TOOLS WITH HEART NEWSLETTER
AUTUMN - SEASON OF TRANSITION
"This is a time of transition, when earth energy inspires us to enfold, protect, layer and wrap. It reminds us of the value of hearth and home as we focus inside awhile and prepare our nest for the winter. Autumn brings a renewed sense of purpose and focus to our work."
~A
Season to Journal
Autumn: Season of Transition
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This ceremony allows you to symbolically cleanse your mind of prejudices and old beliefs that keep you from flowing easily into the new season.
You will need:
Thin
writing paper
Pen
Red
candle
Matches
Heat-resistant
bowl
Consider your fears and self-imposed limitations. Be as irrational as you like. Write all of your feelings down on paper.
Light your red candle. Set the paper on fire! Drop it into the bowl. Watch it evaporate into thin air. Fire is transformative. See your fears disappear! Gather the remaining ashes and scatter them in the wind, away from your home.
This ceremony was chosen from the Season to Journal, Autumn: Season of Transition Other ceremonies and exercises include: Autumn Skin Nourishing Snack, The Weeping Ritual, Center of the Year Meditation and more plus plenty of journal paper for you to enter your own transitions, dreams, questions and musings marking nature's changes as well as your own.
Burning Old Beliefs is one of our Ceremony Cards, available as a set or as an insert for the Woman's Book of Changes.
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In the past, many avid journal keepers and diarists were world explorers writing historical accounts, memoirs and poetry. You can also find journal entries from composers like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Richard Rogers as well as journal notes of Darwin, Kafka and Kierkegaard. Famous women journal keepers include Anne Frank, Sylvia Plath, Anais Nin, May Sarton, Virginia Woolf and Frida Kahlo. There are as many reasons and writing styles as there are writers, and you can read entries, often in their own handwriting by visiting libraries, looking on-line and reading books written from their journals.
I have discovered an anthology of the world's greatest diarists. It is the most wide-ranging and comprehensive ever compiled. It is called The Assassin's Cloak and here is a description:
Structured as a book of days, with multiple entries from over 170 different diarists, the scope of The Assassin's Cloak is peerless and international. The book ranges over the centuries, with several diary excerpts for every day of the year. We meet cads and charmers, sailors and psychopaths, rock stars and prima ballerinas, gossips, drunks, snobs, lechers and lovers. There is humor and tragedy, history and the humdrum, often recorded on the same day or in the same entry.
Vaslav Nijinsky was one of the greatest male dancers of the Western world in the early l900's. As a member of Ballet Russes, he brought intense athleticism and an actor's skill for characterization to the stage. At the height of his career, this world-renowned dancer begins to go insane. Nijinsky wrote his diary in six weeks, a rare first-person account of a brilliant artist's mental demise; the book - "The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky: Unexpurgated Edition"
Another great resource is The Diary Junction, a Web site for those interested in historical and literary diaries and diarists. Over 500 diarists are listed with biographical details and texts of or about the diaries. Some fascinating people are Che Guevara, Brian Eno, Andy Warhol, Joseph Campbell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Washington, Thomas Merton and Salvador Dali. Go to: www.pikle.demon.co.uk/diaryjunction.html
"Without words, without writing and without books, there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity."
~Hermann Hesse
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Other people's diaries and biographies make fascinating reading, and if someone found your journal, they may find yours soÚso what is your story? It is worth crafting. It is worth telling. It is necessary to tell, otherwise the relationship with your partner, the relationship with your family, the relationship with your community isn't complete. The world doesn't have the full picture.
Your story is your truth. Your story is dynamic because you are alive with possibility, with the ability to interpret, to decide, to choose how it will unfold. There is a blueprint, a hand of cards, a code, a calling. How will you interpret and act upon it? How will you make yourself known?
Look for clues Ï hear your conversations. What books are you reading? Who are your sacred contracts with? What are you family issues? What patterns, symbols and patterns show up in your environment, your personality and your dreams?
Dig in. Collect your thoughts. Get real. Let go. Scan your journal. Make your mark. Use our Rage Pages, Blue Notes, Worry Lines, Passion Sheets or Autumn Pages.
"The good life is justified by the good story. And the good life story is one of the most important gifts we can ever offer each other. Society has a stake in the stories we make. From that standpoint, each of us has a responsibility to live a myth that enhances the world we live in."
~Dan P. McAdams, Stories We Live By
Life-Story Timeline
One of the tools included in our Woman's Book of Changes is a Life-Story Timeline chart where you can begin to track your life story.
Begin by listing as many significant events you can recall. The story of your life can be told in many different ways depending on what events you focus on as well as the kind of future you think it is leading to. You can choose which memories are significant. Your timeline can be marked by life-changing events, high and low emotional periods or times spent with important teachers or relationships Ï chapters of your life.
You will have the chance to ask yourself what your future will look like based on what your have done or felt in the past. Are your fears, intentions and values leading a path toward future events and can you alter or choose a different outcome? It is an ever-changing dynamic, especially if you stand still in the expanded present for perspective on the past and future.
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What insight have you gleaned from your past that will affect your future? This could be a career move, an ideal relationship, an attitude adjustment or you tell us.
Send your thoughts to: felice@toolswithheart.com
All respondents will receive a mood refill of your choice Ï Rage Pages, Blue Notes, Worry Lines, Passion Sheets or Autumn Pages.
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When I rise up, let me rise up joyful - like a bird When I fall, let me fall without regret - like a leaf
~Wendell Berry
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