Pilgrims are persons in motion passing through territories not their own - seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well, a goal to which only the spirit’s compass points the way. Richard H. Niebuhr
Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking. Antonio Machado
All of the larger-than-life questions about our presence here on earth and what gifts we have to offer are spiritual questions. To seek answers to these questions is to seek a sacred path. Dr. Lauren Artress
When they are in nature, people sense intuitively that the other kingdoms are living in harmony with universal law. In such an envirionment, it’s easier for the heart to open, to become softer and live in tune with the earth. Sun Bear
You have the power in the present moment to change limiting beliefs and consciously plant the seeds for the future of your choosing. As you change your mind, you change your experience. Serge Kahili King
Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him. Aldous Huxley
We are so captivated by and entangled in our subjective consciousness that we have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions. Carl Jung
The Vein of Gold, A Journey to Your Creative Heart, by Julia Cameron is described as a companion to The Artist’s Way.
It starts with the basic tools: Morning Pages, Artist Dates, Creative Clusters, and Walking.
1) Morning pages – continue to be the same – 3 pages of longhand writing every morning upon first wakening
2) Artist dates – “a weekly period of assigned solitude” It is solitude that encourages and permits the experience of depth. The Artist Date, an hour or longer weekly block of time spent on yourself and with yourself, doing something festive, is intended to engender release. Release, in turn, engenders inspiration.
Artist’s Dates and Morning Pages perform major adjustments in spiritual chiropractic. They tend to align us with a flow of what might be called luck, coincidence, or good orderly direction – sychronocity.
3) Creative Clusters – a group of kindred souls, supportive, not competitive, positive and reliable. “It is an important function of a creative cluster to remind us that creativity is an act of the soul, an expansion and extension of divine creative force, and not just some ego trip you are indulging in.”
Invent your world. Surround yourself with people, color, sounds, and work that nourish you. Sark
4) Walking – “Walking, with its constant inflow of new imagtes, gives us new thoughts that nourish us. It replenishes our overtapped creative well and gives us a sense of …wellness.
Walk Daily========Walk an hour weekly===========Walk Prayerfully
Things I have learned
As this is the last week of the Artist’s Way class, I thought I would share a few thoughts about what I have learned (anyway what I am aware of right now).
1) I have learned to take risks again. To try things. To leave fear behind. And I have been rewarded each and every time.
2) Once we remove the blocks, the flow moves in and can lead to surprising undertakings.
3) The universe supports our quest to discover our true path.
4) It is not selfish, but necessary, to honor and nurture my inner artist child.
5) If I am not allowed to fill the well, and freely create, I can become very cranky.
6) Synchronocity is all around us if we pay attention, mindfulness.
7) When making art, focus more on the process than the product.
8) Having a clear vision of what we want is the first step to obtaining it.
9) Creativity requires faith – it is a process of surrender, not control.
10) I have had a tendency to reach for painful thoughts and feel comfortable in my misery. Recognizing this has really helped me to break the habit.
The truth is that we are meant to be bountiful and live. The universe will always support affirmative action. Our truest dream for ourselves is always God’s will for us. It is the inner commitment to be true to ourselves and follow our dreams that triggers the support of the universe. There is a path for each of us. When we are on our right path, we have surefootedness. By trusting, we learn to trust.
And so I continue to write the morning and evening pages – trusting in the process. Things have happened and changed – in surprising ways. I have felt unblocking which has led me to new undertakings. I have taken risks – and benefitted. I have felt new energy and a deeper sense of myself. But I still am not sure of my true path. I do believe in the process and that my true path will continue to be revealed to me as I continue to explore and create.
Life is meant to be an artist’s date – that is why we were created.
Next, I am going to read Julia Cameron’s, The Vein of Gold, A Journey to Your Creative Heart.
I could have written this myself, it is exactly as I feel, but Julia Cameron penned it:
As an artist, I can literally die from boredom. I kill myself when I fail to nurture my artist child because I am acting like somebody else’s idea of an adult. The more I nurture my artist child, the more adult I am able to appear.
There is a connection between self-nurturing and self-respect. If I allow myself to be bullied and cowed by other people’s urges for me to be more normal or more nice, I sell myself out.
Creativity is oxygen for our souls. Cutting off our creativity makes us savage. We react like we are being choked. There is a real rage that surfaces when we are interfered with on a level that involves picking lint off of us and fixing us up. When well meaning family and friends push anything on us that doesn’t evolve in a way that allows for our creativity to continue, we will react as if we are fighting for our lives – we are.
To be an artist is to recognize the particular. To appreciate the peculiar. To allow a sense of play in your relationship to accepted standards. To ask the question “Why?” To risk admitting that much of what is money, property, and prestige strikes you as just a little silly.
Dro
Droughts are a tearless time of grief. We are between dreams and may be too listless to even know our losses. Droughts are long, airless seasons of doubt that make us grow, give us compassion, and blossom as unexpectedly as the desert with sudden flowers. The time in the desert brings us clarity and charity.
The morning pages are our lifeline. We write our morning pages because we must. A path will emerge, an insight will be a landmark that shows the way out of the wilderness, the trail we explore and the trail home to ourselves.
Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us. Meister Eckhart
The unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more than truth. Adrienne Rich
Originality is the process of remaining true to ourselves. Art needs time to incubate, to sprawl a little, to be ungainly and misshapen and finally emerge as itself.
He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened. Lao-Tzu
Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection
Searching out the toxic patterns we cling to that block our creative flow.)
Creativity is God energy flowing through us, shaped by us, like light flowing through a crystal prism. When we are clear about who we are and what we are doing, the energy flows freely and we experience no strain. When we resist what that energy might show us or where it might take us, we often experience a shaky, out-of-control feeling. We slam on the psychic brakes.
The object of all this blocking is to alleviate fear. Blocking is essentially an issue of faith. Rather than trust our intuition, our talent, our skill, our desire, we fear where our creator is taking us with this creativity..
I have been experiencing a surge in energy this past week, almost anxiousness. I don’t think it is from resisting the process, but I have had that shaky, out-of-control feeling. I have thought that it is because I have been taking risks and getting “out there” more. I feel that the dam is unblocking…in surprising ways…I have had this energy surge and being much more physical. Whereas my usual pattern has been to hibernate at home, lately I have been going skiing, dancing, organizing, getting out of town, and even planning trips for the future! It is exciting and scarey. I just feel more open and I am sure that will eventually translate into my art.
My Artist Date this weekend: Besides absolutely wonderful skiing, good snow, temperatures, low wind, other little observations fill the soul:
Teenage girls wearing bright green curly wigs while skiing on Friday, St. Pat’s Day
Wild turkeys crossing the road – look prehistoric, take their time ignoring my car
A Stellar Jay – large dark crested head and deep blue body and wings.
A herd of mountain sheep in a field on the drive home
Pussy willows are just starting to bud
Chickadees eating out of the hand of kids. They were standing with their hands outstretched and I thought they were catching snowflakes as I walked by. But then the little birds flew out of the trees and grabbed the children’s offering.
Some type of windsurfers on the frozen lake. They hold colorful kitelike parachutes which catch the air and they were flying all over the lake – on skiis? Skates? Boards? We couldn’t tell, but they moved very fast and the sails danced in the air above them.
A dozen red winged blackbirds in a tree.
Life gives us so many simple pleasures.
Click image to see larger.
"We will gain in compassion as we reparent the frightened artist child who yearns for creative accomplishment."
FEAR
Fear is the true name for what ails a blocked artist. Fear of success or failure, fear of ridicule, fear of being discovered a fake, for not being good enough. Again, that happens when we focus too much on the end result, the product, rather than the process. The cure for our fear according to Artist's Way is love. "Use love for your artist to cure its fear."
ENTHUSIASM
Enthusiasm is needed more than discipline. It is not an emotional state, but a spiritual committment, "a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all the creativity around us." There is an ongoing energy supply we can tap into - it is the flow of life itself. Treat work as play. At the heart of this play is the mystery of joy.
Do the morning pages, fill the form.
