Last month this was my practice.

Straight forward writing on lined paper with a sticker here and there. I felt the need to get things out of me. I felt the need to get distractions out of the way and write from the heart.

Each day I turned up and completed three pages of long hand writing. Some days more. There was an outpouring. Leaning back into Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages helped.

This morning, the first day of April, this happened.

My energies shifted. I wasn’t feeling the lined pages, black ink journaling this morning. I was feeling the need to slow down and wait for the paint to dry kind of feeling.

Yes Spring is here. And I’m embarking on a poetry challenge as well as my travels. But my body is saying there is wisdom to be gleamed if you take the time and space, now this morning, to slow down and listen.

So I listened. I have to slow down as I cover one page/ one spread at a time with paint to conceal the text underneath. Maybe still bleeding through in parts.

While I wait for the paint to dry, I search for inspiration in images and texts. I don’t have any agenda and I don’t feel any frenzied feelings to get this done and done quick.

I’m taking my time because I have time to slow down, breathe, enjoying the grey light, the sweet vanilla latte, the birds making nests.

Thoughts come and go. Fleeting. And I don’t worry. If I need to capture them, they’ll come back around. The hairs on my forearm feel the draught coming in through the open curtains. Or is it from the open window in the kitchen?

My forefinger twists strands of hair into locks as I flick through a magazine, looking for images, text and colour. I take another sip of coffee, now cold because time has been slipping by.

Not away. As time spent in my creative process is time needed not wasted. It’s time I’m grateful for. But I can only mark this time, this gratitude, these feelings and sensations, when I slow down and be present.

Visual journaling, altered book or not, gifts me the luxury, no the necessity, of slowing down and {BEING}. Thank you x