Illuminara Intuitive Journal with Cards - Guided Self-Discovery Notebook & Affirmation Cards Set for Mindfulness, Gratitude & Personal Growth | Perfect for Meditation, Therapy & Daily Reflection

"Intuitive Journal With Cards" by Elaine Clayton, an award-winning children's book illustrator, is deeply powerful, a very living creation that will rock your perception of 'still life' and former perceptions of two-dimensional energy which may not, after all, BE restricted to two dimensions; dreams and archetypes; the collective unconscious that pulls EVERYMAN together no matter who they are or where / when they've come from.My friend, a brainy university calculus professor and art devotee, was over last weekend; I was showing her the image cards from the "Intuitive Journal," and her extemporaneous response was compelling. She raptly studied at least half the cards -- there are 40 altogether -- for around half an hour. She would trace the curve of a line and make a camera lens with her thumbs and index fingers to zero in on a portion of a scene as though assessing its composition. She finally said, "I have never seen ONE artist channel so many different artistic styles. This is phenomenal, from both a mathematical and psychological standpoint, because it's not one or two but a dozen different `personalities' coming through."Here," she said, "you have a formal portrait like an oil painting; here a less formal, more candid portrait with a completetly different color palette and energy; look at this abstract line drawing" [I explained that the abstracts are called 'gesture paintings']... "here is a sketched landscape, here a stylized lighthouse; and this one is a sort of combined surrealist / expressionist genre -- not exactly like Van Gogh, but reminds me of another French or Russian master -- not Kandinsky or Matisse -- what's-his-name? Well it is authentic, so no previous artist's work captures it really."I showed her how the author (Ms. Clayton) teaches, in the introductory chapters, that the idea is to shuffle the cards almost as though they are playing cards or Tarot cards, and to randomly PICK ONE to see what it might evoke, almost like playing a word association game. The woman was overcome with a flood of thoughts. I showed her the first card I ever worked with as soon as the book arrived in my hands -- the image of a young `toy' soldier with his bayonet -- and explained how that image conjured, all at once, the childhood memory of a rabid dog, a hike in the Rockies where I first held a shotgun, a painted foal who contracted pneumonia that I nursed in my arms until she died in her sleep; my ancestor's sabre from the Battle of Bunker Hill hanging when I was a child on my brother's bedroom wall high up next to the ceiling; and many other swirling vistas of wars and annihilation, perhaps from past-life memories since they were quite real and I have never fought in a war nor seen battle first-hand.I told her how I had learned to jot down `code' words for each of the freeze-frames as they flooded in, so that I wouldn't forget any by the time I could journal about it with full attention. Calculus Brain sat at my computer and ordered the book from Amazon.com, on the spot.These are only some of the topics I discussed vis-a-vis the "BOOK" over a period of two hours with a university math professor whose first response to the book's visual treasures rendered her speechless for nearly half an hour. This woman is a TALKAHOLIC! I've never seen anything steal away her constant flow of chatter this way! FUNNY and very telling!Let me also say that you don't have to be artistic or know anything about art to be moved by the inner fire this book and these paintings / eketches ignite. If you are a journaler already or have never committed to the daily routine, this is one way to plumb your soul and learn about things inside you that you might never have dreamed were there............Cynthia Alcott UrichFayetteville, AR