Books
Finished reading: The Artist’s Way - Spirtual Electricity: The Basic Principles by Julia Cameron. 📚
I don’t have a lot to say overall about this chapter, so I’m just going to share my annotations with you.
We tend to think, or at least fear, that creative dreams are egotistical, something that God wouldn’t approve of for us… If your mom or dad expressed doubt or disapproval for our creative dreams, we may project that same attitude onto a parental god.
I think me not really fitting the mold of a lot of the people Cameron is addressing is going to be a pattern for a lot of this program. My parents were incredibly supportive of any creative dream I might express. A lot of this came from my mom’s own experience of her parents treating creative activities as frivolous pursuits, I think. She took great care to support myself and my siblings in our creativity. My dad did, too, though I don’t think it came from the same place as my mom’s experience. They still are both very supportive of our dreams.
As you work with the tools in this book, as you undertake the weekly tasks, many changes will be set in motion. Chief among these changes will be the triggering of synchronicity: we change and the universe furthers and expands that change.
This reminds me of a beautiful quote from Bakara Wintner’s WTF is Tarot? and How Do I Do It?:
In The Fool, we say yes to the universe and in The Magician the universe says yes back to us.
I’m not big into manifestation talk or The Secret or whatever, but I do think deliberately setting an intention subtly moves us in ways that make us more likely to meet that intention.
We are, ourselves, creations.
I really think this idea aligns well with my whole cosmic art mom thing. Every human grew in some other human’s uterus. I like to imagine my kid as his own person, of course, but also as a collaborative work of art to which I’ve contributed. (I feel like that sounds icky. I don’t mean it in an icky way.)
You probably won’t have time to complete all of the other tasks in any given week… In choosing which half of the tasks to do, use two guidelines. Pick those that appeal to you and those you strongly resist.
In earlier attempts, I found that I struggle with choosing tasks because none of them seem to evoke responses in me. Since I’m doing this on my own timeline, and I have such a hard time picking, I’m going to try them all.
We begin to excavate our buried dreams.
I’ll be interested to see how I respond to this. I haven’t made my decisions based on what’s expected or nice. My mom instilled in me a deep sense that being “nice” is not as valuable as it might first seem. (As a young person, people always told her how nice she was.) Nice and kind are not the same thing. I think it’s important to be kind. I don’t think it’s important to be nice. I don’t think of my dreams as buried as much as shelved. I know what they are and where they are, and sometimes I take them out and play with them. I have never allowed work to drive my creative interests out of me.
How do you know if you are creatively blocked? Jealousy is an excellent clue. Are there artists whom you resent? Do you tell yourself, “I could do that, if only…”
More often than not, instead of jealous, I feel inspired. If this person wrote a book after 10 years of not writing anything, so can I! If this person built a comedy career with only a bachelor’s degree in theater, I don’t need any extra training to start doing comedy! If this person only started writing their novel after two years of research, it’s okay that I’m in a research phase and haven’t started writing yet!
Stop telling yourself that dreams don’t matter, that they are only dreams and that you should be more sensible.
I wonder how much of this isn’t a problem for me because I have divorced the notions of art and money. Not that people shouldn’t get paid for creating art, but that I don’t have to wait to create art until it’s my job. I do all kinds of things that aren’t my job because they bring me joy. My job doesn’t have to be the vessel for my dreams. If it can, neat! If it’s not, that doesn’t mean I can’t find other ways to live my dreams.
Currently reading: The Artist’s Way - Spiritual Electricity: The Basic Principles by Julia Cameron 📚
Finished: The Artist’s Way - Introduction by Julia Cameron. 📚
Cameron’s introduction is very introducey, setting a foundation for understanding the work of The Artist’s Way and explaining her own story. My favorite quote from this section is probably “Accumulate pages, not judgments.” (p. xv)
Cameron spends a fair amount of time here talking about her use of the term “God” in the book, and how it’s there because this is a spiritual path but you don’t need to be a theist to follow it. She suggests substituting something like “good orderly direction” or “flow” if “God” makes you uncomfortable.
I think I’m going to substitute “Cosmic Art Mom.”
I am agnostic, humanist, and a bit witchy. I haven’t identified as Christian for a very long time, and I’m no fan of the idea of a sky bully, but from a tiny age I believed in a Sky Mom, and I kind of still do.
My earth mom is a theologian by training, and taught me a lot about who God is supposed to be before I ever went to church. When I finally went to a church and they kept referring to God as “he,” I was outraged. I said, “No! God is a Mommy!” because everything my mom said - creation, unconditional love - these things were, in my mind, things moms did.
I didn’t know I was doing the toddler version of Goddess Spirituality, but I pretty much was. In spite of my agnosticism, I still fall pretty squarely somewhere on the Goddess movement spectrum. I have an intuitive sense that there is a Sky Mom - or maybe I’ll just stick with Cosmic Mom from now on - out there looking out for me. I can get a bit Deist about it at times because obviously stuff goes wrong for me specifically and the world at large - but especially now that I’m a mom, I kind of get it. Moms mess up. Our attention wanders sometimes.
Like many ancient deities, Cosmic Mom can bear a variety of epithets. I’ll probably imagine Cosmic Art Mom, who, for the record, is pretty much a deified Carrie Fisher, as I work through The Artist’s Way.
What do you think of when you see “God” in The Artist’s Way?
Currently reading: The Artist’s Way - Introduction by Julia Cameron 📚
📚💬 “Never send a scholar who studies dystopias to a conference with futuristic themes.” Kelly J. Baker, SEXISM ED
📚 Started reading OUTLANDER and if my spouse finds my interest in my scholarship as tiresome as Claire finds Frank’s, I wish he and his kilted flake much happiness. (My spouse LIKES that I’m a scholar so we’re okay.)
🔖 Read Who Writes the Books in Video Games? . This is relevant to my interests. 📚🎮
📚 I’m on page 78 of Gwenda Bond’s NOT YOUR AVERAGE HOT GUY and y’all, I’m so glad she’s expanded her repertoire to include humorous fantasy romance. ❤️
This is a reminder that Brent Spiner’s book Fan Fiction, which I reviewed back in September, came out a few weeks ago & you can purchase it now! 📚🖖
I set foot in a bookstore for the first time since the start of the pandemic today. I stood there, looking at everything, almost having a panic attack from giddiness, wanting to buy it all. W said he could smell the store on me when I got back in the car. 📚
🔖📚📝 Read
Catapult | I Found My Literary Community by Writing Book Reviews | catapult.coRead: catapult.co
📚 Me continuing to read Black Sun:
Uhhuh uhhuh Sun Priestess is cool, nice chill use of non-binary gender without making it A Thing but WHEN DO I GET MORE SEA CAPTAIN?