Long time Heron Dance readers may remember Archibald Campbell, wild artist and paddler of wild rivers. Back in the waning days of Heron Dance as a print publication, I introduced his fictional private journal. It received the strongest positive response of any of my work over the last thirty years. Other subscribers really disliked it. In fact, more than a few really, really disliked it. I got hate mail. Archibald resulted in many cancelled subscriptions. He was, you see, prone to erotic misadventures with adventurous women, including with his nude models. Perhaps the most controversial of the Heron Dance issues that drew from his journals was The Song I Came To Sing. I may offer it as a Kindle and as a PDF it along with other Heron Dance back issues in 2025.

(Some of my best Archibald Campbell posts result in at least one angry unsubscribe. And favorable responses too. Great posts touch nerves. They aren’t written to make people feel that living in their comfort zone is okay. They generate emotional confusion. They illicit emotional reactions. On the other hand, I don’t want to be provocative just to be provocative. But I am opposed, by nature, to the status quo. I suspect that humanity, in its quest for an ever higher standard of living, is destroying itself.)

Archibald is a little bit of a curmudgeon and, of course, in his journal, he writes for his own personal exploration so he doesn’t need to care about offending others. But, he’s now eighty and wild women and chaos are more or less distant memories. They are still a well to draw from though. His journal entries show journaling in action. He still lives deep in the woods, on the fringes of our culture, and creates out of the quiet and inner turmoil he finds there. He tries to live with gratitude, and mostly succeeds. He has a deep love of nature, of bird song. In his journal, he explores new creative avenues including abstract painting. He reflects on a life fully lived, though one not particularly successful from a financial point of view. He writes about wilderness canoe trips in northern Canada and the art of artists that inspire him. Otherwise, he’s totally disillusioned with the art world, with the fakery and pretentiousness of galleries and dealers. He has a few close friends that light up his life but in general he avoids human interaction. He might be described as part Thoreau, part Jayber Crow, part Harlan Hubbard, part Edmund Hillary, part Sigurd Olson. And part me. He reads a lot — novels, memoirs, biographies and books on journaling. In his journals, he excerpts from the books that capture his imagination.

Archibald allows me the creative freedom to make up stories, and in the process explore deeper truths. I can exaggerate experiences I’ve had, and people I’ve known. I can change names to protect the guilty. I can be more honest than I might be if I was publishing my own private journal. I can explore difficult questions at the center of a human life — questions that journaling can help us come to terms with — including difficult questions we’d each rather avoid. Those questions ultimately determine who we are and what we get out of life.

An examined life is worth living.

. . .

A historical note — in the mid-1600s, Archibald Campbell was the MacIver clan’s nemesis in Scotland. As a result, there are many more Campbells in the world today than MacIvers. I remember, as a child of seven, telling my grandfather that my closest friend’s name was Duncan Campbell. “Aye,” he responded, “a black Campbell. Never trust a Campbell.” He then spit into the ground at our feet.

. . .

To read a first draft of the introduction of our next book (The Creativity Journal: Tools and Techniques) exploring journaling tools visit here.