messy pages = happy journal

So while at Spiralheart camp, I had a soggy journal with me. (It rained a lot there.) I didn't have my "real" supplies (we were camping) and the goal was not to make art in my journal, the goal was just to get the words down as I needed to remember and express what I was learning.
So the pages from the week are nothing like my journaling practice at home.
And that's fine.
Your journal can do way more than just one thing.
It can allow you to, yes, make nice collagy pictures that you are proud of.
But it can also be there for you to whine, make a mess, cathartic-ally dump, and take whatever you can dish out to it.
It can be there for you to write and write and write words that you want to then rip out and throw away.
It can be there for you to find your truth through a long-winded, meandering path of what you don't mean, then what you might mean, and then what you really do mean.
I like to let my journal be there for me, whatever un-artistic and uninspired mood I happen to be in.
At camp, making nice art was not the goal, self expression was the goal.
So I am sharing what some of the pages look like here, so you too, can make some messes in your journal.
I did bring along a different book to use for camp, and I think I will bring that same book year after year, and let it fill with the one week's words and ideas and learning that happens at this special event for me.
Letting loose really is the goal, letting go of the worry and tightness and concern that the pages look a certain way.
Letting go of lots of extra baggage in life is a good thing.
Control does not equal happiness.
at least, in my book.
and these pages show that, I think:



"I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life." --Jean Michel Basquiat