The Journal Meditations Binder & Inserts

During the last thirty years Heron Dance Press and its successor, Zen Mountain Press, has published sixteen books. Most are sold out. Rather than reprint them one at a time, we’re bringing them back as inserts for the binder pictured above. You order the inserts that most interest you, add blank journaling paper (watercolor paper, premium writing paper, plain or lined) or use your own standard 11 × 8.5 inch paper, and create the journal that fits your life. Every insert will also be available as a PDF that you can print out and insert in a standard three-ring binder.

The first insert is on journaling: Journaling as a tool in creating a life. It explores the tools I use to understand the patterns beneath my life and explore the territory that separates life I'm living and the life I want to live. Meditation and quiet before writing. Accessing the image your deeper wisdom suggests for this period of your life. Reading old journals for recurring patterns. Stepping stones, and the roads not taken. Three successes, three failures, and what they have in common. Merton's two questions. Dialogue with your future self, with your creative work, with your still point. Each section ends with one or more journaling questions.

The inserts draw from the hundreds of interviews of people who created lives on their own terms, and from my own journals about similar endeavors — arranged so that you can set them beside your own life. Each is a book first. Each can be read as a book and kept as a book; the gratitude and nature content in particular asks nothing of the reader but a quiet half hour. Order the blank pages if journaling interests you.

The first insert, on journaling, goes to the printer in the next few days, with Wild Waters and the Tao close behind. The binder itself should be available for pre-order later in September — as soon as the company making them provides a firm ship date. Each insert will also be available as a PDF as soon as it is ready for anyone who would rather begin now creating a binder of their own. Supporting members receive complimentary access to all PDFs.

The book inserts listed below will be available starting in late September and then roughly one a week over the next two or three months:

• Journaling as a tool in creating a life.

• Wild Waters and the Tao - an updated edition of our book first published in 2013 that quickly sold out. It explores the insights the Tao offers into life in wild nature, paddling wild rivers and water’s way of getting where it is going through surrender.

• Creativity as a Way of Life — the inner work underlying creative work, an exploration of the journals of artists, novelists and poets: Steinbeck’s Working Days, Anne Truitt, Robert Henri’s The Art Spirit.

• The Heron Dance Book of Love & Gratitude — First published in 2006, it went on to sell 20,000 copies, the most popular book we’ve published. It explores gratitude as a spiritual practice and philosophy of life.

• Thoreau and the Art of Life — Thoreau’s journals totaled two million words and offer a fascinating insight into the early thinking behind Walden and his other books.

• Emerson’s Laws of Nature, and Whitman’s Leaves of Grass: Reflections on nature by two of our greatest writers.

• Meditations on Nature, Meditations on Silence. Reflections on the beauty and mystery of the natural world.

• The Pausing for Beauty Poetry Diary. Poetry celebrating the beauty and mystery of nature and of life.

• The Journals of Archibald Campbell, Wild Artist. The misadventures of artist Archibald Campbell who lives alone in the woods and paints nude models, and reflects on life, creativity and wild women. This was both the most popular and unpopular work Heron Dance ever published.

• The Journey Itself is Home - art, poems and reflections on a life lived on the edges of our culture. From the book arts collection published in 2012.

• The Man Who Planted Trees — Jean Giono’s shepherd, and my interviews with Frédéric Back, who received an Oscar for his animated film of Giono’s work. The book and film celebrate generosity as a philosophy of life.

• Life is Daring Adventure or Nothing. An adventurer’s journal.

Available for pre-order in late September.