On this week’s episode of Creative Space, we’re diving into Chapter 4 of Julia Cameron’s seminal book on creativity, “The Artist’s Way.” The focus for this week is “Recovering a Sense of Integrity,” and it’s all about letting go of previously accepted limits and experimenting with spiritual open mindedness.
There is so much to cover but there are three core principles we’ll talk about: honest changes, kriya, and reading deprivation.
My favorite passage from this chapter: “Be prepared for bursts of tears and laughter. A certain giddiness may accompany sudden stabs of loss. Think of yourself as an accident victim walking away from the crash: your old life has crashed and burned; your new life isn’t apparent yet. You may feel yourself to be temporarily without a vehicle. Just keep walking.”
If you’re interested in reading "The Artist’s Way" and/or following along with the podcast as you complete the work, you can purchase it here.
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Jennifer Logue:
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Creative Space, a podcast where we explore, learn and grow in creativity together. I'm your host, jennifer Loge, and just as a reminder for the next few weeks, we're going to be doing something different. On the podcast, I'm doing the artist's way by Julia Cameron for the first time. Last week we talked about chapter three, recovering a sense of power, and this week we're diving into week four, recovering a sense of integrity. In the summary for the section, cameron explains how we may be grappling with changing self-definition. What does this mean? Well, through the ongoing work we're doing each morning with the morning pages, she explains, we're beginning to distinguish between our real feelings, which for many people are secret shh, and our official feelings, which is what we tend to project to the world.
Jennifer Logue:
I've been journaling for nearly a decade now, so I'm pretty in tune with how I feel. However, the stream of consciousness approach that we do in the artist's way takes down all the barriers and helps you uncover feelings you didn't even know you were feeling. If that makes any sense, I definitely feel so much more clear doing this kind of writing in the morning. It allows me to look beneath the surface of what I'm experiencing. As an example, cameron talks about okay being a blanket word for everything. Oh, I'm okay. Well, what does that actually mean? Are you numb, detached, sad grieving, stuck the morning pages? Allow us to explore that and learn more about ourselves, and from this place of honesty and clarity we're able to make what Cameron calls honest changes in our lives. Maybe you've outgrown a job, or maybe you've outgrown a relationship. Maybe you're bored with the way you're living your life right now and you want to change things up. I know I'm contemplating all sorts of changes since starting this work with the artist's way, and one that's surprising to me is my pull towards more visual mediums.
Jennifer Logue:
I've earned my living as a writer for most of my professional life, but for a few years I did do photography as well, and I absolutely loved it. I had started out as a concert photographer I do artists interviews and show reviews and took up photography as a means of telling a more complete story with photos and looking over my life. Art museums have always been one of my favorite places to go. I just love taking in visual works. So getting back to photography may be in my future. I'm hungry for it and I'm allowing myself to be hungry for it. If it weren't for the insights in this chapter, I probably would have written off the impulse as being too impulsive and I would have ignored it. I should stick to what I know, stick to writing. It's amazing how we put ourselves into boxes sometimes.
Jennifer Logue:
Cameron also brings up the pain associated with making an honest change. She cites a Sanskrit word called kriya, which means a spiritual emergency or surrender. She describes them as cries of the soul as it's going through changes and man have. I felt this Whenever I'm about to be brave or try something new, make a change in my life that deviates from my comfort zone In any way. I feel that cry of the soul. But then I also feel it when I'm in a situation that I know I shouldn't be in, when I know I'm not taking the risks I should be taking. I feel that cry of the soul then too, and I wonder if they're the same or if one could be different from the other the soul wanting to make a change, versus that part of us that cries out inside because we're scared to make the change. Another idea that I love in this chapter is that creativity is grounded in reality. It's not grounded in fantasy. The best art comes from being in the moment and being truly honest with ourselves and turning our experiences in the here and now into art. Cameron also talks about how shifts in tastes and perception often accompany shifts in identity, as we're doing the work in the artist's way.
Jennifer Logue:
Now, my favorite passage from this chapter is this Be prepared for bursts of tears and laughter. A certain giddiness may accompany sudden stabs of loss. Think of yourself as an accident victim walking away from the crash. Your old life has crashed and burned. Your new life isn't apparent, yet you may feel yourself to be temporarily without a vehicle. Just keep walking. This resonated with me so much because, as I said before, there are changes in my own life that have become apparent, and in many areas, I will admit, things feel like they're crashing and burning and I'm not sure what's next. But I have this faith that what's ahead is going to be a great adventure, although I can't quite describe it yet.
Jennifer Logue:
I typically always have a plan, and this time I'm letting things unfold, I'm allowing myself to be surprised, and there's one more part to this chapter that I wanted to touch on, and that's reading deprivation. This week we weren't allowed to read anything, and I took it a step further and didn't consume anything, not even a podcast. According to Cameron, we can actually open ourselves to more inspiration when we're not passively consuming constantly, and I agree with her. You become more available to the moment, your moment. So Cameron suggests some other things we can do instead of reading or consuming content, and they're all active, which I love Painting, washing the dog, repotting plants, going dancing and going dancing has to be an artist state for me. Soon I want to take a dance class. A friend of mine took a tango class recently and I felt my inner artist light up like I want to do that.
Jennifer Logue:
Anyway, I know I've rambled quite a bit in this episode, but there was a lot to cover and it makes a lot more sense if you get a copy of the book and work through the material yourself. I have to say again, I've said this a lot. I wish I had done this years ago and I was telling the women in my creative cluster we're not even halfway through yet and already we're seeing so much growth, creatively and personally. It's really wonderful. That's all I have for this episode of Creative Space. Next week we'll be diving into chapter five of the artist's way, recovering a sense of possibility. If you're interested in checking out the artist's way by Julia Cameron and doing the work on your own, I've linked to it in the show notes. My name is Jennifer Loge. Appreciate you taking the time to listen to Creative Space. Until next time.