 It seems like everyone talks about journaling and many of us adore getting lots of fancy notebooks and pens and doing all these fun creative things in our journals. But I want to talk about the like nitty-gritty whys of journaling in my practice and what it means for me as a journalist. There's that bling. Welcome back to esoteric moment. So I've been keeping a journal since I could write, which was about five years old and I have kept every physical journal I have there in a giant storage bin in my basement. Not the ideal storage location, but it is what it is. I also have all of the journals from my sister and she was a prolific writer, so there are tons of them from her. And I'll get back to why I keep these journals a little bit later. My journaling practice has come and gone depending on what I'm doing in my life and how important it is at that moment. I don't stress about whether I'm writing a lot or whether I'm writing a little. I don't stress about whether it's been a day since I last wrote my journal or whether it's been three months. Journaling is something that I do and I come back to and I take and I get peace of mind knowing that that is the case. And if anything from this video is something that you can take and use in your life, I hope it's that. I hope it's that you recognize that this is a tool that you can come back to. You can change. You can adapt. It's not a high pressure. You have to do it this way or have to do it all the time. We love journaling in the pagan community, but sometimes I think that makes it hard for people to like actually do the practice. So this is my current journal. This is a Midori style cover. I did it myself and it's an A5 size now. So it's not the traditional narrow size. It's basically because I just needed more room for my planner. The first journal notebook in it is a plain paper journal. Most of my journals since college or so have been plain paper, so no lines. What I really love about journaling in this style of paper is that I am not confined by lines. My handwriting can be messy. It can be neat. I can doodle on the pages. I can put down plans. I can box out information. It's really flexible to show what's going on in my mind. If I write a poem, I can do a little border around it. It makes it more unique and personable to me. When I go back and read old journals, it also gives me a clear idea of like what emotional state I was in as I was writing, which allows me to interpret what I'm writing better. For instance, I am definitely someone where when I'm in a really good mood, my handwriting goes up. When I go back and read a journal and I see that I'm being a little harsh in my words but my handwriting is going up, I'm probably still in a good mood or I'm helping change my perspective of this shitty situation into a good one. The nice thing about a Midori style notebook is that I get this beauty, this lovely leather. It just feels really great, but I can like take out the individual notebook and replace it frequently. Lots of people talk about how if a journal is too nice, they're afraid to write in it. And I have the opposite problem. If a journal is too boring, I don't want to write in it. I want my journaling experience to be special. This is part of self-love for me. If I value my thoughts and ideas and words, then I value what I place those things into. I would recommend experimenting. Are you a person who wants a really cheap throwaway journal so you can just dump all of the thoughts? Or are you someone that wants something that's very treasured and sacred in and of itself to put your thoughts in? Try both. When I get ready at the end of the day, I have different triggers that start my nightly routine. After I do all my like face washing and brushing my teeth and stuff, I come into my bedroom for a little bit and I try to write down thoughts from the day. I don't try to go moment by moment. I focus on like one or two things that really have lingered in my brain. Doing this at night allows me to kind of empty my thoughts and to change the way I think about situations. It's really easy to dwell on like, ugh, I wish my boss hadn't done this. It's just so terrible when my boss did this and why was my boss? If I write all those thoughts down in my journal, what I find out is that as I'm writing that story, as I'm talking about the way I was feeling, I am essentially like changing the narrative because as I'm writing it down, I recognize the parts that are just obsession or just me not giving them the benefit of the doubt or just understanding there were other circumstances affecting that person or situation. It's a good tool for self-reflection. I do like to give myself like a time limit. I try to tell myself that I have to sit with my journal for at least five minutes. Some people try giving themselves like you have to write down at least three sentences and that might be really motivating to you. Sometimes it's helpful for me just to do the like internal reflection without lots of writing or I write lots, but if I give myself at least five minutes, I have time to really like sink into the space, do the reflection that's necessary. Journaling is a great time to reflect, obviously, and reflection is important in a spiritual practice like Druidry because without understanding where you've come from or how you are actually interacting with the world, it's very hard for you to continue forward. My Druidry is about living in the present and living in this world and being that touchstone between the other world and higher realms and really integrating all of that together in my present life. Journaling allows me to look to the future. It allows me to examine the past and it allows me to integrate everything into my current moment. And it clears my head in such a way that if I decide it's time to do a specific ritual meditation or other practice like a light body exercise, doing that after I've journaled, which is counter to a lot of people. But after I journal, then gives me space, mental space to just really enjoy that practice and I get more out of. I might write some more reflections down after that practice so I can refer back to it and learn from it then. But I love clearing my head and giving me more space to move into a magical practice or work on a ritual. If I'm finding it really hard to journal lately, I might do some things to craft a more comforting and relaxing space for myself. That would mean lighting a specific candle, giving myself a more magical tea. Sometimes I have a more like magical tea mixture with some herbs that are very important to druids that I like to use if I'm really struggling to get into journaling. And that can be great to have at the bedside. Finally, I love journaling while traveling. It's really great to experience new places and things. And I remember them so much better if I get it down on paper right away. When you're traveling, there's often a lot of downtime where you're like physically traveling in a plane or train or in a bus or something like that. And those occasionally can be great places to actually get your thoughts down from different instances in my life where I've been traveling a lot, like when I lived abroad. Those are definitely where I journal the most. And it's the most interesting journals to go back to because there are all of these things I've just kind of purged on paper and integrating them later and really like looking at the pattern. The overarching pattern of the trip gives me a new perspective. And I I see some of those magical tidbits in my life a little bit easier. I hope you have enjoyed learning a bit more about how I journal in my druid practice. I think it's a really useful tool. Druids seem to really appreciate journals. And it's a great way to really integrate thought. This week's Sapling Shoutout goes out to Verveda. I think that's how you say it. On my Garden Magic video, she asked a question about how gardening can work for people who don't have a green thumb. And I thought that was an excellent question. I wish I would have touched on that in the video. But if you want to see that conversation, definitely head back over to my video for Garden Magic. If you want to be a Sapling Shoutout, definitely tell me about your journaling practices. What did I miss in this video? How do you make a journal magical and sacred for you? And yeah, I just want to hear about your journaling experience. I'm curious. Thanks for watching. And as always, may you find peace in the sacred grove.