This morning I lay in bed going through my messages. Got one from someone I wasn’t expecting to see in my texts but was delighted about nevertheless.
‘So I see you haven’t posted anything about AW yet,’ she said. ‘Or am I struggling to make sense of stacks?’
Ah. Yes. Today was the day. Is the day.
‘Not you misunderstanding stacks,’ I had to text. Just me not having posted anything yet because, you know, stuff...
Technically it’s still the 2nd and definitively the first day of a whole two weeks I’m dedicating to the first step of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way so I don’t feel I’m falling behind or anything. Right?
Funny how easy it is to put off the things that feed your soul.
If you missed the last post, I had something of a breakthrough towards the end of 2022, a sort of final push of the Quan Yin ‘Let it Go’ energy that kicked off that year: I reached the really real point of being done with the weeboo weeboo. You can catch up here if you’re interested.
Which brings me to starting the 12-week (or, in this case, the 24-week task) of working this course.
I first started AW in 1998. 26 May 1998 to be exact and I was 22. I know this for a fact because there I’ve signed my name on page 23 of my copy under ‘Contract’ where I pledge to commit to completing the course. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t finish it. But frankly, even if I did I’m not sure I was really able – at that time in my life – to really digest or process what needed to be digested and processed. (Incidentally, this ‘contract’ reminds me a bit of Elizabeth Gilbert’s contract with her stories; something she discusses in Big Magic.)
So here we are now.
I’m marking this post AW0 (the rest AW1, AW2, AW3 and so on) and this particular update is just to touch on the two basic tools she outlines and my initial response to them.*
The Morning Pages: Don’t think I really have time for this and doesn’t journaling every-other-day-ish count?
The Artist’s Date: Lame. Don’t have time. Moving on. Oh wait, I have a sticker book I found the other day that is literally for children aged 5 to 10 that seriously tickles me…
Initial response, I said.
Cameron mentions this resistance, the knee-jerk response of nope. No thanks, not for me, got life to live etc and Insta to scroll through.
What I like, now that I read it with more experienced eyes and a more experienced heart, is the parallel she draws with committing to authentic relationships:
‘“You are likely to find yourself avoiding your artist dates [or morning pages!*]. Recognise this resistance is a fear of intimacy – self-intimacy.
“Often in troubled relationships, we settle into an avoidance pattern with our significant others. We don't want to hear what they're thinking because it might just hurt. So we avoid them, knowing that once they get the chance, our significant others will probably blurt out something we do not want to hear. It is possible they will want an answer we do not have and can't give them. it is equally possible we might do the same to them and then the two of us will stare at each other in astonishment, saying, ‘But I never knew you felt like that!’
“But it is probable that these self-disclosures, frightening though they are, will lead to the building of a real relationship, one in which the participants are free to be who they are and to become what they wish. This possibility is what makes the risks of self-disclosure and true intimacy profitable.
“In order to have a real relationship without creativity, we must take the time and care to cultivate it. Our creativity will use this time to confront us, to confide in us, to bond with us, and to plan.”
So that’s where I am: digesting this commitment I’m making and emotionally preparing for it. And, I suppose, physically preparing for it, because I actually need to make space in my diary and set the time aside for everything from the morning pages to the artist’s date and these blog posts.
It’s quite a lot friend, and suddenly I’m a little daunted by 1: agreeing with myself to do that and 2: telling you about it.
No wiggling out now I guess.
Anyway. I might post more about this process in the comments (like I plan to do with the following weeks’ inserts), and I really hope some of you share your thoughts about intimacy with your creativity, if you have fears around it or no, what you’re scared some one-on-one time and honest conversation with it might tell you or whatever stood out for you. Don’t feel like commenting publicly? Just mail me direct.
See you soon cuties.
t
x
PS Because I wasn’t planning on a ‘Post 0’, the following post about Week 1 will follow on shortly after this.
*I’m never going to explain or define any of this because I assume you have the book.
** Square quotes are mine.
AW0: The artist's way is the only way
I thought I'd start W1 today but then stopped doing that altogether and found myself flipping randomly through the pages of the AW until I settled on a section in the 'basic principles' section where she talks about what to expect: 'Working with this process, I see a certain amount of defiance and giddiness in the first few weeks ... a strong urge to abandon the process ...'
Is giddiness in the same whatsapp group as overenthusiasm? Is this slow uptake of the course defiance? Do I feel like abandoning this at the very first step? Yes, yes and yes.
Anyway.
Something else that stood out for me in the tools section was the idea of 'filling the well'. I often get a powerful desire to have my eyeballs and brain and heart filled with images and ideas, beauty and experiences, especially after I've finished a book. Which reminds me: I should get back to it now. Not my book, Cameron's book.
Sigh.
An aside: writing in this empty, tumbleweed-town comments section is pretty strange and reminds me of my early days of blogging as DB when I could just yadda yadda on and on to no one on my little digital soapbox. There's something delightfully liberating about it. Like leaving a nudie in public library book and the frisson of someone maybe finding it.*
Anyway. Next insert will be W1 for sure.
*I've never done this by the way. Or, at least, not totally this.