Tholian's Full Review: Artist's Way : A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativi...
I first encountered The Artist's Way when my Significant Other (who considered herself an artistically blocked composer) purchased it, found herself unable to do the Morning Pages exercise, and gave up on it--all within a two week period.
I thought nothing more about the book until two years later, when, in the midst of a horrible breakup with this same S.O., the title caught my eye. "The Artist's Way." That sounded really good. Not only was I being dumped romantically, but it was coming hard on the heels of being let go by a major symphony orchestra in one of those political changes of fortune that are the scourge of the music business...or any business. I sure didn't feel like an artist, I felt like a poor excuse for a musician, a pathetic loser who couldn't keep a job. I asked my soon-to-be ex if I could take the book, and she seemed glad to be rid of it, declaring it "useless."
A few weeks later, I found myself in the midst of a deep depression. I had lost my lover, my job and nearly everything I owned, all in the short space of three months--and I was just beginning to thaw out of the shock, allowing grief, anger and shame to set in. I struggled daily against suicide. Each morning I promised myself that today would not be the day, I would just get through this day and then I'd kill myself tomorrow if I really wanted to. It was in this frame of mind that I opened Chapter One and read:
"Stop telling yourself it's too late."
How did this woman know exactly what I'd been thinking since I lost the job? "It's too late. I'm out of the loop now. I won't even be able to get an audition anywhere, let alone win it. I'm washed up. It's all over at 30, my career's gone, I blew it. Guess I'd better start looking for a day job I can stand."
Not so fast, said Julia Cameron, gently but persistently. Maybe it's not too late. Maybe it's not all over. Maybe what you need to do is look at things a little differently. Maybe what just happened to you is OK because it will change you, and prod you down the path.
And most amazingly, a little further into the book: Maybe God is on your side after all.
I made a pact with myself. I decided to live until I had gone through this book and done each and every one of the exercises, and then I would see what I wanted to do. Whether rational or not, I decided that if Cameron, with her gentle healing philosophy, could not help me, then no one could.
The Morning Pages (three 8.5" x 11" pages of handwritten stream-of-consciousness) began my day religiously for the next three months. The injunction not to read them was an easy one to follow, as for weeks I spewed hateful venom into my notebook--alternating vitriolic diatribes against my injurers with maudlin self-pity and worries that I would never again find anyone to love me. I had no desire to reread any of that and cringed at Week 8's cheery assignment to do so.
The Artist Date was going to be harder, though. Setting aside four hours of uninterrupted time to do something fun, just for me, seemed like a gross indulgence--even though I was unemployed, alone and had vast grey expanses of unoccupied time stretching out in front of me. Still, in those four hours I just knew someone important would call, something would go on which could not be missed. I began to see how I was avoiding myself, how I hated to be with me. How could I expect other people to live and work with me when I wouldn't even spend four hours with myself?
The first Artist Date was a torture. I went to Assateague State Park and sat on the cold, wind-whipped beach reading Shakespeare. When I got home it hit me...this is supposed to be FUN, you idiot! I started laughing at myself, chuckling wryly at first, but eventually breaking out into a giant belly-laugh. I saw how hilarious I looked...the suffering artiste, all alone on the beach in the middle of November with the freezing wind and a huge Shakespeare book. Oh, please!
This was the beginning of coming up from the depths of feeling sorry for myself, into a space where I could start to get better.
I did do every one of the exercises, and with each one I climbed another step out of the pit. Not without pain, nor easily; but I lifted myself consistently, a little bit each day, with the help of Cameron's common-sense advice and loving insistence that I take it easy on myself. I wrote letters to long-ago friends and long-ago fiends; I made the first collages I'd done since elementary school; I searched for, and found, the common psychological and spiritual threads that bound my life together, and discovered that my life had not been destroyed, merely changed. I learned that I had been giving myself hell for all the things that don't matter to the soul, and letting myself slide into inaction on all the things that do. I learned that my biggest problem was in setting myself against the whole Universe, assuming in advance of asking that God's answer to my dreams was to be a resounding "NO," coupled with a kick in the butt for impertinence. What if the answer had always been "YES," all along?
Along the way I discovered that I was beginning to find music work again, and to be able to practice my instrument without torturing myself with perfection-pressure. I learned the critical importance of small actions, repeated daily, the idea of "baby steps" being a type of prayer-in-action, one more useful than praying for the big picture to suddenly become manifest. Although I didn't (and still don't) like the 12-step theories of addictions and inner children that popped up occasionally, I found a way to make these concepts work for me, as well...ironically fulfilling the 12-step dictum to "take what you need and leave the rest."
After 12 weeks, I no longer wanted to do myself in. I had made a sort of peace with what had happened, and where I was, and that my life trajectory had irrevocably changed but that was a good thing. I do not intend to make a savior of Julia Cameron, for I don't know her personally at all...but this book of hers was the mechanism by which I saved my own life.
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