Day 65/366 days Towards Self-Mastery. Mood: ROFL
Seriously, I know this blog is about glory boxes and hope chests, but Australia is in the middle of toilet paper crises. What could be more important than that? Australia's response to the WHO public health emergency statement for Covid-19 Coronovirus is a run on toilet paper.
Oh well, if things keep progressing in this direction it looks as though I might have to resort to my bushie upbringing. Solutions that don't include soft white paper with perforated intervals that come easily off a roll right to hand by the bowl might be the subject of my next blog. In the meantime, I think I'll get through ok.
Glory boxes. I'm old enough to remember them and to recall that it was only my oldest sister who was lucky enough to have one. Mum wasn't keen on us getting married and becoming domestic goddess so she wasn't about to encourage it with any hope chests.
Hope chests is an interesting description that I haven't yet decided whether I'm up for. It sounds a bit desperate especially if that hope was, you know, for marriage and domestic bliss. They more or less disappeared around the end 1960ies here in Australia so I'm kind of curious that Sarah is talking about them in the nineties?
Today's inspiration is to create a treasure box, let's call it that!
In it the plan is to put away any inspiring projects that you don't have time for now, and would like to return to some time in the future.
Find a lovely box or even a corner in your home that will become your collection point for bits and pieces of inspiration that you want to explore more, turn into a work of art, develop your ideas around, save for, plan for.
It's a way of setting aside a little place for your hopes and dreams. It silently feeds the soul when you're busy with the busyness of life.
It might be a book of poetry that you've found, a project, a craft, an idea in a fab magazine, a holiday concept, and future home plan.
I have a corner. It's my craft corner and it has two very nifty trolleys that carry my craft kit. It sits beside a bookshelf that has space for albums and collecting memorabilia. Then I have a chest of drawers and a few plastic boxes that I ferret away treasures that I find as I amble through life.
Treasures from travel, tickets to events, rail passes, pages of passport stamps, tourist brochures from exotic places I've visited, old family photos, my mother's Polish reading journals from 1935, the 1960 newspaper I found under the vinyl of a home that I renovated in 2001, my son's first drawing of me, lots of his early projects, (no I did not keep his baby teeth, eeeww).
Every now and then I start an art or a scrapbook project and use some of that stuff to create pieces of art to grace my walls, junk journals and altered books of memories to capture the story of my life's journey. Who knows, when I'm really old and have time to reminisce I might like to look back over them.
Journeying through passed lives of my own family is something I treasure. It's been a lovely way to connect and get to know them. My mother has bequeathed her many photo albums to me and I treasure them, in spite of the family conflict that has ensued. Photos that are up to 100 years old are in those albums and that makes them special to me. In fact, I have images dating back around 150 years of family in the old country. Now that photos are mostly digital I feel like I'm holding a piece of antiquity.
These treasures give me so much joy. Just as I love old furniture and anything that's had a life and developed some character, I love these treasures that each have a story.
Do you keep your treasures, your unstarted projects, things that inspire you?
And seriously, if Covid-19 does sends the nation into a full scale health alert complete with strict curfews, you'll have something special to explore through in the time you'll have at home.
366 days Towards Self-Mastery
When I considered my New Year's intentions for 2020 I had just one: To allow my heart to love what it loved...and let it lead me. (If not now, then when?)
I've spent months working on integrating my life. To live life more fully with my home life, my interests, my work, my responsibilities, all coming together, all connected. I want to give each the attention that they desire and need, and still have time and energy for the others. That means living and working from the heart.
As I was clearing out my bookshelf over the Christmas break I discovered Simple Abundance. I set it aside to explore it on New Year's Day as I lazed through another delicious day of nothingness. Sarah, the author, says this book is about living in grace. Living in grace I realised, is about Self-Mastery.
My thirst for understanding the human condition has driven me all my life, and hand-in-hand with self-mastery it has been a life-long goal. And seeing as I love to write, that living in grace is about self-mastery, and I love a bit of a challenge, then if I am truly going to let my heart lead, I really don't have any other choice. So scary as it feels, I'm starting out on a daily mission of leaning into the suggestions of this daybook and making a daily post to keep me accountable. If not now, then when?
I'm Josie. You can find out a little more about me here.
Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy: by Sarah Ban Breathnach.
This book is written for the Australian and NZ market because it refers to seasonal changes. It's available on Amazon here if you'd like to follow along.
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