Continuing on through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, we now hit Week Eleven! Woo!
Week Eleven: Recovering a Sense of Autonomy
Here are the tasks for Week Eleven!
- Tape your own voice reading the Basic Principles (see below). Choose a favorite essay from this book and tape that as well. Use this tape for meditation.
- Write out, in longhand, The Artist’s Prayer (see below). Place it in your wallet.
- Buy yourself a special creativity notebook. Number pages one through seven. Give one page each to the following categories: health, possessions, leisure, relationships, creativity, career, and spirituality. With no thought as to practicality, list ten wishes in each area. All right, it’s a lot. Let yourself dream a little here.
- List five ways you plan to nurture yourself in the next six months: courses you will take, supplies you will allow yourself, artist’s dates, and vacations just for you.
- Take out a piece of paper and plan one week’s nurturing for yourself. This means one concrete, loving action every single day for one week. Please binge!
- Write and mail an encouraging letter to your inner artist. This sounds silly and feels very, very good to receive. Remember that your artist is a child and loves praise and encouragement and festive plans.
- Once more, reexamine your God concept. Does your belief system limit or support your creative expansion? Are you open minded about altering your concept of God?
- List ten examples of personal synchronicity that support the possibility of a nurturing creative force.
The Basic Principles
- Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.
- There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life—including ourselves.
- When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator’s creativity within us and our lives.
- We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative to ourselves.
- Creativity is God’s gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.
- The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.
- When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God: Good Orderly Direction.
- As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.
- It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.
- Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.
The Artist’s Prayer
O Great Creator,
We are gathered together in your name
That we may be of greater service to you
And to our fellows.
We offer ourselves to you as instruments.
We open ourselves to your creativity in our lives.
We surrender to you our old ideas.
We welcome your new and more expansive ideas.
We trust that you will lead us.
We trust that it is safe to follow you.
We know you created us and that creativity
Is your nature and our own.
We ask you to unfold our lives
According to your plan, not our low self-worth,
Help us to believe that it is not too late
And that we are not too small or too flawed
To be healed–
By you and through each other–and made whole.
Help us to love one another,
To nurture each other’s unfolding,
To encourage each other’s growth
And understand each other’s fears.
Help us to know that we are not alone,
That we are loved and lovable.
Help us to create as an act of worship to you.
Check in, ninjas! Let us know how you’re doing and let us know how we can be of service as we finish up this lovely book! 😀
This SMFA Master Class weekly call was recorded on May 19, 2013.