Gratitude Mandala, Dymo LabelWriter 1895, Portfolio Brand Water-Soluble Oil Pastels, Prang Metallic Markers, Tul Permanent Markers, Black Sharpie, Crayola Colored Pencils, BlackBerry Shots, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 2010, photo © 2010 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Inspired by ybonesy’s journal post (This Thanksgiving Weekend, Make A Gratitude Journal), and with a little Holiday time on my hands, I took a different approach to my yearly Gratitude List. I still used the alphabet as a jumping off place. But instead of making a vertical list, I wound around the first page of the journal I’ll be using for my Journal Practice 2011. Then took the major categories of that list and incorporated them into a November mandala.
I always feel full and abundant after making a Gratitude List. The passing of time can be difficult, scary, life-threatening. But remembering what I am grateful for eases whatever pain I have felt. It tips the balance.
I want to move into the New Year giving thanks. Christening a new journal with a Gratitude list comes from a place of wholeness, leaving feelings of scarcity and lack in the dust!
Thanks for the inspiration, ybonesy. And I have so much gratitude for our red Ravine readers. I hope everyone is having a good Thanksgiving weekend.
-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, November 28th, 2010
-related to posts: The ABC’s Of A Prosperous 2008 – Gratitude, Feelin’ Down For The Holidays? Make A Gratitude List, A Simple Gratitude List, Reflection — Through The Looking Glass, I Am Grateful For The Alphabet 😉, Coloring Mandalas, On Providence, Old Journals, & Thoreau
And I am grateful for you – for your presence in my life and for your companionship doing the 2011 journal.
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Jude, thank you. Same to you. Looking forward to the journal practice in 2011. I hope your Thanksgiving was everything you wanted it to be. Relaxing here in Minnesota. Except for the shoveling I did today. It got up to 44 degrees, so I took advantage of it to scrape off the roof and chip remaining ice off the deck. What a beautiful sunset.
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What a gorgeous mandala, QM! I love how you incorporated your Dymo LabelWriter. I wish I had one. Where did you get yours?
I also like what you did with the first page of your journal. I hope you might do a post about this new practice, as I’d like to hear more about how you plan to use it and how it might differ from doing, say, Writing Practice each day in the journal. Or maybe it is similar.
Do you sometimes wonder about the terminology, btw, between “journal,” “diary,” and “notebook”? I do sometimes, although I’ve come to use the three interchangeably.
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yb, thank you! I had a lot of fun doing it. The Dymo LabelWriter…I’ve had it for years and years. I love those things. You might be able to still get one online. I found that I still had green, orange, and purple plastic tape for it, too. I really like using retro text items.
I hope to do a post on the Journal Practice 2011. It was inspired by a bunch of May Sarton books I read in early Fall. Or was it late Summer? I’ve been thinking about it lately and I think the journal entries will be dated, then have text lines, whatever strikes me for that day. But I also want to leave room for visual items I might want to add. I don’t want to always have to add something visual. Just want to leave room for that. Or for a small sketch. Something like that.
I’m going to think about the difference between journal and dairy. I haven’t looked them up to see what the formal definitions are. But now that you mention it, I want to. They are common words, yet the meanings are different to me. Diary implies chronological for me. Journal, more free-form. Don’t know if that’s true though. What do you think?
My notebooks are where I do Writing Practice which, to me, isn’t like a journal or a dairy. In many ways the practices are richer than journals I did in the past. But now that I’ve done Writing Practice for somewhere close to 10 years, I feel like my journals will reflect that practice. Not sure yet though. We shall see!
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I am thankful for the sharing of the Gratitude Mala Idea. I have started drawing Malas two months ago love to try out new ideas!
Thank you.
Spaz.
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I like the circular look for your alphabet gratitude list. I have my journal for the 2011 practice we’re all doing…I may follow your lead.
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I love the mandala of gratitude. I began my gratitude journal the day after Thanksgiving and have set the goal of adding at least three things to it every day. I’m also challenging myself to make it more artistic with images, rather than my comfort zone of words. I think this practice really makes each day like a treasure hunt and it is always the simple things that seem to make me happy when i put them down…a cup of coffee with a friend, a patch of blue sky, Xmas lights, two crows on a tree top visiting in the dawn.
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Thank you, Spaz. It’s a great practice. Good luck with all of your future mandalas.
Teri, that sounds great. Wanted to do something different this year. Circles seemed to make sense. And a good way to start a new practice. The alphabet works for me as a structure. I get to look at cool fonts in the process. Looking forward to the Journal Practice.
Teresa, that’s so cool that you started a Gratitude Journal Thanksgiving weekend. Three seems like a doable number. I feel the same way that you do — the simple things each day are the ones that make me smile. Having a practice like that keeps simple in the forefront. So much to be thankful for! Thanks for sharing.
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ybonesy, the snow’s back on red Ravine! It always surprises me on December 1st when it starts snowing in the Ravine again. The virtual Snow always makes me smile. 8)
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The mandala is beautiful. I’ve made a couple throughout the years and have found it very rewarding but it has been awhile now.
I keep meaning to do a gratitude list or journal but it’s one of those things that I think of doing when I am so down that I don’t see what I have to be thankful for. I think I need to do it regardless of my emotional state. These months especially I am very down. I need to do this.
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Corina, thank you. I know what you mean about being down this time of year. I have felt that way in the past. A little about the disappearing light, a little about the Holidays. So many things can come up this time of year, so many buttons can get pushed. I wish you well as you navigate through the Winter months. I hope it works out with your Gratitude list or mandala or journal. Maybe the mandala is a good way to break in. It was freeing to incorporate the list into the journal. I really didn’t want to make another list this year. So it helped me to get past that block. I appreciate you stopping by.
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