I was thrilled when Watkins approved me to review The Intuition Journal, partly because it’s such a lovely looking book. Sometimes we’re attracted to something because of its aesthetic—a feeling or energy I was invited to think about at the Jung in the Heartland conference back at the beginning of the month. Thomas Moore, one of the presenters (and a Jungian analyst and author of the New York Times best-selling book Care of the Soul) suggested that this is an experience of agape love: seeing something and saying or thinking “This is really good.”
That idea flew in the face of my asceticism when it comes to things. And it gave me a lot to think about. I’ve spent quite some time trying to stop saying “I love X” or “I love Y” about foods, objects, et cetera, and reserve that word, love, for people, places, and maybe feelings and experiences. But the truth is, I do feel really drawn to certain things. And maybe, as Moore suggested, that is a kind of love. Maybe it’s intuition. Whatever it is, I’m glad it led me to Jo ChunYan’s book, and a deeper dive into what intuition, and a few constellated forces, mean to me.
The Intuition Journal won’t strike everyone’s fancy. It comes with its fair share of chakra talk, references to crystals, and so on. One reviewer called it cute (it does feature wonderful botanical images); another called it “too rigid and formulaic.” A few suggested it’s not a journal, but a workbook, and reviewers are divided about whether it was too detailed or too general, more for the developed intuitive or the person just beginning to explore their intuition.
To my mind, The Intuition Journal is space. It’s an invitation to discipline, which is something I need in my life. When I was little, my mother read Our Daily Bread devotionals in the mornings. This was comforting. It was ritual and spirituality combined. It was something I expected to grow into when I was an adult but haven’t. I intuitively know I need routines when it comes to meditation, prayer, exercise, and so on, and I’m happy to see ChunYan, a young woman who obviously cares a great deal about aesthetic (she’s a designer), is inventing and investing in her own unique ways of holding space for others as they develop the discipline they need.
Like ChunYan, I identify as a person who lives through my “borderline-OCD attention to detail,” and maybe that’s why I appreciate the organization of this journal/workbook so much. I can imagine making a ritual out of it, and I know I’m happiest and most plugged into life when I’m aware of synchronicities, premonitions, and serendipity. The Intuition Journal encourages readers to become writers, creating a record of their intuition for themselves while getting curious about how the body plays its part in intuition, too.
Given the nature of The Intuition Journal, I haven’t finished it. Instead, I’m looking forward to getting started.
Editor’s Bookshelf is a regular review of soon-to-be-released books that, in the spirit of Iphelia, asks important questions about how the written word—and in some cases, imagery—are used to help readers reconnect with their feelings, themselves, each other, and the world around them.
Iphelia’s editor, Linsey Stevens, answers these questions—chiming in on who will be most captivated by each book’s contents and how it invites readers to return to a heart-centered way of being.
The Intuition Journal by Jo ChunYan will be available on November 12, 2019, from Watkins Publishing. For more information on the author, visit jochunyan.com or follow her on Instagram. For more on Iphelia: Awakening the Gift of Feeling, visit our book page.
