Spiritual Journaling

“In Japan, it is said that words of the soul reside in a spirit called kotodama or the spirit of words, and the act of speaking words has the power to change the world.”

—MASARU EMOTO, JAPANESE SCIENTIST AND AUTHOR OF THE HIDDEN MESSAGES IN WATER

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will really hurt me.” This is a more honest take on the old rhyme we hear in elementary school. What people say to us and what we say to ourselves holds deep and lasting impact. In his research the Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto discovered that “water exposed to the words ‘Thank you’ formed beautiful geometric crystals, no matter what the language. But water exposed to ‘You fool,’ and other degrading words resulted in obviously broken and deformed crystals.” Many healing practices and traditions throughout history use words such as love, forgiveness, and thank you to restore a person’s health. Words (spoken and thought) hold powerful energy and intentions. Emoto points out that humans are made up of 70 percent water. If words can have such an effect on a glass of water, what do you think they can do to a human being?

Writing down our thoughts, ideas, and dreams gives them more power. Sometimes the power is in releasing the hold a given word has on us. Sometimes in writing our thoughts down we put together something meaningful for ourselves and for the world. The more we write and relate to our own thoughts and words, the more beautiful and strong we become.

“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.”

—GLORIA STEINEM, AMERICAN WRITER AND SOCIAL ACTIVIST

“Every person you meet—and every thing you do in life—is an opportunity to learn something. That’s important to all of us, but most of all to a writer because a writer can use anything.”

—TOM CLANCY, AMERICAN NOVELIST

Off the Page

Take a piece of paper and write on it positive words like Love, Thank-you, I am wonderful. Tape this on your water bottle for the day, or for the week. (If you don’t want others to know what it says, write it in another language, or use a symbol that represents a positive word of power.)

Through my journal writing I respond to my life: My friend dies of cancer; I write her a poem. My brother crashes my first car (when I was twenty-one); I write him a letter in my journal. A beautiful day is spent in the garden with my daughter; it becomes a short story. I come across my old baptismal certificate in a drawer and I write about it… .

I was thirteen. No one in my family had been baptized. A part of me wondered, did this mean that God would not recognize us and that we would be in hell or purgatory for eternity? I decided it would be best to get baptized. Just in case. I chose the Lutheran minister I met on one of the occasional Easter Sundays my mother took us to church. I then attended this church on my own between the ages of ten and fourteen.

I remember one of my favorite sermons: A man was on a cliff. Below him was a drop to his death and above a hungry tiger. He hung there for some time. The tiger would not move, and there was no other way to go but up to the tiger or down to his death. Next to him, a delicious ripe strawberry grew. He reached to eat the strawberry and fell to his death.

“I heard an angel speak last night, And he said, ‘write!’”

—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, ENGLISH POET

The day the minister baptized me, he spoke to me of what it might mean to be baptized. I felt safer somehow; if this was the ticket into the afterlife, now I had it. He walked into the other room to get a bowl of water. “Holy water,” I thought. He came out saying, “It’s just tap water, Julie.” He was trying to teach me the bigger lesson here: you don’t need this to get into heaven, to be close to God, or to know the truth. He graciously baptized me with the tap water and I left that day with my baptismal certificate.

Baptized by tap water. Something about that small, personal ritual worked for me. The minister himself went on to another calling, and I went on to learn about the Quakers’ approach to God, and then I moved on to Buddhism and meditation. Today when I hear a spiritual teacher claim that he, and he alone, holds the key to the kingdom, I remember my baptism.

“It’s just tap water.” But tap water and Jesus, and the Buddha and I, and you, we all come from the same sacred source.

It is such a surprise to me to write first and then do something. I would have quit a class for sure if I hadn’t written a letter to the teacher in my journal first. I got all the tears and sweat on the paper and somehow found the means to finish the class.

“What is important? Living as active a life as possible, meeting all ranks of people, plenty of travel, trying your hand at various kinds of work, keeping your eyes, ears, and mind open, remembering what you observe, reading plenty of good books, and writing every day—simply writing.”

—EDWARD ABBEY, AMERICAN WRITER, ECOLOGY ACTIVIST

Journal writing is awesome. I can say anything to anybody without hurting them. And without pissing them off… . I broke up with my girlfriend of eight months last week and I wish I had written in my journal first. I regret what I did. It can be hard to have writing be the first response—but I bet it will save my butt many times.

—BIRD, AGE 15, WHO PLANS ON USING HIS JOURNALS TO WRITE A SCIENCE-FICTION NOVEL

So many times my young students and readers say, “I don’t know what to believe.” They want to know and live The Truth. I invite them to consider all the spiritual and religious teachings, and even all the self-help books, as pointers, arrows that can point to the truth. Pointers to the truth but not, in and of themselves, The Truth. Even the most sacred of texts and the wisdom contained within them can be understood as “pointers” to truth. When we approach spiritual teachings (whatever tradition they come from) as pointers, we can step into a more real experience with spiritual truth that is inherent in all the world’s religious practices.

How? By realizing that words on paper, or someone else’s interpretation of something sacred, cannot in themselves be The Truth. They are pointing to something, saying, Hey, look—this is the color, the shape, and the texture of this beautiful thing. Now see if you can go find it for yourself. When all the words in the Bible or the Koran or the Bhagavad-Gita are understood as pointers, then each of us can search for the meaning they contain for ourselves. When we use a guidebook on birds, we know the pictures and words are not the actual bird but pointers to what to look for. In the same way, we can look at what a sacred text is directing us toward and go experience the truth for ourselves.

No one owns the truth. Fortunately, it comes in many flavors and designs. We each get to understand and experience truth (and various spiritual teachings) in our own way.

“I started to discover I was being more honest when I was inventing, more truthful when dreaming.”

—MICHAEL ONDAATJE, SRI LANKAN NOVELIST, POET, SCREENWRITER

I do not consider myself as “spiritual.” I don’t really believe in a god or a bigger power. I believe in nature and like to read naturalists like James G. Cowen, Wendell Berry, Aldo Leopold, and John Muir. And they all point to the same thing, that we are just a part of a big web. We are not the center. It points to the truth that we are part of something natural and it is natural law that we must listen to.

This is a story of a young woman who had great faith. A flood hit her town with such severity that all the people were washed away or had only a few hours to save themselves and their belongings. The water quickly reached the stairs leading to this woman’s house. As she sat praying on her porch, some friends came by in a boat and said, “Come on with us, or you’ll drown!” But the woman of faith said no, and rejected her friends’ invitation. “Thank you, but God will surely save me.”

Another hour passed and the young woman prayed and prayed, believing in her heart that God would surely save her. The water had now reached her roof and a boat full of neighbors came by. “The boat is crowded but we have room for you. Come on!” “No,” the young woman replied, “God will save me.”

“Facts can obscure the truth.”

—MAYA ANGELOU, AFRICAN-AMERICAN POET

Not too much later she was on her chimney, still praying, still having faith that God would save her. All that could be seen for miles and miles was green rushing water and a few other chimneys. As she sat there praying in earnest, another boat came by with a stranger in it. “Young lady,” the stranger called, “come in my boat and save yourself!” But again, she resisted and said, “God will save me.”

It was but moments later that this young woman found herself in the presence of God. Angrily she said to God, “ I prayed and prayed for you to save me. I believed in you. I have done good my entire life, and you let me drown!”

And God gently said, “My daughter, I sent you three boats and you rejected them all.”

In school we are often encouraged to let others think for us; we are told how to think and what to think. We are given someone’s ideas of what happened (in our history books) and we are told to take it as fact. Often others confuse their personal interpretation of history as facts. Writers of history books hold a lot of power—educating the minds of millions of Americans. Historians invent history, in many ways. They are given some facts and then they fill in a lot of blanks with their interpretation of the facts. For hundreds of years only white men wrote our history books. How might this influence what goes into these textbooks?

And it is not just in history class that we may find facts and truth being confused. This can even happen in art class or creative writing classes. We are told that the opposite of white is black. We are told where to put commas and how to paint a tree.

“If God lived on earth, people would break out all His windows.”

—HASIDIC SAYING

The way we open up to our truth is by listening to ourselves, and by creating new ideas for ourselves. We open up to our truth by interpreting history, and other lessons, for ourselves. How many of us believe that the opposite of soft is hard? The opposite of black is white? The opposite of up is down? How many of us believe that Columbus discovered America? Do you think Native American history claims that Columbus discovered America? How many know the presidents of the United States but none of the great North American Indian Chiefs?

One of the beautiful things about writing is that we can invent new ideas, meanings, even places that no one has ever traveled to. We can take a look at something from an entirely new perspective. I wonder what the turkey’s take on the Thanksgiving feast would be?

The opposite of blue jeans is a hard cover book; the opposite of a Saturday is detention hall; the opposite of an airport is an inch worm; the opposite of green is lazy.

“Many complain of their looks, but none complain of their brain.”

—YIDDISH PROVERB

The opposite of me is a gambling hall and a deck of cards. The opposite of me is a martini on the rocks and a lonely boring Sunday. The opposite of me is early morning news on TV and a dune buggy. The opposite of me is a blank look, high skinny heels on shoes, good hair days; flat tummies and a blank movie screen. The opposite of me is the shallow end of the pool and sitting quietly in the back row of the room.

Off the Page

It’s likely you have stumbled across a lesson in a class that just doesn’t feel right to you. Trust that feeling and go find another way of looking at that particular time in history—or that particular way to write a paragraph. Or find something that is not factually true in your history book. Write up a report on it and hand it in for extra credit.

Writing this book has had some lasting impact on me. I know how important it is to live what you teach. Okay, I may not follow through on every lesson, all the time. But I do practice the principles I teach… .

So, the other night I was watching Law and Order. It was late and I had already seen this show. Where we live we receive channels only if we are hooked up to a satellite provider. The satellite provider was showing advertisements at the time asking the viewer to “Re-Think TV.” One ad had a child moving through a house, and every time he entered a room, where the pivotal piece of furniture was a television, he would be ten years older. Central to this person’s life was TV. As an additional promotion this satellite provider gave an hour of free service to anyone who got someone else to subscribe. So, my husband and I rethought TV. A few days later, I called the satellite TV company and let them know that we did indeed rethink TV—and had decided to cancel our satellite subscription.

“TV is sometimes accused of encouraging fantasies. Its real problem, though, is that it encourages—enforces, almost—a brute realism. It is anti-Utopian in the extreme. We’re discouraged from thinking that, except for a few new products, there might be a better way of doing things.”

—BILL MCKIBBEN, NATURALIST, AUTHOR OF THE END OF NATURE

It felt wonderful—powerful. A little blank at times—looking for what else to do to relax or pass the evening. I don’t think (ha ha!) that this is what they had in mind. Now my evenings include reading out loud to my daughter, watching the sunset, reading another great book, watching a movie (DVD) without commercials, and, of course, writing in my journal.

“Everything one invents is true.”

—GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH NOVELIST

Rewriting is one of my favorite aspects of the writer’s life. Really! I get to stretch, change, add, and take away from something already written. Here too the writer’s life mirrors my spiritual life. I can also rewrite my life. And you too can rewrite whatever you have already written or created.

You get to rewrite a poem, an idea, a relationship, even a plan that you have already begun to carry out; you too can rewrite your life. It is a big distortion to say that once you make a decision, make a promise, get it down on paper, or have it quoted in an interview you can never, ever change your mind. Or that changing your mind is a sign of weakness and lack of commitment. It is actually a sure sign of self-esteem and personal power. You can change your mind; you can return to something that you have already done and do it over again. In fact at certain times of our lives, our young adult years being one of them, we need to be able to change our minds, rewrite what has already been written, and begin again.

If the worst thing someone can say about me is that I change my mind (a lot) then hurray for me. I’ve come to realize that my mind is one thing I have the right to change as often as I like. This means I get to reconsider my choices, try them on for size and see if they really work for me. I can say yes to something and then realize that, no, this is not for me. And fortunately, I get to rewrite my written words. I cannot think of a book, an article, or even a letter of mine that didn’t involve some rewriting.

How often do we change our minds about relationships? Clothing? Plans? Meals? How about what college to attend, or whether or not to go to college at all? Where to travel and what to do once we get there? I think you get the idea. Changing your mind/rewriting your life is a good skill to have on the path of life, and a necessary skill to have in writing and any creative process.

The great thing about writing is—we can rewrite our histories and our stories!

“Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.”

—A CHARACTER IN A COMEDY SKETCH BY JANE WAGNER

Now rewrite it. Let something different happen. Begin it as it happened and then add some things and take some things away. How would you have liked it to proceed? What would you choose to leave out, or add?

Off the Page

Now take your life—where you are at, right now—and add these themes to it:

a morning sunrise

ending a bad thing

consulting an oracle (see Chapter 3)

a hopeful thought

Notice how your life changes as you bring these themes into it.