Obsidian has become my living archive since I first dove in back in 2021 as a classroom teacher where I organized teaching notes, conversations, and todos as a Dean of Students… and now it has become the place where course readings, dissertation ideas, phenomenological field notes, theological insights, Canvas posts, and draft papers all meet in a shared relational space. It’s less a filing cabinet and more a garden. What I’m really doing in Obsidian is tending connections by letting ideas compost, cross-pollinate, and eventually grow into papers or long-form reflections. Here’s the core workflow I’m sharing with you.
Two places where I’d start before you dive in to Obsidian:
1. Book Notes as Living Conversations
When I read, whether it’s Merleau-Ponty, Edith Stein, Whitehead, or a text for PCC/ESR, I take notes into a Book Notes template that pulls in metadata automatically:
- Author / Title / Year / Course
- Core quotes (copied directly, tagged with #quote and citation)
- My reflections in first person
- Connections to other thinkers or my ongoing concepts: [[Ecological Intentionality]], [[Cruciform Consciousness]], [[Empathy (Stein)]], [[Flesh of the World]], etc.
Each book note ends with a section called “Where does this want to go?”
Sometimes the answer is a future paper, a blog post, or a concept node. That question keeps the note alive instead of archived.
2. Canvas Posts → Permanent Notes
I write most of my Canvas responses in Obsidian first. This lets me:
- Draft freely
- Link concepts as I’m thinking
- Keep a permanent, searchable archive of every class discussion
Each module prompt gets its own note in my Canvas/ folder. After posting, I create 1–3 “permanent notes” distilled from the response—short, atomic ideas written in my own voice.
For example, a Canvas post on the chiasm leads to permanent notes like:
- Perception as reciprocal touch
- The ecological thickness of the visible
- Relational openness in the phenomenology of nature
These then link outward into ongoing clusters such as [[Phenomenology]], [[Embodiment]], [[Nature as Intertwining]].
3. Writing Papers Through Connected Notes
When a paper is due, ecological theology, phenomenology, ESR or PCC research, I never begin with a blank page. I begin with a map of notes already in conversation.
The workflow:
- Create a Paper Hub note as a central node for the project:
- thesis draft
- reading list
- list of relevant permanent notes
- Pull in linked notes Using Dataview or simple backlinks, I gather every relevant piece of thinking I’ve already stored.
- Assemble the argument The writing becomes an act of weaving connections rather than inventing from scratch.
- Export to Word/PDF Once the draft is complete, I move into Word for Chicago-style citations and final formatting.
This lets my academic work grow organically out of months of lived reflection rather than rushed, isolated writing.
4. Daily Notes as Phenomenological and Ecological Anchors
Every morning’s Daily Note includes:
- weather + sunrise/sunset
- tracking notes on the black walnut
- dreams, moods, or somatic impressions
- any quote or insight from my reading
These small entries, over time, become a longitudinal phenomenological dataset—especially helpful for my ecological intentionality and process-relational work.
5. The Vault as an Ecology
Obsidian mirrors how I’m thinking about the world in my CIIS work:
everything is connected, everything participates, and meaning emerges through relation rather than isolation.
My vault has three organizing principles:
- Maps of content (big conceptual hubs)
- Atomic permanent notes (ideas per note tagged well)
- Ephemeral notes (daily, in-class, or quick captures)
The magic is not in perfect organization… it’s in the interplay.
6. Why This Works for Me
This workflow keeps my scholarship:
- Ecological: ideas grow from interaction
- Phenomenological: grounded in lived experience
- Process-relational: always evolving
- Practical: every note has a future use
It’s become the backbone not only of my life and coursework, but of my dissertation path, Tree Sit Journals, Carolina Ecology posts, and even sermon writing.
