Warning: May contain audacious dreams

How to manifest anything. And a secret revealed… If I build it, will you come?

Notebooks should come with a health warning. They surely contain some kind of magic, for how else can we explain how some ink spilt onto a page, then hidden away in the dark for a few years out of sight can become actual things manifested in the world?

Take this notebook, for example.

I bought it thirteen years ago, in the gift shop of the San Jose Art Museum in California, where I stopped off on my way to the art retreat that would change the course of my life. I started writing in it the day I got it, spilling words that were at both unfamiliar and made from the very marrow of my bones. Words about joy and longing, creativity and freedom.

Later that week, in a draughty convent building in the shadow of a redwood forest thousands of miles from home, I learnt how to paint, but more than that I learnt how the act of putting form to the formless ideas in our heads can crack our hearts and lives wide open. I could sense something was happening to me, that I was being remade from the inside out, and I wrote it all down.

As the retreat went on I became bolder with my thoughts. I let the notebook be messy and raw. I stuck in arty trading cards from the artists on the retreat who had travelled from all over America to be there and give some attention to their dreams. I had no idea why I was there, really. I definitely did not consider myself an artist, but I didn’t not fit in and I was glad that I had made the journey. I knew that it was one of those moments after which everything would be different, but I didn’t know what, or how.

During the day we would work on our mixed media paintings, and soak in any tidbits of information about how to make a living as an artist (not something I had ever considered, but something that fascinated me all the same). At night we would return to the art room after dinner, drink wine, chat about our lives and our dreams, and paint some more. And then when the glasses were empty and the moon was high, we would return to our cabins, and I would write in my little notebook, then tie up the ribbons and sleep with it under my pillow, like a treasure.

One evening we were led through a meditation and that night, for the first time in my life, I dreamt of colours. Only of colours, swirling, like an ocean of possibility. I woke up, took out my notebook and scribbled down a whole bunch of goals (because I was still in the corporate world at the time, and concrete goals were my thing).

I started with small goals and a tight timeline. I was pretty specific. I wrote a heading of ‘Short-short term goals (+/- 10 days). Little things like having looked up three artists in my local area. Then on the next page were the ‘Short term goals (+/- 1 month). These were still pretty concrete, and doable although intimidating at the time, for someone who didn’t even know what a blog was until I went on the retreat. Things like ‘Have created a blog and got 10 followers.’ I have the notebook in front of me now and I can feel the pride in the tick next to that one.

Turn the page and it started to get serious. ‘Medium term (+- 100 days).’ I remember looking around me as I wrote those ones down, to make sure no-one was watching. ‘Have something published in a magazine. Have learnt the basics of Photoshop.’ Remember, I was working in the sports industry at the time. I had no idea about any of this.

The next page was just ridiculous. ‘+- One Year’ involved crazy dreams like ‘Be doing creative stuff at least one day per week’ and ‘Have a creative business’. And then the fun began. The next page of ‘Goals: +- 3 years’ included getting a book published, teaching a workshop, having a big airy studio, getting married, having a baby, moving to live by the sea and even being recognized as an authority related to Japan. I remember feeling a little sick as I wrote these ‘goals’ down, but excited all the same.

I came back from the retreat so inspired, and in my excitement of cracking on with setting up my blog and business, and in the chaos of moving house many times in the following years, I lost the notebook. It would remain buried in a cardboard box and moved from attic to attic until I found it seven years later, just a few weeks after signing the book deal for my second book – Wabi Sabi: Japanese wisdom for a perfectly imperfect life. I was stunned. Almost every single thing on that +/-3 years list had come true. I am not kidding.

Some of the things had taken longer than three years. Some of them manifested in different forms to the way I had imagined. My art had become words, not paintings. I had an airy studio for a while, and then swapped it for a cosy writing room. But the audacious, impossible dreams had all come to be in one way or another, even while the notebook containing them had been hidden away. It reminded me that inked notes about dreams plant the seeds of intentions, and invite the universe to shift in big and small ways, as we take responsibility for our own shifting.

I’ve been doing this again recently.

Mr K and I have been working on a new, audacious dream. I say ‘new’. It’s actually been floating around in our conversations and appearing in my notebook scribbles for years, but somehow right now it feels different. Still a softly spoken secret, but a little more possible. A little more likely. Shall I tell you what it is?

We want to build a writer’s retreat here in Devon, in the South West of England. A beautiful place for writers to come and escape the noise and chaos of the world, and be surrounded by nature, while staying in a place which is specifically set up to help them spill words. Think comfort and luxury combined with practicality and inspiration. Think armchairs and log burners, free standing baths and meditation spaces, ergonomic furniture and libraries of books. And me on the doorstep, for chats about the writing life. What do you think? If we build it, will you come? Perhaps you could drop a YES in the comments, to help nourish this particular audacious dream…

'Cause we been high, darlin', we been low
And all of it's helped us grow
We belong here and we deserve to dream

-       Xavier Rudd, from the lyrics of We Deserve to Dream

Anyway, back to the magic of notebooks. On the bookshelf in my office there are more than 120 journals spanning 35 years. Some are thin and flimsy, others are hardbacked but worn at the edges. They show my changing tastes in stationery, and document the emergence of my ideas. They are organised by month and year, and it’s interesting to see how the journals from the years I have made major life changes are always the fat ones full of taped-in stuff - postcards, cuttings, business cards, shreds of fabric, old tickets and other scraps. When I need to figure something out, I become a scavenger. My noteboooks are containers for my dreams, sometimes before I even realise they are my dreams, and always before I believe they might actually happen.

Sometimes I just make notes about what I’m thinking. Other times I ask questions like ‘What is interesting here?’ ‘What do I feel pulled towards?’ ‘What am I seeking?’ Sometimes these kinds of journaling questions are enough to prompt an outpouring, as the thoughts swirl from my mind and onto the page. Sometimes, I don’t have an answer yet, but I find myself drawn to things in the world connected to the question, and I stick them in, or make a note of them.

If you don’t have a practice of doing this, I encourage you to give it a go. Find a notebook and write down things that inspire you. Make a note or stick a visual reminder onto the page. Make daily observations about anything that calls to you. Don’t censor yourself as thoughts push forward to be written. Write them all down. Instead of trying to carry everything in your mind, you can use your journal as a natural container for it all. In time it will become a valuable archive of clues about what really matters to you.

When you flick back through it you might start to notice patterns, or connections between things. Pay attention to these. Probe them further. Write about them. See where it leads.

Write down your dreams, however audacious and impossible they might seem, but then hold them gently. Forget about the timeline. You aren’t in control of that. Close the notebook, get on with your life, choosing every day to do the things which are most likely to take you in the direction of those dreams, without being attached to the form of their manifestation, or the schedule for them coming true, and then see what happens. Take action, let go. Take action, let go. Dance with the universe and trust in the power of your notebook. Prepare to be amazed. And when the time is right, tell people about it.

(And don’t forget to drop your YES in the comments, if you like the idea of us building a permanent place for writers to retreat to here in the English countryside, and if you might come one day, if you could)

Beth Xx

PS If your dream is of a writing life with supportive writerly friends and a constant stream of inspiration, come and join my beautiful private writing community SoulCircle, hosted here on Substack (with a lovely discount if you sign up for a year)

Photos: Holly Bobbins Photography