First posted on July 2, 2012
from my journal, written in March 1976
Today I felt very depressed and sick. The old fear came back, fear of the ringing phone, of the sun and wind outside. I went looking for an escapist book, but could not find one. So I decided to read my journal — have been toying with the idea of asking a friend to read it, but keep thinking it’s childish and valueless and stupid. So I read the Mimi journal, Apollo’s book, everything typed up to the pages in Ondine. It was staggering! I have returned to the center of myself. The insights in those pages! The truths that I am now coming to believe completely that are expressed as intuitions even as far back as the Mimi diary. The description of Don Quixote as the man trying to make the vision live in the world, and the recognition of MYSELF as the one I was talking about.
I used to find it discouraging that I had expressed things so long ago that I am still struggling to believe, to make real in the world. Now I find it an incredible proof of my powerful intuition, which has always seen the cosmic truths, even when my intellectual and reasoning self couldn’t. And a sudden strong sense of myself, not as a linear life in time, but as an expanding sphere, continually expanding on all fronts and continuously returning to center. The journal is center, because it is the place where I come in touch with my “past” self, the effort of my life is not to write the journal but to learn how to read it.
I wanted to post this again because I have recently become aware of its truth. “Not to write the journal but to learn how to read it.” That’s pretty much what this project has become: I’m reading through my journal to find out who I am, and posting things I think are significant in this blog. This time I saw more in this journal entry than I did when I posted it in 2012.
Erica periodically reminds me that I saw this work with my journal as the work I needed to be doing here at Kendal. This turned out to be especially true when it became apparent that I would no longer be able to teach Sacred Circle Dance at Neskaya.
By the way, my names for my journals, like “Ondine,” were in imitation of Anaïs Nin. See Journal Background for more information.