Introduction to The Artist's Way
And my hyper-fixation song of the week.
I started to type “I struggle with consistency,” but I don’t think that’s true anymore. While we’re here, is there a belief you hold about yourself that you’ve outgrown and would like to let go of now?
Ok, back to business. I have danced around The Artist’s Way for years. I’m sure this isn’t your first introduction to Julia Cameron’s seminal 1992 guide to nurturing creativity, either. It’s taken four creative women I know, love, and respect to rave about the book’s mystical, alchemical impact on their relationship with art and self to finally get me reading. And read I did: the whole book, straight through. But, that’s not how you’re supposed to do it. Oh, no. There’s homework. There are tasks. Some change weekly, some are supposed to be new life-long habits, like morning pages. I tried joining an Artist’s Way virtual weekly meetup back in January, but, as someone who has mutually broken up with three book clubs, I didn’t find the arena particularly inspiring. I do not need to hear about anyone else’s neuroses and or perceived limitations, I have plenty of my own, thankyouverymuch.
This newsletter keeps me accountable for a minimum of thirty minutes of creative free-write each week. It’s my longest-running creative endeavor, and thus, I believe, the perfect venue for my next go at doing The Artist’s Way the right way.
For the next 12 weeks, we’ll go through the book together. I’m going to give you succinct bullet point summaries of my main takeaways from each chapter and list the correlating tasks. I’ll sprinkle in music and design and other little tidbits as they come across my path, of course.
We’ll start with the introduction this week so that, if you want to follow along, you have a week to get a copy of the book. Starting in two weeks, I’ll report on how many mornings I managed to do morning pages, what I did for my artist date, and which of the tasks I completed.
If you’d like to do the program, too, and would like accountability, I welcome responses with your own experience.
Let’s begin!
Introduction
Everyone is creative
Creativity can’t be taught, but Julia Cameron has developed a system to teach people to let themselves be creative.
The Artist’s Way is a spiritual path and the book uses the word “God.” If this word conjures up images of a judgmental sky daddy, make it stand for “good orderly direction,” or replace it with flow, Goddess, consciousness, universe, source, higher power…you get the idea. It’s all the same thing.
Creativity is our true nature, and blocks are an “unnatural thwarting of a process as once as normal and as miraculous as the blossoming of a flower at the end of a slender green stem.”
This book alters your consciousness by stretching what you believe yourself to be capable of.
By following the practices of this book, you are “creating pathways in your consciousness through which the creative forces can operate.”
If you can make your creative practice something you show up to every day, you don’t have to wait for the mood to strike then hurl yourself at your art until the window of creative impulse slams shut again.
Spiritual Electricity: The Basic Principles
Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.
There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life—including ourselves.
When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator’s creativity within us and our lives.
We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.
Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.
The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.
When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: good orderly direction.
It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.
Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.
What to Expect:
Change often elicits initial defiance, followed by anger, grief, then alternating waves of resistance and hope.
Peaks and valleys are to be expected as your perception of what’s possible expands and contracts.
Resist the urge to abandon this process during the choppy growth phase.
Pushing through and re-committing to the course when you want to abandon it will lead to a new sense of self marked by increased autonomy, resilience, expectancy, and excitement.
If you reach this stage, expect to withdraw a little from your usual life. You’ll have zoomed out a bit, getting an overview of your situation which empowers you to make valid creative choices. You are moving to higher ground.
You may realize you’ve been disproportionally concerned with the lives and dreams of others as you start to get more clear on your own life and dreams.
Our very essence is the substance we withdraw to, as we withdraw from distractions. We pull our overextended and misplaced creative energy back into our own core.
There may be a time of mourning, both for the creative self we previously abandoned, and for the old self who lived perhaps more easily, if unsatisfactorily, in the world.
You have enough time and enough money to be creative.
Creativity is not a luxury, it’s a right.
The Tools:
Morning Pages: Three pages of long-hand free-writing first thing when you wake up. These are stream-of-conscious. There is no wrong way to do them, except to not do them. They are giving your brain a place to dump all the rocks and sand so you can get to excavating the treasure. It is the act of doing something consistently, of moving the hand across the page. You are doing something that cannot be criticized. The pages are a non-negotiable part of the program. Anyone who faithfully writes morning pages will be led to a connection with a source of wisdom within.
Artists Date: This is the second half of the equation. Doing morning pages, you are sending—notifying yourself and the universe of your dreams, dissatisfactions, hopes. Doing the artist date, you are receiving—opening yourself to insight, inspiration, guidance. The artist date is a block of time set aside weekly, committed to nurturing your creative consciousness. It’s a playdate with your inner artist that you defend against interlopers at all costs. Your inner artist is a child. What does he or she want to do? Spend time in solitude with your artist child. Self-nurture. Watch yourself try to wriggle out of it. Re-commit. Listen to your artist as they tell you what they like and don’t like.
If you’ve made it this far, I am impressed! Here is a little treat. I’ve been listening to “Dried Roses” by Big Thief on repeat for the last week. Sweet and soothing, it paints pretty pictures in the mind’s eye. I saw the band live a few weeks back, and hearing “Spud Infinity,” another track from their latest album, was the most pure, joyful, communal moments I’ve experienced since the pandemic. I highly recommend listening through the whole album. My wife, I mean, the lead singer, Adrianne Lenker, and I have the same birthday.
Here she is singing album-opener “Change” and “Dried Roses” in a shower:
Until next week,
Elizabeth