The Artist’s Way

Week 11 Reflection Week 12 Instructions

So here we are — week 12 is underway and it’s almost but not quite time to pat ourselves on the back with gratitude for the journeys we have made, and compassion for those that we have not!

Week 11 Reflection

How many days this week did you do your morning pages? I wrote five morning pages in week 11 and was happy to be able to start the habit in a different waking environment. Certainly I plan to continue the morning pages — today I numbered page 167! Lots of words and disjointed ideas, truths, insights, nonsense, and conflicting thoughts and feelings — the pages hold these all together at once, just like me, such is life.

Did you do your artist date this week? Have you considered scheduling an entire artist’s day? What did you do? How did it feel? This week I considered catching up on last week’s Artist’s Date to be the Artist’s Date. I followed along to the audio recording of orgasmic yoga from Self-Fulfillment and Immune Resilience Course. Orgasmic yoga allows you to integrate breath, movement, sound, and touch. I reflected that in meditation I focus on breath — I am still and quiet. Dancing with hula hoop I move with sound — I tend not to focus on breath. Touch is an element I’ve been enjoying exploring in recent weeks. I was happy that all I need to do to practice orgasmic yoga is to designate a time, space, and an intention. Orgasms are not a requirement nor an expectation. Then I can play around with one or two or all of the elements- try letting your pelvis lead! I found myself lying on the floor crying heavily.

During my four weeks of annual leave, I am planning a 2-day 1-night solo vacation/extended date, offline. I haven’t yet planned the details but I am excited to do so.

Did you experience any synchronicity (coincidences) this week? What was it? I don’t recall experiencing any synchronicity this week and I found the task of listing “10 examples of personal synchronicity that support the possibility of a nurturing creative force” to be extremely challenging — I got stuck at 7.

Were there any other issues this week that you consider significant for your recovery? Describe them. No.

Week 12: Recovering a Sense of Faith

In this final week, we acknowledge the inherently mysterious spiritual heart of creativity. We address the fact that creativity requires receptivity and profound trust — capacities we have developed through our work in this course. We set our creative aims and take a special look at last-minute sabotage. We renew our commitment to the use of the tools.

Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control. This is frightening, and we resist it. Our resistance to our creativity is a form of self-destruction. We throw up roadblocks on our own path. Why do we do this? In order to maintain an illusion of control.

Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission. The admitting is often very difficult. It is the inner commitment to be true to ourselves and follow our dreams that triggers the support of the universe. While we are ambivalent, the universe will seem to us also to be ambivalent and erratic. Once we trigger an internal yes by affirming our truest goals and desires, the universe mirrors that yes and expands it.

There is a path for each of us. When we are on our right path, we have a sure-footedness. We know the next right action — although not necessarily what is just around the bend. By trusting, we learn to trust.

Follow your bliss and doors will open where there were no doors before. Andre

Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. Ideas, like stalactites and stalagmites, form in the dark inner cave of consciousness. They form in drips and drops, not by squared-off building blocks. We must learn to wait for an idea to hatch. …we must learn to not pull our ideas up by the roots to see if they are growing.

Mulling on the page is an artless art form. It is fooling around. All too often, we try to push, pull, outline, and control our ideas instead of letting them grow organically.

The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.

Mystery is at the heart of creativity.That, and surprise. All too often, when we say we want to be creative, we mean that we want to be able to be productive. Now, to be creative is to be productive — but by cooperating with the creative process, not forcing it. Hatching an idea is a lot like baking bread. An idea needs to rise. If you poke it too much at the beginning, if you keep checking on it, it will never rise. A loaf of bread or a cake, baking, must stay for a good long time in the darkness and safety of the oven. Open that oven too soon and the bread collapses. Creativity requires a respectful reticence.

Let our ideas grow in the dark and mystery. Let them form on the roof of our consciousness. Let them hit the page in droplets. Trusting this slow and seemingly random drip, we will be startled one day by the flash of “Oh! That’s it!”

We are an ambitious society, and it is often difficult for us to cultivate forms of creativity that do not directly serve us and our career goals. Recovery urges our reexamining definitions of creativity and expanding them to include what in the past we called hobbies. The experience of creative living argues that hobbies are in fact essential to the joyful life. Then, too, there is the hidden benefit that they are also creatively useful. Many hobbies involve a form of artist-brain mulling that leads to enormous creative breakthroughs. As we serve our hobby, we are freed from our ego’s demands and allowed the experience of merging with a greater source.

It is a paradox of creative recovery that we must get serious about taking ourselves lightly. We must work at learning to play.

The Test

The Test. It’s like when you’re all set to marry the nice guy, the one who treats you right, and Mr. Poison gets wind of it and phones you up. The whole trick is to evade the Test. We all draw to us the one test that’s our total nemesis.”

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. Andre Gide.

Our artist as a child, an inner youngster, and when he/she is scared, Mommy is what’s called for. Unfortunately, many of us have Wet Blanket mommies and a whole army of Wet Blanket surrogate mommies. Always remember the first rule of magic is self-containment. You must hold your intention within yourself, stoking it with power. Only then will you be able to manifest what you desire. We must learnt to keep our own counsel, to move silently among doubters, to voice our plans only among our allies, and to name our allies accurately.

Tasks

0. Make a list of those friends who will support you. Make another list of those friends who won’t — name this list Wet Blankets. Do not indulge or tolerate anyone who throws cold water in your direction. Forget good intentions. Forget they didn’t mean it. Remember to count your blessings. “They will try to get you. Don’t forget that. Set your goals and your boundaries.”

1. Write down any resistance, angers, and fears you have about getting on from here. We all have them.
2. Take a look at your current areas of procrastination. What are the payoffs in your waiting? Locate the hidden fears. Do a list on paper.
3. Sneak a peek at Week One, Core Negative Beliefs. Laugh. Yes, the nasty critters are still there. Note your progress. Read yourself the affirmations. Write some affirmations about your continued creativity as you end the course.
4. Mend any mending.
5. Repot and pinched and languishing plants.
6. Select a banana jar. A what? A jar, a box, a vase, or a container. Something to put your fears, your resentments, your hopes, your dreams, your worries into. Why not write the date and fold them up. In the future you can take them out to see if they have come true / are still true.
7. Use your banana jar. Start with your fear list from Task 1 above. When worried, remind yourself it’s in the jar: “Banana’s got it”. Then take the next action.
8. List five people you can talk to about your dreams and with whom you feel supported to dream and then plan.
9. Reread this book. Share it with a friend. Remember that the miracle is one artist sharing with another. Trust banana. Trust yourself.