It’s Week Nine of Julia Cameron’s twelve-week The Artist’s Way workshop, and we are deep into “it.” Deep into what blocks the expression of our creativity. Deep into owning the yuckiest, darkest, most self-destructive, self-sabotaging parts of ourselves. Ick. “Ick” is definitely the word of the week. So, if you’re not into looking at, and taking responsibility for, the ick in you – it’s there, we all have it – then you might want to stop reading here.
“Oh, but I’m not creative,” you say. I believe you are. I believe we all are whether or not we express our creativity for a living through the arts. I believe we are made in the image and likeness of The Great Creator who creates and is creative. Therefore, so are we. We create our lives, our families, our life experiences. We may be creative gardeners, cooks, handypersons, computer techs, problem solvers, business people or parents.
Julia handed out envelopes labeled “The Seven Deadlies” containing seven slips of paper, each with a different topic. Each participant chose one, wrote it down and returned the slip to the envelope so each time a selection was made all seven topics were available. We chose seven times. The Seven Deadlies are drugs, alcohol, sex, money, food, work, friends/family. The assignment was to write a couple of sentences about how we use the topic to block our creativity (or prevent ourselves from having our dreams come true). The structure of the process made it possible to select “alcohol” three times, “work” four, “money” twice and some topics not at all. We then had the opportunity to look at the significance of that. No topic is inherently bad, in fact, some are quite good! It is when they are abused or used unconsciously to dull pain, avoid fear or hold ourselves back they can cost us our creative self-expression, or making our dreams come true.
For me personally, as surgery looms closer and closer, we dig deeper and deeper with Julia and I feel more and more vulnerable, challenging issues are arising to be faced. My whole life I’ve taken to heart Socrates’ comment, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I always examine. I don’t always like what I find, but it is always liberating when I take responsibility for what I see. And I don’t always see it in myself first. I see it first in the people in my life. It can take a heartbeat or two, sometimes longer (tongue-in-cheek), to realize what I see in them is true about me, especially when I don’t like it. Think of it as holding up your two hands, palms facing, so they are mirror images of one another; one is you, one the other person. Looking in the mirror of others, we can see ourselves. It’s great when positive qualities are reflected back but “ick” when we don’t like what we see. Author, and metaphysical minister, Terry Cole-Whittaker summarized this experience by saying “All is projection.” Whatever we see in, and say about, others is true about us. The way they treat us is the way we treat ourselves. They serve us by holding up the mirror for us. Understanding and accepting this as true is about step 293 in the process. First come disbelief, denial, indignance, annoyance, outrage, disappointment . . . and blaming the mirror holder. It’s about them. It’s not about us. But it’s always about us because there’s only one energy field. Everyone and everything are part if it.
This week a person who has been very close to me served me by mirroring how I treat my inner artist – with disregard, disrespect, domination, sabotage, lack of empathy, compassion or love. Her survival need to feel powerful and be in control meant meeting her needs only and excluding those of others. While it’s not pleasant being treated that way, it’s even less pleasant to acknowledge “That’s the way I’ve been treating myself, the inner artist in me.” Recognition is the first step in shifting awareness, and, ultimately, in shifting behavior. I’m grateful the mirror was held up. I’m grateful I looked. I’m grateful I’m taking responsibility for what I saw. For me, this is the most challenging part of my ongoing spiritual practice. It is also, for me, the most rewarding, since I believe “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Showing posts with label Julia Cameron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julia Cameron. Show all posts
Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Biking in the Bosque
Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, is personally facilitating a twelve-week workshop on her book Sunday afternoons in Santa Fe, where she now lives. It is a course on discovering and recovering your creative self. Along with forty other painters, poets, graphic designers, musicians, photographers and writers, I am privileged and honored to be participating. Julia has expressed her creativity as an award-winning journalist writing for the Washington Post, New York Times, Rolling Stone and Vogue. She has been a film and television writer, director and producer of independent features and documentaries, a novelist, playwright, songwriter and poet. She has published over thirty books.
So, what does this have to do with biking in the bosque (forest along the banks of the Rio Grande)? This is the way women often talk, think and write, spiraling around the topic, exploring adjunct nuances, instead of just making their point. My topic this week is guidance, and I’m getting there.
Julia assigns homework each week including two twenty-minute walks on your own without a dog. Forty minutes of weekly walking isn’t the best match for a person using a walker and scheduled for hip replacement surgery May 14th. I substituted feeding blue corn to the cranes for several weeks until they migrated north ten days ago. This week I decided to substitute biking in the bosque. That may sound simple until one realizes one side of my body is not working as well as the other, and I haven’t been on a bicycle in 40 or 50 years. A bit daunting. My painter neighbor loaned me her bike since she isn’t using it. She fell off it, broke her hand and had surgery in December. Even more daunting. She is quick to point out that didn’t stop her from laying down a 6’ x 12’ brick paver patio this week. “You’ve got to push yourself,” she said. “Not bad for someone in her sixties.”
Mindful of her biking experience, I wondered about my own. Could I do it? Could I do it safely? Could I do it without injuring myself? So I asked for guidance, which some people call knowing or intuition, to provide the answers. Whom did I ask? Universal Mind, Spirit, the Force, God, whatever you want to call it. How? By muscle checking for a yes or no answer to my questions. Muscle checking can be done several ways.* The body doesn’t lie. It tells the truth. I have friends whose guidance comes as goosebumps in the presence of truth, or the hair on the back of their arms standing up, a warm feeling in the chest, tingling along the neck, spine, shoulders. Signs of guidance are probably as varied as people. I have been listening to guidance for 25-30 years now. I distinguish between hearing and listening to guidance. To me, hearing it means receiving the information. It can actually come in the form of internally “hearing” an answer (clairaudience), which I have experienced. But listening to guidance not only involves receiving the information, it involves acting on it. This can require courage since it may not seem the logical thing to do. Counterintuitive at times, acting on information received can require trust or faith, at least initially, until one is confident with the validity of the process. Faith and trust can be built. Confidence comes from direct, personal experience. Start small.
Some people start with a pendulum. It can be as simple as a washer on a string or as fancy as a crystal on a chain purchased at a metaphysical bookstore. The first step is establishing the movement that determines a “yes” or “no” response. The pendulum may move north/south for a “yes” and east/west for a “no.” Ask it which is which. My response is a circle to the left for “no” and to the right for “yes.” If you are worried you are making the pendulum move by not holding it perfectly still, hang it up so you are not touching it. In either case, focus your intention on receiving a response to your question.
It can be a long way from a washer on a string to trusting your body to tell you whether or not to firewalk across coals hot enough to melt the metal poured to form the engine of your car. On different occasions, I’ve been guided to walk or not walk, and I listened (acted on the guidance) each time. My firewalk experiences were part of sacred spiritual ceremony with Unity minister Edwene Gaines. She has walked on fire countless times and was burned only once – when she didn’t listen to guidance. She received second-degree burns when she willfully decided to walk, listening to her ego rather than her guidance. She emphasized to us, “You MUST listen to your guidance, for your own safety and that of others.”
Start small. I received bike riding guidance to take my time, go slowly, stop as needed, use the street by the nature preserve with very little traffic, put my left foot (bad hip foot) on a pedal first. I received guidance I could do it safely without injuring myself. So I did. I plan to continue practicing on the street until I can realize my dream of riding on the bike path along the Rio Grande. Guidance will let me know when I’m ready. And I will listen to it.
Synchronistically, Rob Brezsny’s recent Free Will Astrology column just featured a fascinating description of an ancient form of guidance: “How did the Vikings navigate their ships through rough northern seas on cloudy and foggy days? Medieval texts speak of the mysterious ‘sunstone,’ a ‘Viking compass’ used to detect the hidden sun. Modern theories suggest that this technology may have been Iceland spar, a mineral that polarizes light, making it useful in plotting a course under overcast skies. Do you have anything like that, Libra? A navigational aid that guides your decisions when the sun’s not out, metaphorically speaking? Now would be an excellent time to enhance your connection with whatever it is that can provide such power.” I’m glad to say I do have my own navigational aid.
*(See google)
So, what does this have to do with biking in the bosque (forest along the banks of the Rio Grande)? This is the way women often talk, think and write, spiraling around the topic, exploring adjunct nuances, instead of just making their point. My topic this week is guidance, and I’m getting there.
Julia assigns homework each week including two twenty-minute walks on your own without a dog. Forty minutes of weekly walking isn’t the best match for a person using a walker and scheduled for hip replacement surgery May 14th. I substituted feeding blue corn to the cranes for several weeks until they migrated north ten days ago. This week I decided to substitute biking in the bosque. That may sound simple until one realizes one side of my body is not working as well as the other, and I haven’t been on a bicycle in 40 or 50 years. A bit daunting. My painter neighbor loaned me her bike since she isn’t using it. She fell off it, broke her hand and had surgery in December. Even more daunting. She is quick to point out that didn’t stop her from laying down a 6’ x 12’ brick paver patio this week. “You’ve got to push yourself,” she said. “Not bad for someone in her sixties.”
Mindful of her biking experience, I wondered about my own. Could I do it? Could I do it safely? Could I do it without injuring myself? So I asked for guidance, which some people call knowing or intuition, to provide the answers. Whom did I ask? Universal Mind, Spirit, the Force, God, whatever you want to call it. How? By muscle checking for a yes or no answer to my questions. Muscle checking can be done several ways.* The body doesn’t lie. It tells the truth. I have friends whose guidance comes as goosebumps in the presence of truth, or the hair on the back of their arms standing up, a warm feeling in the chest, tingling along the neck, spine, shoulders. Signs of guidance are probably as varied as people. I have been listening to guidance for 25-30 years now. I distinguish between hearing and listening to guidance. To me, hearing it means receiving the information. It can actually come in the form of internally “hearing” an answer (clairaudience), which I have experienced. But listening to guidance not only involves receiving the information, it involves acting on it. This can require courage since it may not seem the logical thing to do. Counterintuitive at times, acting on information received can require trust or faith, at least initially, until one is confident with the validity of the process. Faith and trust can be built. Confidence comes from direct, personal experience. Start small.
Some people start with a pendulum. It can be as simple as a washer on a string or as fancy as a crystal on a chain purchased at a metaphysical bookstore. The first step is establishing the movement that determines a “yes” or “no” response. The pendulum may move north/south for a “yes” and east/west for a “no.” Ask it which is which. My response is a circle to the left for “no” and to the right for “yes.” If you are worried you are making the pendulum move by not holding it perfectly still, hang it up so you are not touching it. In either case, focus your intention on receiving a response to your question.
It can be a long way from a washer on a string to trusting your body to tell you whether or not to firewalk across coals hot enough to melt the metal poured to form the engine of your car. On different occasions, I’ve been guided to walk or not walk, and I listened (acted on the guidance) each time. My firewalk experiences were part of sacred spiritual ceremony with Unity minister Edwene Gaines. She has walked on fire countless times and was burned only once – when she didn’t listen to guidance. She received second-degree burns when she willfully decided to walk, listening to her ego rather than her guidance. She emphasized to us, “You MUST listen to your guidance, for your own safety and that of others.”
Start small. I received bike riding guidance to take my time, go slowly, stop as needed, use the street by the nature preserve with very little traffic, put my left foot (bad hip foot) on a pedal first. I received guidance I could do it safely without injuring myself. So I did. I plan to continue practicing on the street until I can realize my dream of riding on the bike path along the Rio Grande. Guidance will let me know when I’m ready. And I will listen to it.
Synchronistically, Rob Brezsny’s recent Free Will Astrology column just featured a fascinating description of an ancient form of guidance: “How did the Vikings navigate their ships through rough northern seas on cloudy and foggy days? Medieval texts speak of the mysterious ‘sunstone,’ a ‘Viking compass’ used to detect the hidden sun. Modern theories suggest that this technology may have been Iceland spar, a mineral that polarizes light, making it useful in plotting a course under overcast skies. Do you have anything like that, Libra? A navigational aid that guides your decisions when the sun’s not out, metaphorically speaking? Now would be an excellent time to enhance your connection with whatever it is that can provide such power.” I’m glad to say I do have my own navigational aid.
*(See google)
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