365 Journal Project: The Entries

Note about the entries: The images come together first.  The words are the last things to be added.

Entry #2: January 1, 2011 "Love More"  

New Year's Day brought up a desire to love more in 2011.  To let my Buddha nature shine through.  "Love More" is my mantra for the year.

"Love and be bold;

for he that dies hath these for wings

to rise from earth to heaven."

-Michelangelo Buonarroti

Entry #3: January 2, 2011 "The Sweetness is Inside"

Sweet, sweet meditation!  

"What is the way out?

I believe, to put oneself completely

in the hands of higher powers,

to be happy to be silent."

Entry #4 January 3, 2011 "Who are You?" 

"Will you never perceive what you are,
or for what you were born,
or for what purpose you are admitted
to behold this spectacle?"

Entry #5  January 4, 2011 "Letting Go"
"Sometimes, by letting go we allow
some grace to enter by another channel,
which all our mental efforts have 
hitherto kept out."
-Rodney Collin

Entry #6  January 5, 2011 "Rooted"
This is where the journal process started to change a bit.  More layers, less drawing and writing.  The images are starting to speak to my heart, and I am listening.


"Accept what the present brings and live in that.
If one is not established in the present 
then one is nowhere and 
nothing is possible."
-Rodney Collin

Entry #7 January 6, 2011 "Duality"
This entry started with the image on the right.  A photo taken in 1968 that appeared in National Geographic magazine.  It's a woman in a beautiful saffron colored burqa carrying two caged birds on her head.  The birds in the cage almost forms an odd smiley face.  The image has hope.


"And so the mystery remains
that we have sorrow so we can understand joy;
failure so we can recognize success;
pain so we can relish pleasure.


Somehow, built into the mystery
of this duality in life
is a blueprint for growth that has the potential
for shaping us into the people
who God wants us to be."
-Antoinette Bosco

Entry #8  January 7, 2011 "Consciousness"


"When you then take a deep breath
and rise above the cares
of the world in an hour of leisure, you will
surely win the right frame of mind
to face devoutly
what is above us, with reverence,
seeing in all events the manifestations
of a higher guidance."
-J.W. Von Goethe

Entry #9 January 8, 2011 "Interconnected"

Entry #10 January 9, 2011"Zen"
I've been practicing zazen (Zen meditation) for about four years now  It has,  without a doubt, transformed my life.  Different meditation practices work for different people. Find one that works for you.  Do it daily for three months and see how you feel.  You won't stop :) Zen and I go together like peanut butter and honey-so delicious!

"One must find something in himself
that longs above everything to grow,
to struggle,
to wake up."
-Rodney Collin

Entry #11  January 10, 2011 "Snow Day"
Ahhh, delicious snow day!  A treat in these parts.  As the snow fell softly outside and the day lay open before me, I enjoyed a day of total freedom.  This is one of my favorites for the warm and fuzzy feelings it produces.

"Nowhere, my love, can there be a world
but within us.
Our life passes through changing
and ever fainter dwindles
the external."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

Entry #12  January "Letter To Myself"
Lots of stuff came up my meditation on this day.  It unfolded itself like a letter.

"We are not to lead a life that is not tested."
-Epictetus

Entry #13 January 12, 2011 "Insist on Yourself"

"To be nobody
but yourself in a world
that's doing its best to make you
somebody else,
is to fight the hardest battle
you are ever going to fight.
Never stop fighting."
-e.e. cummings

Entry #14 January 13, 2011 "Comfort"
Being rooted, stable, grounded and comfortable keeps coming up (first chakra anyone?).  Must be all this cold weather!

"It is not for show that our soul
must enact its part;
it is at home, within us,
where no eyes penetrate
but our own."
-Michel Montaigne

Entry #15 "This Physical Body"

"The physical body was given man by
Nature.
Somewhere exists the original Divine spark
launched from God
and which, re-found,
will be his conscious spirit."
-Rodney Collin

Entry #16 "Impermanence"
All things must pass. This moment.  This thought.  This fear.  This.

"Night is drawing nigh.
For all that has been-Thanks!
To all that shall be-Yes!"
-Dag Hammarskjold