Using Google Calendar as a Spiritual Diary

I assume many Wiccans and Pagans keep a diary or journal. I myself sometimes post to the private online journal Penzu, and sometimes in my hardbound journal. And with a diary, you can look back and see what you've been doing and thinking, so as to track your spiritual progress (or non-progress, as it may be.)

The problem with these type of journals is it's hard to get an overall view or spot patterns and trends. Also, sitting down and composing a paragraph is sometimes intimidating or takes up too much time. So, in addition to my traditional journaling, I've been tracking stuff in my Google Calendar as well.

Whereas a journal is usually narrative, my Google Diary is decidedly bullet-pointed. It's quick and easy.

First, I started by creating a new calendar called Diary, and colored as I saw fit. Then I started adding significant spiritual events. But, over time, I started adding more and more stuff. This is not only helpful, but coincides with the concept that one should not have a spiritual life and a mundane life, but should be one and the same.

Things to Add

• Practices such as meditations, rituals
• Positive and negative personal interactions
• Spells and successes
• Acquisition of sacred objects and books
• Daily Tarot Readings - I tag these as "DTR"s
• Creative pursuits
• People you've met
• Encounters with the divine
• Communion with nature
• Things that weighed heavily on your mind

Put Things in Context

Another thing that helps is context. I have other calendars in view, such as personal events and appointments and U.S. holidays. But I've added other stuff as well that helps put spiritual and personal diary entries in context.

• Wiccan Holidays
• Phases of the Moon
• Moon Signs

Some calendars can be found by going to the "Other Calendars" box in the lower left, clicking on "Add" in the lower right corner of the box and selecting "Browse Interesting Calendars." Then you'll get to a page with three tabs near the top: "Holidays," "Sports" and "More." You will find Phases of the Moon under "More."

Unfortunately, with the other two, I don't have links. I found them and added them, but forgot where I found them. If you're net savvy enough, I'm sure you'll manage. If not, drop me a line and I'll try to locate the original sources.

These contextual elements not only benefit looking backward, but forward as well. By seeing the future Moon phases and signs, you can prepare yourself accordingly. This is especially helpful with scheduled personal events. You can see in which phase or sign things sit such as business meetings, doctor visits, and social gatherings. It may even influence when you schedule these events.

Other things to try

Since you can create multiple banners, and color code them, I thought about color coding things as positive, negative, or neutral. Or, you can create a calendar for each of the elements, color them accordingly, and tag them to the bullets where you think they had the most correspondence. Such as, blue/water for personal interactions, yellow/air for creative or intellectual pursuits, green/earth for communion with nature or actions toward sustainability, and fire/red for passionate or bold events.

Things to look for

Once you have all your events and all your context, look for the following:

• What do you see happening during waxing and waning times. Are you more meditative during waning? Are you more productive during waxing?
• Do your bullets align with the Moon signs.
• Did your DTRs pan out for that day?
• Are there clues to why you had times where you were depressed or spiritually dry?
• Are there clues to why you had times where you were happy or spiritually ecstatic?
• How did your spirituality correspond to the current season?

If you like this concept and have other ideas of what to post as well as other tweaks such as color-coding, please leave comments.

Using Tarot to take charge of your future

The other day, I thought of a different way to use Tarot cards. Why not, sort through the deck and choose the cards you want to put into a spread. As a method of positive visualization and confirmation. Taking your destiny into your own hands.

Then I discovered Janet Boyer had created a method and accompanying called The Back in Time Tarot Book: Picture the Past, Experience the Cards, Understand the Present that did something like this. From a review:

"Her Back in Time (BIT) Method involves selecting an incident from your past, summarising it into a "snapshot" by identifying the key points you wish to clarify and then selecting cards to represent these key points. Cards are selected either based on their traditional meanings or alternatively, because of your intuitive response to the images themselves."

Then I thought of another method that mixes both randomness and choice. It would go something like this.

Draw X number of cards. X would be a number higher than your chosen spread. For example, if you were doing a 4 card spread, maybe draw 10.

Then, you look at the 10 and decide which cards you want to place in each of the 4 places. The cool thing is this makes it like you were playing a traditional or collectible card game (like Magic). You would be, in effect, planning a strategy for your future. And for the esoterically-inclined, you could even think of it as a spell.

And you could create your own spread. For example, the four cards could be the four directions in Druidry/Paganism. Or the four most important areas in your life. Then, you see the cards that you draw and decide you want to apply to each area. Say one of the cards you draw is "Strength," and one of your areas is your mind or emotions. So you place the Strength card in that spot, positively affirming that you are going to be stronger in that area, and stand up to the slings and arrows that life hits us with. You also may have had a card that represents flexibility and adaption, and instaead place it in that spot to say that you are going to roll with the punches.

With this method, the randomness of the draw opens up different concepts to apply to different areas. Gives you ways to approach things that are different than you traditionally approach them. But, in the end, you still have some control in which approach you apply where. And, since card meanings are so flexible, you have even more control. As in the Back-In-Time method mentioned above, you may simply apply cards not because of their meaning, but because something in the artwork speaks to you.