10/06/24
listening to: animal instinct - the cranberries
i think i haven't mentioned on here my plans to pray the woodstock novena this year. well, i am! it's day three. i've prayed with the way of the rose before but during the usual rolling 54 day "novena", dividing up the different mysteries for different days. i have also prayed the full mysteries previously as well, just not for nine days straight. could be interesting, especially since this one is recommended to be said in the intention for the recently departed, which - applicable. so far i'm surprised at how easy it is to go on for an hour.
i did make it a little more interesting for myself - i'm treating it as an opportunity to investigate my spiritual/magical life in general, and whether using a magic journal helps rejuvenate it. for over a year i haven't been writing in my magic journal. i had completely switched to fountain pens as more sustainable writing implements, sick of throwing out so much plastic in the form of fineliners, gel pens etc. but my notebook is a moleskin, famously bad at taking real ink. and so it kind of fell to the wayside and my magical practice with it. nowhere to explore ideas, record inspirations and workings in progress. (well, it was the pen-thing, and the fact that i was trying to have Just One Notebook to record All The Things. which could also have worked as a magical journal if i hadn't designated One Page Per Day for every possible thing. no wiggle room in the current Daily Journal because it specifically has 368pages, but next year i'm definitely doing like... a normal rolling journal, as people do).
so for the novena i've made a little section, where each day has its reading copied down, space for a tarot card commentary on the text, and a full page for interesting thoughts that came to me during the 1h of prayer. it's very engaging and makes me think i do need to be actively working in a magical journal again. i'll do my best with regular pens for the remainder of this moleskine/this year - whichever happens first, and then starting next year i'll do the One Journal For All The Things. (although - counterpoint: it's easier to keep old magical journals to flip back through, than journals that hold All The Things, so much space pointlessly taken up by irrelevant stuff... guess i'll still have to think about it).
