Into WEEK 3 of The Artist's Way book: A Spiritual Path To Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. This course is about discovering and recovering your creative self. My way good friend, Jane, suggested to her circle of friends that we all embark on this 12 week course on our own, just to all be doing it in honor of the power of a group intent. I don't know who all of Jane's circle is doing it, it's not about us all having dialog and emails over our progress or thoughts about it. I know Jane is doing it, I know I am doing it.
I've read this book through and have done the exercises before. In fact, I had to search for the book in order to do it again. So here we are at WEEK 3. I dutifully write the 'morning pages' everyday, because, well, I write in my journal every morning any way and have since I can remember. I usually brew up my ritual cup of steaming jo with frothed half and half, sit in my comfy chair, sip and write. This is my morning routine that has started my day for a long time.
This morning was different. OK, so it's a full moon and the Autumnal Equinox. Things are shifting, but then again, when AREN'T things shifting in this universe? We all are, after all, living on dirt plates floating around on a sphere of water that is spinning in an orbit that is orbiting around a sun that is orbiting around a galaxy that is orbiting around God knows what else. So, yeah, I have a cup of coffee to get grounded. Silly, huh?
As I was saying though, this morning's pages were different. I woke up because there were all types of wildlife critter sounds outside my yurt-bedroom, and I felt immediately restless, as did my canine companion. Firsts there were mouse sounds by the door, then the raccoons were on the deck, and all other sorts of critter activities around. I had a slight headache...hmmm, earthquake activity ? Then my mind kicked into full beat-me-up gear. The knots in the poodle hair made me feel badly for not keeping on top of brushing her enough simply by running my fingers lovingly over her, as I do each morning and throughout our days. This fired up the host of thoughts that are carried around rearing their ugly heads and sabotaging any sense of well being or belonging at any given time. The thoughts that meditation silence (but don't). The thoughts that just wreak havoc in a person's life. We all have them.
So I pick up my journal and just start writing. All my feelings of weirdness, restlessness, loneliness I'm feeling at the moment, out-of-placeness in the world-in society-in my life....and it goes on for a full three pages, just the amount of prescribed writing in this course. I don't even want coffee. I hear my daughter's van start up and drive off to the gym. Good for her getting up before the family and the sun and going off to exercise. I wish I were motivated to exercise that way myself....ooops, there goes another berating thought. But I catch it and pick up the Artist's Way book and decide to do a bit of reading in the third chapter.
Page 68 found me bursting into tears and a flow of emotions came out, triggered by the words I was reading on this page. "Wow," I think at this display of emotion and flow of feelings, "this book is really working." Before this page, it didn't bring up any powerful emotions but rather gently validated why I am the way I am. Most artist's are like this, whatever "this" is.
So the egg of my inner workings finally cracked. The yolk of my childhood shame is spilling out and the gooey egg white of all my adult shaming and damaging criticisms are surrounding the yolk and together this potential life, now cracked and spilled can only, if cooked into a meal, nourish with protein to grow, who I now am. That potential little chick is now someone's breakfast. Mine? Am I the egg, the spilled contents, the chicken, the potential chicken that is now the meal or the meal itself? All of the above?
What I am going to do today is simply paint the paintings that I've so meticulously and enthusiastically began and just left sitting to do other 'more important' things for other people. I invite anyone that reads this blog to take a little time to tune in to their creative nature, and if you think you don't have one, treat yourself to purchasing this book and bring out that creative nature in yourself that others might have told you does not exist. It does.
