I have been getting back into my journaling practice with the addition of bullet journaling which has really helped me organize and prioritize my days. Getting back into opening my journal to organize my time has had a great side effect- I have been visual journaling again.
I have been reading and reading and collecting words from activists and writers and artists whose work circles in and out and around the political, and specifically environmental issues. This is my path and so I look for guidance. This journal entry contains the words from Wendell Berry’s A Poem of Hope. And the image is a photo I took when I was hiking in the mountains of North Carolina about a year or so ago.
The words read:
Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up
From the pages of books and from your own heart.
Be still and listen to the voices that belong
To the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.
There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,
By which it speaks for itself and no other.
BUT please, please go to Americans Who Tell the Truth: Models of Courageous Citizenship to read the full poem. BUT I actually think that it’s best to read the poem in the context of his book Leavings to fully appreciate his call to love and knowledge of place which then should move one to take a stand towards activism.
Gorgeous! I haven’t read Wendell Berry yet. Or if I did it was long ago. I haven’t done visual journaling for quite some time but it’s been calling to me. This is inspiration on many fronts.
I hadn’t been visual journaling for a long time either. ever since my journals were destroyed in the flood we experienced…it was actually too painful for me. But now, 4 years later, I’m returning and it feels good. I hope you get back to it as well and it is as soothing for you as it has been for me.