Autumn Means It’s Theme Time

I have to take a brief break from the Creative Journaling series because autumn is near.  The leaves are showing tiny spots of color, and the chrysanthemums and sedum are in bud.  This morning I saw flocks of birds stripping the berries off the honeysuckle.  In my world, that means it is time for me to start my annual search for an idea for the next year’s theme.

I do this every year, and it is fraught with a sense of frustration and a vague feeling of upset, anxiety, like being homeless.  It’s understandable, because I’ve been quite at home with the current year’s theme (“Windows”), and now I have to move myself on to a new challenge, like a child, moving from a comfortable grade to a whole new class room, with so many unknowns.

I spoke some months before about themes in journaling.  Good themes are hard to find because there are so many choices, and at the same time they have to be appropriate to the individual person and where I feel I am inside at the present time.  They should be broad enough to offer a range of new ideas and accommodate new situations, yet just narrow enough in focus to offer new insights. 

And there is a practical problem, too.  In the past, I have kept the.New theme Candidates in a list at the end of my current journal – not a good idea, I’ve found from bitter experience, because I have to go back through at least thirty old journals as I consider previous good ideas, but not yet used.  This year, I’m smarter – I took a small miscellaneous note pad, and have transferred all my theme ideas into it.  It was tedious, but necessary.  So, from now on, all I have to do is add any brilliant new ideas to my on-going theme list in the “Journaling Theme Book.”  (Too soon old, too late smart!) 

However, with that in mind I thought I would share some theme topics I’ve considered, as they might spark ideas.  So here we go…

Morning Songs                         Oasis

Foot Steps                               Well-Lived

Connections                             Then & Now

Fear Not                                  Reflections

Left-Overs                               Sights Unseen

Sign Language                          Bricolage

Patchwork                                Trick of Light

Mind’s Eye                               Lost & Found

No Matter                                Inside Out

Pathway                                   Outward Bound

Breathless                                 Cracks

At that point, everything suddenly fell together.  I felt relieved, satisfied, happy again, as I set up and customized my journal for the new year, 2015.  I found my theme by remembering a quotation I had run into earlier this year.  It is the refrain of a lyric/poem by Leonard Cohen, called “Anthem.”  (see below.).  But it suddenly flashed new possibilities for me.- not for things broken, but for the new light which shows through and becomes possible, the new insights, which emerge because of them.  I think, too, it makes a good “next step,” from Windows to all the new kinds of light, of understanding which hopefully will become visible to me. 

Some Words of Encouragement:

·        “Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering;

There’s a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.”  [“Anthem” – Leonard Cohen]

·        “Perfection is for the next world.” [Shoghi Effendi]

·         “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” [Plato]

More Themes to Explore

To carry on a bit about themes. 

     Whenever I think of a good theme, I write it on my secret list of theme ideas – a good idea should never be lost!  About October of each year, I start to think about the next year’s theme.  I look at the list for suggestions, and by Thanksgiving, depending on my mood and current life interests, probably I have narrowed my thinking down to about 5 or so topics.  However, life can change quickly, so I don’t lock the final choice down until the last minute, like during Christmas week (or even New Year’s Eve!). 

     Simultaneously, in October, I start looking for next year’s journal books.  They need to be bound (not spiral or ring notebooks), a different color than the previous year, so that it is easy to locate visually on the shelf, and have enough pages to see me through the next year.  This last means more that a-page-a day, since I need extra room for sketches, drawings, quotations,  clippings, birthday cards, book lists, color samples, etc., as well as room for my customized pages (title page, theme description page, end-of-month summary/divider page, index at the back, pocket page(s), and possible tracking lists.  This can go beyond 400 pages, and few journal books contain that many, and if they do, they can be unwieldy to handle.  In such cases, my solution is to buy extra volumes to handle the “spill-over,” anywhere from 1-4 volumes total, based on the number of pages per volume.  If there are multiple volumes for a year (and there usually are), they will be designated by the year and the addition of A, B, C, D, as appropriate (ex:  “2009-A”).  Sometimes it’s nice to start the next volume when the seasons change, and if there are a few “blank pages” left behind and  not used, that is not all bad because there’s still room to add something which turns up later.

     The time between the purchases in October and December is used to customize the exterior as well as interior of the volumes, so that they become a clearly related set on the shelf.  On the outside, in addition to a different color, both the front cover and spine of the journals have the year, volume, and a short theme-phrase clearly written.

     It all comes together, at the latest, on New Year’s Eve.  That’s when I make the commitment on theme, add it to all the previously prepared journals (front, spine, and title page), and explain on the theme page inside what the theme is intended to cover for the up-coming year, knowing that there can be surprises to come.

Some Theme Ideas for Inspiration

“Backyard Voices”                               “Gate-Keepers”

“I Will Never … “                                “Point of Balance”

“Pocket Poems”                                   “Sign Language”

“Persistence of Vision”                           “On the Edge”

Every Day Well-Lived”                          “Bricolage”

“No Man is an Island”                          “Boomerang”

“Where Are They Now?”                     “Vision Keeper”

“Fear Not”                                           “Breathless”

“Reflections”                                         “Sum of the Parts”

“Believe”                                              “To Be & To Have”

“A company of … “                              “Carpe Diem”

“Forever Moments”                              “Patchworks”

“Transformations”                                 “Circle of … “

“Accidental Discoveries”                       “Heart’s Garden”

“Left-Overs”                                        “Story Boxes”

“White” (or any other color)                  “Trick of Light

“A Piece of String”                               “Living Trust”

“The Wisdom of … “                            “The Mind’s Eye”

“No Matter”                                         “Dangers & Risks”

“Sights Unseen”                                    “Lost & Found”

Some Words of Encouragement:

·        “A house without books is like a room without windows.”  [Horace Mann]

·        “’Who says you cannot hold the moon in your hand? Tonight when the stars come out and the moon rises in the sky, look outside your window, then raise your hand and position your fingers about the disk of light.” There you go – that was easy.” [Vera Nazarian]

·        “The reality of the creative process is that it often requires persistence, the ability to stick with a process until it makes sense.” [Jonah Lehrer, “Imagine,” p. 56]

·        “The mind is its own place.” [Louise Penney, “A Rule Against Murder,” p. 303]

·        “Often in life you get what you give.” [Anonymous]

A Theme for the Year

I discovered journaling themes almost by accident.  It was in December 2000, and the start not only of a new year, but a new century.  I wanted to do something different, off the beaten track, so I decided to select a theme for my journaling during the coming year.  What I didn’t expect, was that theme selection itself can be a tough challenge.  There’s the whole world of topics to select from, and which one would I be willing to take on for the next 365 days?  And what was the degree of commitment?  What might sustain interest for a year?  It would have to be broad enough to provide fodder for thought and insights, and yet narrow the focus to a reasonable area.  Should it be a daily commitment?  Maybe that’s a lot to ask, and not leave enough space for other things I want to include.  Weekly?  Maybe.  Monthly?  Probably not often enough.  This theme idea was more difficult than I expected.  And in the midst of all the daily clutter, how could I track on it?  What kind of topic would be of current interest, and yet sustainable in the long view?  What was I really interested in?  Questions.  Questions.  And no one to guide me – this is my own “great idea.” Right.?  So what to do?

     Finally, the answer I landed on was that it didn’t really matter, except to me, so a trial-and-error approach would be a start.  I set myself some guidelines.  Aim for writing something related to the theme (whatever it would be) as often as I felt like it, or not, but at the end of each month, just scan quickly through the month’s entries for theme related material, and make a quick grocery list style summary on how it went.  At least, that would remind me about how the long-range theme project was going.  Maybe take a snapshot of the whole thing at the end of the year?  Yeah, right.

     Well, OK – bashing on – pick that theme!  I picked a simple one, because I love gardens:  “Cycle of the Seasons.”  That was my first theme, and it was January, 2000.  I just sort of talked my way through the weather, the snow storms, the temperatures, the seed catalogues, mapped current flower beds, the visiting birds at the feeders, the rabbit and deer tracks (deer?  In the city?  Oh, my!).  And as spring approached, the melting, the daffodils, the return of the robins, the fledgling dove I rescued.  In summer, the tomatoes from the neighbor’s garden, the picnics, the constant grass mowing, the tornado alerts.  In fall, the house plants brought back inside, the gorgeous colors of the leaves on the sweetgum tree, the first frost.  By the end of the year, it was a treasure trove capturing the cycle of the year 2000.  I love doing it so much, I’ve kept that as an on-going entry in all my journals and never tire of it.  Except, now that I think of it, last year when that tree fell on me! Lucky it was a small one and the many leaves provided a soft cushion all over me!  Ah, that was a lively journal entry for that day!)

     Anyway, a journaling theme project can provide a year of interesting discoveries.  There are so many on my future list, that it is hard to choose each year.  It depends on what I want to focus on at that point in my life.  I’m including a list of journaling themes I’ve actually used.  In a practical sense, they might spark an idea.

Themes to Love, Themes of Challenge

• “Feathering the Nest” (2001)
•  “Diet and Health” (2002)
• “Relation-ships” (2003)
• “Joy and the Spirit” (2004)
• “Morning Song” (2005)
•  “Bountiful Life” (2006)
• “Know Thyself” (2007)
•  “Photo-Analysis” (2008)
•  “Let Deeds be Your Adorning” (2009)
• “Seeking Center” (2010)
• “Deeply Carved” (2011)
• “Leap Year” (2012)
• “Oasis” (2013
• “Windows” (2014)

What I Never Expected to Learn from “Leap Year” (2012):

This is my final journal entry from that year:

     “On January 1, 2012, I expressed the theme of ‘Leap Year’ as ‘a leap, a jump, from one place in time to another; in effect, one condition to another.’ It could be leaps across new spaces, bridges of connections, to be sensitive, to raise consciousness, of risks, exploring the untried, of valuing new connections, of discovery and changes in attitudes, processes, feelings, and ways of thinking and doing.

     It is sobering, to look in retrospect at how deeply this theme impacted upon my life in ways which were unanticipated and profound.  Little did I realize how apt this simple theme was to become for me. 

     The sudden death of my husband on August 18, 2012, was life-changing and immediate in its impact.  In one minute, there was Before and After, wife to widow, togetherness to aloneness, communication to silence.

     For weeks, I could not function beyond weeping for the least sort of reason, and those reasons were always around me.  I couldn’t read.  I couldn’t draw.  I couldn’t sleep.  There was grief, bottled up, but no relief.  I did a lot of walking and became compulsive in housekeeping, and found an outlet by completing plans and projects we had talked about: painting walls, fixing tiles, installing doors, etc.

     And I would find detailed notes on old IBM cards left at key spots around the house, lists which he had made – his ‘To Do’ notes to keep me going.  They are invaluable to me now, as I pick my way along the path into the future.  It’s him, preparing the information he knew would be needed, as I feel my way along from day to day.  They are the products of his research, organized by an orderly mind, and left as acts of love for me to find, sign-posts along the way, as I move into a new year, but no more “leaping” for a while, I pray.  In Memoriam, December 31, 2012.”