Journaling in the park with my Travelers Notebook.
Quotes and poems always are the perfect go tos for journaling. I use them, in full, or just lines in my journals all the time. I wanted to share 2 favorites with you, and a free printable (below).
The other day I was journaling in a local park with a friend, and he had a quote that was given to him, that he shared with me. I was engulfed in the words immediately. I recognized them, for I have read them before, many many years ago in her book A Return to Love. I am in such a different place, I am such a different person from when I read it, I am thinking of rereading it again in the near future. Here are the words:
Our Deepest Fear
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened
about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure
around you.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is
within us.
It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone.
And as we let our light shine,
we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson
It also reminded me that last year, someone I was close to at the time, shared a Mary Oliver poem with me that spoke so deeply with me. The poem was "The Journey". The words still resonate with me now:
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice – – –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations – – –
though their melancholy
was terrible. It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do – – – determined to save
the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver
A while back I decided to make a print of it on a photo I took to frame for my house. It is 8x10, and wanted to share it with you here. Click the image above, or HERE to down load a printable PDF version.
