After a meeting at the church, a friend and I went out to lunch, after all Chinese New Year is happening, and the Mandarin on Hunt Club was having a special Chinese New Year Buffet, offering dim sum, and other special dishes. for the celebration. Having indulged ourselves in the many dishes, and the array of desserts offered, we headed back to the church so my friend could get her car.
A stop along the way, was for me a small bonanza of free books. Now that I’m happily working on recycling books, into my own personal versions of “junk journals” I picked out books by size and age. I was not interested in the content but rather the size .. quality of paper was also important but I was going to be using gesso or acrylic paints to change them anyway.
I was particularly drawn to this little 4x 6 book, it was nicely bound and had enough pages for me to get “junk” look to go with my other projects. I had no intention of doing any work on the books when I got home, I planned on just putting them aside for another day.
PL Precept #7 Everything exists in Relativity
PL Precept #15 All is a Mirror
When I got in, the little book fell to the floor, I bent down to retrieve it and saw handwriting in it. I glanced at the writing and realized that it was someone’s journal. The pages were highlighted, small pencil notations were on almost every second page. Someone had read and re read the book from cover to cover. In the back I saw that this particular book was one obtained at a conference on the theme of the book. There was a page with the 12 steps (12 step program) and a few other pages, with goals and objectives etc.
Needless to say, it was like looking into someone’s private, very private thoughts. The person had even identified the book, in case of loss, name and address labels were prominent on both back and front covers. The book was not current. I wondered how it had come to be in a pile of books being given away, left out as garbage at a thrift shop.
Without further thought, I found myself searching for papers, cuttings and colours to depersonalize the book, I removed the labels and then began to paint and glue.
Pl Precept # 19 Begin Once you Perceive
The transformation will not happen overnight, these journals take sometimes years to complete. IF EVER….. that is just the nature of the journals. Unless you are doing a particular theme for a give away, or to share .. They are ongoing projects, and become part of your “personal” inventory of treasures
When I told my friend about the find, she asked if the person had achieved their goal.. I didn’t have the answer, it would have meant that I would have had to read her/his thoughts and try to know his/her mind. Some artistic expressions are to share, others… are for one’s own pleasure.
There are printed pages of the book, that I will leave as is, there are thoughts in there that I can reflect on when I visit the journal from time to time. Like sharing with a friend.
I love sharing with a friend, and today I made a new one. how beautiful is that.
Oyashikiri
I was content to simply peak silently into the little world I’d come across. Hoping that by standing very still, I’d catch a glimpse of another wandering nomad, or furry critter going about its day.
I had thought of going to New York city for the Perfect Liberty Thanksgiving service this month. The thought of seeing NY again, I’ve been away from some time, actually a LONG time, so close to the Chinese New Year, a side trip down to Chinatown would have been a real treat.
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