At the core of who we are, and where our journey leads us, is what we believe in. People who believe in the power of beauty, who love beauty in all its forms – nature, music, art – are happier than people who believe in the power of money or the power of technology as central to their definition of who they are.

When we took the land of indigenous peoples, we took a lot but the truly devastating blow was taking their story, their concept of who they were in the universe, how they got here. Their story was their primary means of understanding their relationship with nature, the land and to the vicissitudes of chance and survival in a beautiful but uncertain world where starvation was still omnipresent. I’ve read that when the Jesuits first encountered North American First Nations and told Indians about Jesus, they had no problem with that message but when the Jesuits said that where they came from in Europe people ate every day, the Jesuits lost all credibility.

We are physical beings, yes of course, but the essence of who we are, whether or not we find deep meaning in life, how happy we are, how much we get out of the gift of life is dependent on the intangibles – our relationship with beauty in all its forms, our dreams, our vision of the future, the value we place on friendship, our relationship with nature.

For peoples, generally, their story of the universe and the human role in the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value. Only through this story of how the universe came to be in the beginning and how it came to be as it is does a person come to appreciate the meaning of life or to derive the psychic energy needed to deal effectively with those crisis moments that occur in the life of the individual and in the life of the society. Such a story is the basis of ritual initiations throughout the world. . . The deepest crises experienced by any society are those moments of change when the story becomes inadequate for meeting the survival demands of a present situation. . . Our story not only interprets the past, it also inspires and guides our shaping of the future.
     - Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth

The story was the Bushmen's dearest and most treasured possession. At the Sip Wells I had found that the Bushman would share his most valuable belongings with us -- his water, his food and his knowledge of the desert. But the moment I asked him to tell me a story, he was instantly on his guard, pretending he had no idea what I was talking about. . .

       The more I saw of him and the more I thought of the history of the encounter between Europeans and the first peoples of the world, the better I understood and respected his reticence. For the story was the greatest of his containers of first spirit; it was like the basket wherein his own lady of the starry sky stored the rare and dynamic intimations of his soul. . . the Bushman knew his own was filled to the brim with things without which his life would have no meaning and his soul would wither and die. He knew intuitively that without a story one had no clan or family; without a story of one's own, no individual life; without a story of stories, no life-giving continuity with the beginning, and therefore no future. Life for him was living a story: he kept the lid of this particular basket firmly shut, out of fear that some superior stranger, lifting the lid, would steal his treasure, either by persuading him into believing that the basket was empty or making a mockery of what he saw within it. He had good reason for fear.

            We Europeans in Africa, America, Australasia and the South Pacific have been great stealers of the stories of first peoples. We have killed off whole races by taking their story of creation from them...
      - Laurens van der Post, from the film Hasten Slowly: The Journey of Sir Laurens van der Post.

 

There is a very moving story where Jung is talking to an Elgonyi witch-doctor, or seer, about dreams, and the Elgonyi man told him, `Yes, of course, there are what we call little dreams and great dreams. Little dreams are the dreams that people have about their own particular lives. Great dreams are the dreams that affect the lives of all men.' Jung then asked him, `Can you tell me a great dream that you've had?" And the witch doctor answered sadly, `I'm afraid we don't have great dreams any more now -- the District Commission has them for us instead.'
      - Laurens van der Post from the documentary  Matter of Heart  about the life and work of Carl Jung,

. . .

The two art journals and two dayplanners that have been in the works for the last year and a half are almost done. They are now available for advance purchase. These pre-order books are printed on particularly high quality paper, with quality bindings and image reproduction. These collector’s editions are available on advance sale — after that a print-on-demand trade edition will be offered at the same price. Each will be 186 pages in full color, each offering one calendar quarter of journal notes and art. These books will ship in early March, in time for the April quarter. Less expensive PDFs of both are also available for sale if you’d rather download and print on your own computer. To facilitate this, all books are designed in an 11 x 8.5 inch format.

The pre-order pages are set up but still need a few more images of what the inside of the books will look like. I’ll get those up later today.

You can visit the pages in their preliminary form here.

• The Song Within explores the use of journaling in creating a life and in creating art. Preliminary work on this book is offered most weekdays to supporters of Heron Dance. What in your life is trying to unfold? The objective is clarity. Clarity isn't easy. You can read more here. You can sign up here.

• Sing Us The Song Only You Can Sing, a book for and about creative outsiders. This book explores what it means to create art as the central purpose of one’s life. Each Saturday I publish an excerpt.

• Summaries of the two e-journals above, and A Pause For Beauty, can be found on the home page here.

Each book will also has an accompanying dayplanner for appointments, goals and reflections and a key thought or quote from that day’s journal. Both of these dayplanners will also be in full color with lay flat coil bindings. These are designed to be used with the journals but can be purchased and used separately for those who prefer. Again PDF versions will also be available for download.

New editions of each will be published quarterly. After one full year is complete, work will begin on a new Heron Dance Book of Love, Gratitude And The Beauty Of Wild Places journal and dayplanner which will follow a similar format with new editions released quarterly.