Circulating My Preoccupations

Visual Journal 21/05

I’ve mentioned before how I’ve been granted a scholarship to participate in Susannah Conway’s Journal Love Club for a whole year.

It’s a gift that just keeps on giving. I get a prompt everyday, a growing community on Mighty Networks, people sharing practice and a live zoom call once a month.

Usually, I start my day with my visual journal practice as above and then by the time I’ve done that the prompt from Journal Love Club has come through so I can continue and respond to that.

Journal Love Club Prompt 21/05

In the past, I’d be on my case for using so many different journals. I would also get confused by what went where and then lose stuff, not knowing where to find the gems. Now, I’m much more of a mind that if I’m showing up to the page, at all or once or twice or more, it’s all a win.

The common denominator between all these different journals is me. And this practice helps me along on this journey of getting back to me. The core me. The authentic me.

After today’s prompt which asked me to look over my recent journal entries to pull out themes; what’s been grabbing my attention, this entry came out:

Nothing is a surprise when I look back and see what issues and ideas keep circulating the journal pages.


Identity, fear, never being good enough.

But then I started to switch things up in response to this prompt.
I’ll never to good enough in a system which is stacked against me.
In a system wired for us to aim for perfection even when we know it doesn’t exist.
But more so, if it did exist it wouldn’t be available to me anyway.

So knowing this I surrender. I let go. Not give up, but surrender means not allowing time and energy to strive for this, to even fight it.
But to use this energy and channel it into the things that are important to me. Not even taking into account the system, the white gaze but making my audience that little Black girl inside and the one in my house now.

And maybe through this I can heal as well as be a better mother to myself and my daughter.

That feels good, that feels better.”

Lunar Wisdom

Hypnotised by the moon … I found the more I dwelt with her, the more I became conscious of her tides, and all my life began to move with them. – Dion Fortune

It was a full moon last night. A beautiful sight in a clear dark sky.
I’ve taken to paying more attention to the moon’s rhythms recently. Starting to believe in Her wisdom as well as becoming connected to her as a woman.

For example, the phrases of the moon are matched each month by a woman’s bodily functions. Just as the moon is full, my womb waxes full and then wanes, empties with each menstrual bleed, just as the moon wanes to nothing, to the dark moon, when She is no longer visible.

Before, I never really knew anything about a woman’s natural connection to the moon. There’s energy and power to be enjoyed if we as woman chose to use Her light as a indicator of when to be in action and when to be still. When to gather and when to release. Once we align ourselves with Her natural energy and movements, things could start to flow much more easily within our individual lives.

So I’m finding out through my recent readings, and I look forward to learning more about lunar wisdom, lunar phases as well as lunar rituals and becoming more in touch with my own natural rhythms.