Check-In: Reflecting on the Journey

Our Journey Ends--Or Does It?

"No final flourishes here," Cameron says in her Epilogue to The Artist's Way. 

No flourishes, perhaps...but much reflection.

"The Artist's Way is a spiritual journey, a pilgrimage home to the self."

Are you, as I am, finding your way "home to your self" as a result of the last three months we've spent on this journey? Have you gained clarity, purpose, joy? Are you playing more? Dreaming more? Do you know your self better? Are you able to express that self with greater authenticity in your life and art?

I decided to revisit The Artist's Way at this particular time in my life because I felt lost to myself--lost and confused and vulnerable. I knew I needed to reconnect with the child-artist I had pushed aside in order to keep an uneasy peace with someone I knew at some level did not have my best interests at heart. I needed to heal. I needed to reconnect with the dreams I had let go.

I knew that leading a group through this course would hold me accountable in ways I wouldn't do on my own. I am so grateful to all of you for being here with me and for allowing me to be here with you as you, too, have deepened your relationship with your selves and reconnected with your dreams. I am honored.

I like Cameron's description of the Artist's Way as an upward winding path. "As we pursue climbing it," she says, "we circle back on the same views, over and over, at slightly different altitudes.... The road is never straight. Growth is a spiral process, doubling back on itself, reassessing and regrouping.... A fog may obscure the distance we have covered or the progress we have made toward our goal. While the occasional dazzling vista may grace us, it is really best to proceed a step at a time, focusing on the path beneath our feet as much as the heights still before us."

I've seen glimpses of those dazzling vistas through the fog. Enough to inspire me to keep climbing! One step at a time...

"Art is an act of the soul, not the intellect."

I'm the sort who wants to figure everything out, wants to know, wants to understand why. This course has reminded me that there are different ways of knowing. I may not ever be able to understand intellectually why things happen as they happen. Reason, after all, has no answer for the unreasonable.

Soul understands we are more than reason. Soul taps into the undercurrent that flows through and between all of us and makes the unreasonable understandable solely because it is human. That's where my art comes from--not from intellectualizing but from letting myself relax into the flow.

"We all start out the same way--rich in dreams and nothing more. If we are lucky, we find friends to believe in our dreams with."

I am fortunate, indeed! 

"As artists, we belong to an ancient and holy tribe. We are the carriers of the truth that spirit moves through us all."

Why have we made such strong connections here? Is it because we are members of the same tribe, we are moved by the same spirit--a spirit we recognize in each other?

We have reached the end of The Artist's Way, but we have not reached the end of the Artist's Way. The journey never ends. We continue to move toward our dreams--to move toward our selves--as the stars continue to move through the sky. "Like neighboring constellations," Cameron says, serving each other both as guides and as company. I can say along her that "my deepest wish for you is the company of fellow lights and the generosity to light each others' ways."

Behold the light!

If anyone else has images you'd like to share, please email them to me. Celebrate your Artist!

Barbara: What I Want Is Who I Am

Barbara: Artist Altar

Nancy: picture book spread from PavoRatti

June: Artist Altar

Spread featuring June's picture book The Goodnight Train

Ginny: Heart Treasures

Pam: Splash

Ann: Artist Altar

Check-In: Week Twelve

Recovering a Sense of Faith

"Adventures don't begin until you get into the forest. That first step is an act of faith."

I loved this opening quote from Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. It's so true for us as artists, and for those of us who write, it's a reminder that Story begins with Change--either initiated by the protagonist or thrust upon him.

I also like Cameron's follow-up that when we enter the forest on the path that is right for us, "we have a surefootedness." We know what to do next, even if we don't know exactly where it will take us. "By trusting, we learn to trust."

The Andre Gide quote takes the faith required to embark on a journey even further: "One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." As one who has been out of sight of land on a small sailboat for days at a time, I understand this concept on a visceral level. I remember vividly being tossed about during a storm at sea and asking my companion if we were going to die. His profound answer: "Yes. But not tonight." I survived--and yes, I discovered new lands--both outside my self and within my self.

Cameron makes much of dreams this week:  

"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." 

"Our truest dream for ourselves is always God's will for us."

"It is the inner commitment to be true to ourselves and follow our dreams that triggers the support of the universe."

For me, the focus on dreams--the many exercises meant to help us discover, acknowledge and  clarify our dreams--has been the most significant part of my journey through TAW this go-through. One of my dreams is to help others discover, acknowledge, clarify and realize their dreams, and my goal in the next two weeks is to put together a proposal for a "creative dreaming/creative living" course to offer through my local community college's community ed program. The deadline for proposals is April 15, so I have my work cut out for me. If any of you have resources other than The Artist's Way you'd recommend I use as I develop the course, please, let me know what they are!

Other concepts and quotes from this chapter that resonated:

Abundance

"We have bought the message of our culture: this world is a vale of tears and we are meant to be dutiful and then die. The truth is that we are meant to be bountiful and live." 

Mystery

"Creativity--like human life itself--begins in darkness."

"Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise..."

"How to raise the best ideas: Let them grow in 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!"

Play

"In order to nurture our creativity, we require a sense of festivity, even humor..."

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

"Restive in our lives, we want to do something. But we think it needs to be the right something, by which we mean something important. [The truth is,] WE are what's important! " [emphasis mine]

And perhaps my favorite: "Life is mean to be an artist date." :-)


This is the last chapter in The Artist's Way, but the Epilogue and Appendix are well worth spending time on--so we'll officially "meet" on these pages for two more weeks: to comment on Chapter 12, to have time to read through the back matter, and then, after my final post next weekend, to comment on the back matter and Cameron's final words.

Next week I also want to post images of the playful work you've done over the last three months we've been meeting here: something you've created that is emblematic of your journey. If you haven't yet sent me a j-peg and you have something you'd like to share, please send it on! bhicksgvv at att dot net.

Cheers!