It is easier to sail many thousands of miles through cold and storm and cannibals. . . with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being.
-      Henry David Thoreau, in his journal

There is a meaning that is seeking to unfold in each of our lives –- the great experiment of each individual existence. A life has a special power when lived in harmony with its meaning, a power that comes from currents of energy that flow underneath our lives. These feed our creative work. They can connect us with the energy of other people, and be either enhanced or diminished by those connections. There is a spiritual current, one that may, for instance, connect with and be enhanced by the beauty and mystery of wild nature. These currents fuel the meaning that is seeking to unfold in each of our lives. Some of these currents are helpful and some counterproductive. They weave together, and sometimes work against each other, in ways that are not obvious.

The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?
      - Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

Journaling can help us understand our subterranean world. It can help us understand the myths that guide us without us knowing or wanting, the wisdom right on the cusp of our consciousness, the perceptions that dream worlds offer and the messages that come bubbling up when we welcome them. They can help us confront the questions we’d rather avoid. On the other side of those questions lies meaning and quality of life. The belief at the center of this work is that your journey is deeper and richer, and the ultimate destination more meaningful, if it grows out of an intimate connection with your inner world.

Journaling is a search for your deepest truths – truths that you may not be aware of. We search for the thing that is searching for us. Life as art is, in part, a search for harmony with oneself. Journaling and mediation, in combination, are acts of self-love, self-referral and self-healing. Keeping a journal helps us self-balance. By writing about our lives, we clarify our vision of who we are and who we hope to become. By combining journaling with relaxation and meditation, we can pull answers from our subconscious and bring them to the surface where they can be used to shape our life and work.

Nothing was ever so unfamiliar and startling to me as my own thoughts. . . My journal should be the record of my love. I would write in it only of the things I love, my affection for any aspect of the world, what I love to think of. . . I feel ripe for something. . . yet can’t discover what that thing is. I feel fertile merely. It is seed time with me. I have lain fallow long enough.
      - Henry David Thoreau, in his journal

The roots of creativity are in the murky waters of deep imagination. Creativity evolves out of our individuality and the deeper levels of our being. This tends to be a two-way street – creating art both nurtures and is nurtured by our inner world. I know from personal experience that when an artist falls out of harmony with his or her creative work, our relationship with our interior life also deteriorates. We search for the song within, and for the courage to celebrate it.

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual -- become clairvoyant. We reach then into reality. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest vision. At such times there is a song going on within us, a song to which we listen. It fills us with surprise. We marvel at it. We would continue to hear it. But few are capable of holding themselves in the state of listening to their song. Intellectuality steps in and as the song within us is of the utmost sensitiveness, it retires in the presence of the cold, material intellect. It is aristocratic and will not associate itself with the commonplace -- and we fall back and become our ordinary selves. Yet we live in the memory of these songs which in moments of intellectual inadvertence have been possible to us. They are the pinnacles of our experience and it is the desire to express these intimate sensations, this song from within, which motivates the masters of all art.
     - Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

The creative process – creating unique work – work that no one else but you can create, depends upon that song within. The song that gives us our moments of greatest happiness. It retreats from intellectuality; it won’t associate with the commonplace.

Exploring the use of journaling and meditation, in combination, in the making of a home for your song, a place where it feels welcome, is the purpose of this book.

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That’s the introduction in draft form. Scroll down for more on the power of combining journaling and meditation.