Journal for Life

Journal writing serves as our search for inner beauty and truth. The swan represents elegance, true beauty, and the power of the self. It seems only natural then that a woman who creates beautifully handcrafted journals should hail from Grande Prairie, Alberta, the Swan City. Just as the swan in Jean Sibelius’ “Swan of Tuonela” symphonic poems comes to symbolize the importance of the celebration of the journey of life, and not the arrival, so too do Betty Zahara’s journals. Her passion for words and human expression are evident in her love for journal writing and her creation of these sacred vessels of inner thought.
I came to know of Betty Zahara’s talents after receiving two of her beautifully bound books. I’ve loved them ever since. As a writer, I’ve cherished each of these journals, filling every page, front and back and top to bottom. Wherever space permits. Interestingly enough, the swan itself has represented writers and communication between the worlds for centuries.
In Euripides’ play, Iphigeneia In Tauris (c. 414 B.C.) he wrote: “…the swan, minstrel of things to be/ Doth serve the Muse and sing.” Horace (c. 65-8 B.C.), roman philosopher and dramatic critic, dreamed of becoming a swan to be recognized as a true poet. The novelist E.B. White wrote The Trumpet Of The Swan (1970) whose protagonist, Sam Beaver, is a journaler, capturing his feelings about Canada and his respect for the Trumpeter Swan inside the pages of his very own diary. As well, there is a definite spiritual connection between Grande Prairie’s Betty Zahara and the Trumpeter Swan.
Living ninety-five miles from Grande Prairie, Betty found journal supplies difficult to track down, especially journals with blank pages. Her mother had always worked with her hands, and Betty is no different. Sewing is just one of her many skills.
A gift of a handcrafted journal from her son Trevor gave her the idea for making her own journals, but she needed to find out how they were made. So, as she says, “by guess and by gosh” she took a razor blade to the spine of her new journal to unearth its construction. The knowledge and determination became the genesis of her journey into journal-making.
Betty started bringing her handcrafted journals to her journal-writing group, a ritual she maintained for ten years, and needless to say, every other journaler wanted one of her journals, too. The business took flight. Since then her journals have appeared at Farmers’ Markets and Christmas Craft Shows around Grande Prairie. She has sold over six hundred books to date, and by word of mouth alone she has motivated other women to use journaling as a means of looking within themselves for inspiration.
In the beginning, Betty assembled her journals with the salvaged pieces of cardboard used in the packaging of small appliances. She fills the cover with seven pages of letter-size photocopy paper that have been folded in half and sewn together to form what Betty calls her “paper pack”. Two holes are created at the top of the pages and two holes closer to the bottom before the paper pack is sewn together once again, then clamped and glued to the cardboard cover. Warping became a concern, so to create a sturdier journal, Betty has been using 1/8 inch plywood. The beautiful covers for each of the journals are chosen from personally selected cotton quilting fabric. The patterns on quilts have been telling stories for centuries, bringing together sentimental fabrics that communicate a history all of their own. It seems only suitable that Betty’s journals are swathed in the threads of cloths that have spun many yarns in their time.
“The cover has to speak to me,” Betty says. Fabrics inspire energy and mood. Many writers have a variety of journals at their disposal to capture the essence of every flavourful thought that comes their way. The cover of my first journal boasts a suede avocado-coloured spine seamlessly joined to a floral fabric of orange, yellow and crimson sunflowers with chocolate faces and sprightly stalks. The flower known to follow the sun epitomizes energy and positive thinking, much akin to the practice of journaling and the symbol of the swan. Inside this journal are inspiring thoughts, some my own, but most borrowed from the savory notions of others. Another is wrapped in a cotton fabric of teal and cinnamon borders with patterns signifying Native American Art: geckos, suns, turtles, and Kokopelli (a common fertility symbol known as the seed bringer and the water sprinkler). Thoughts are conceived, and stories germinate inside this volume, mirroring the cover’s symbolic spirit.
One of Betty’s favourite covers is called the Circle of Friends. It features seven curved pieces of fabric (seven being a symbolically spiritual number), forming linked arms in the seven skin colours of every culture represented in the world. “The connection to yourself, to other people and to the natural and spiritual world brings personal healing,” says Ellen Jaffe in Writing Your Way, Creating a Personal Journal. Unity of body, mind and spirit through journaling forms the composition of inner strength. Betty also creates her own native designs to celebrate her respect for the culture that understands the power of the mind and the soul better than any. On the inside of each of Betty’s journals is a sketch of a figure in a long dress with her hands raised to the sky. To her right sits a quill pen with a punctuation point marked strongly below it.
“I want to be journaling for life,” Betty says, “but I also want journaling to enhance my life.” And the life of others, as is evident in the pleasure she takes in these workshops and the creation of her handcrafted journals. She celebrates women and our ability to empower ourselves. We need only look inside for the answers. Within each book Betty provides a pocket in which she has inserted her story about her own journaling journey in hopes of connecting with others with the same philosophy in life. As Betty says, “Journaling is extremely user friendly. If given the freedom it deserves, it will encompass all of life’s feelings, fears and foibles. On these pages, life can be celebrated, fully.”
It’s important to have a special journal to keep these thoughts safe because “everything we write is important,” says Betty. In Jaffe’s book, the author reinforces this belief:
“Writing about the minutiae of daily life validates their importance. Even when we are writing about painful things, the act of writing, of creating – putting thoughts, feelings and images into words – is deeply healing and affirming. It can also help us see things from the point of view of the other, whether this is another person, ourselves at another time or even animals and nature.” Jaffe includes a poem entitled Times Alone by Antonio Machado (translated by Robert Bly) to illustrate the rewards of writing:

Last night, as I was sleeping
I dreamt – marvelous error! –
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart,
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

“Writing cannot undo or change the past but, like the work of bees, it can initiate an imaginative transformation, turning ‘old failures’ into ‘white combs and sweet honey,’ giving us a new appreciation for the difficulties we’ve faced, endured, and overcome.” Much like the swan verse in the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Seven Swans-a-Swimming signifies the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. With these gifts, the Holy Spirit changes us from ugly ducklings into graceful adults.
Betty Zahara has always been a journaler, but her passion for journaling blossomed after she participated in a four-week course in journal writing. Since then, she has conducted journaling workshops in Grande Prairie to educate more women about the power of journaling. The workshops provide each participant with a folder of journal writing ideas, just to get them started, but in most cases the women find their own sources of inspiration for writing just by allowing themselves the luxury of taking a few moments to reflect on themselves. But not everyone is a journaler, nor do they know how to go about journaling. The journaling workshops are intended to provide participants with the permission to write without rules. Betty shared a story about a workshop in which all participants were teachers. “In my mind, teachers wouldn’t need much instruction on journaling, after all, they teach children the basics of writing.” Yet these professionals are also in the practice of teaching perfectionism in writing, instructing children to curve their small letters halfway between the lines on the page, and to touch the capital letters to the top and the bottom lines evenly so every word in every sentence never strays from the line. Thankfully these restrictions are not permitted inside the world of journal writing. During this particular workshop, one highly experienced teacher had a very difficult time with the idea of writing without lines because, God forbid, her writing was crooked and it wobbled across the page without a purpose, or so it seemed to her. In Betty’s wisdom, she knew this woman needed to relax. It wasn’t until Betty suggested she sit in a rocking chair (indeed, a very unconventional posture for writing) that she allowed herself to relax.
“Forget about what your fifth grade teacher told you about writing,” Betty says. “Forget about grammar and punctuation and writing on the lines because the only rule governing journaling is that there are no rules.” Journaling gives women the opportunity to step outside the boundaries of the everyday world and their everyday lives and create an environment of their own where only their voice counts, where only their words are heard, and where only their thoughts matter. Literature echoes this sentiment. In the Fisherwoman’s Daughter, by Ursula K. LeGuin, a little girl asks:
“Tell me, Auntie. What is the one thing a writer has to have?”
“I’ll tell you,” says the imagination. “The one thing a writer has to have is not balls. Nor is it a child-free space. Nor is it even, speaking strictly on the evidence, a room of her own, though that is an amazing help, as is the goodwill and cooperation of the opposite sex, or at least the local, in-house representative of it. But she doesn’t have to have that. The one thing a writer has to have is a pencil and some paper. That’s enough, so long as she knows that she and she alone is in charge of that pencil, and responsible, she and she alone, for what it writes on the paper. In other words, that she’s free. Not wholly free. Never wholly free. Maybe very partially. Maybe only in this one act, this sitting for a snatched moment being a woman writing, fishing the mind’s lake. But in this, responsible; in this, autonomous; in this, free.”
“Auntie,” says the little girl, “can I go fishing with you now?”
In Vedic literature, persons who have attained great spiritual capabilities are sometimes called Paramahamsa (‘Great Swan’) on account of their spiritual grace and ability to travel between various spiritual worlds. In a sense, Betty Zahara’s journals transform writers into compassionate beings, beginning with our inner selves, in order for us to truthfully communicate our feelings.
Thanks to Betty Zahara and Journal for Life, women have the tools we need to find our authentic voices.



References

www.thefuselage.com/Threaded/archive/index.php/t-21350.html
Jaffe, Ellen. Writing Your Way, Creating A Personal Journal, Toronto: Sumach Press, 2001.
White, E.B. The Trumpet of the Swan, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers Inc., 1970.