3 teleclasses in the series
For information:
http://donnahenes.net/pages/teleseminars.shtml
 

AUGUST 4
WEDNESDAY, 8:00 PM EDT

NOTING THE PROCESS OF THE NOTING THE PROCESS:
Keeping Track of Your Transformation
A Spirit Support Skills teleseminar with Mama Donna Henes, Urban Shaman

Learn how to recognize, organize and make sense of the patterns created by the signs, symbols, omens, and instinctual messages from your personal inner guidance so that they can help you create a more meaningful, effective and satisfactory life.

$25
$60. if you register for all 3 teleclasses in the series
For information:
http://donnahenes.net/pages/teleseminars.shtml

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The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to thequeenofmyself@aol.com.