Julia Cameron - Recover
Your Creativity
Spur Your Imagination
By Liz Sterling
Julia Cameron is an active-artist who teaches internationally.
As a poet, playwright, fiction writer and essayist, she
has extensive credits in film, television and theater and
is an award-winning journalist. The author of fifteen books,
she has been teaching and refining her methods for over
two decades and has been credited with having found a new
human potential movement-enabling millions to realize their
creative dreams.
In our recent interview, Cameron shared her soul. "I
am the floor sample of my own tool kit. I was a sober alcoholic
at twenty-nine." That's right, at twenty-nine, Cameron's
booming career was on the downslide, her husband, Martin
Scorsese, had run off with her best friend and she was a
single mom to a beautiful daughter. Nothing was working
right for Julia, so in a funk, she left New York and headed
for Taos, New Mexico to pout. On a whim, she began writing
her, now famous, three longhand Morning Pages. "When
we are unblocked, she reminds us, "we can have remarkable
and diverse adventure. Your creativity is like your blood.
Just as blood is a fact of your physical body and nothing
you invented; creativity is a fact of your spiritual body
and nothing that you must invent. It is important to understand
that as blood constitutes the fluid of our physical makeup,
creativity is the essence of our spiritual DNA. Therefore,
we have creativity in our cells. We have been bent out of
shape by life. It shuts us down. The American school system
itself is inclined toward criticism and we require a course
that reconnects us to our essential creative spark. Our
unconscious mind is what our culture taught us--I lead people
back into the waters of their own creativity."
Julia explains what has happened. "Our society has
not encouraged art. We are so product oriented that our
mythology tells us that only an elite few are creative and
that if you aren't earning money and your finished product
isn't perfect, why bother? Our parents and teachers believed
this myth, so they discouraged us saying, 'Don't you think
you need something to fall back on?' That's when many creatives
turned away from themselves. So now, let's set that mythology
aside and begin with a new perspective. Art is not about
ego; art is actually an act of the heart." Cameron
says, "the word heart has 'art' and 'ear' in it. Art
is essentially a listening process where we listen to our
highest instincts and express them."
Julia cautions us as well. "We also have internal censors
that keep us blocked. Learn to hear your own critics. I
even named mine Nigel, and I say, get out-of-the-way! Learn
to miniaturize your sensor, your gatekeeper, elbow it aside
and make room for your creativity to come through. Then,
let the great creator create through you."
We frequently make excuses for why we cannot create. 'I
don't have enough time is a biggie for most women.' So I
asked Cameron about it. "Persevere a Zen challenge,"
she told me, "take forty-five minutes you do not have
and write three longhand pages of pure stream of consciousness--these
pages are not to be saved or shared with anyone." Cameron
explains, "these Morning Pages, are a clearing out
process, that help prioritize your whole day and make great
creative forays into your artistry. For each person, it
is important to recognize the Morning Pages are a primary
creative tool; a bedrock to alter your life toward the positive.
As a result, you may find yourself making scrapbooks, jotting
down memoirs, attending poetry groups, sewing quilts, singing
in the shower, using colored markers, pulling out the sewing
machine or buying a roll of film for the 35mm that found
it's way to the back of your closet. Creativity, unleashed,
follows its own path. No rights, no wrongs...it is all an
expression of your individual creative unfolding."
"Great artists are actually great amateurs" Cameron
writes in her newest book, Walking in This World: The
Practical Art of Creativity. "They have learned
to wriggle out of the seriousness of rigid categorization
and allow themselves to pursue the Piped Piper of delight."
Throughout Cameron's newest book, we are led to rediscover
the innocent artistic child within us all. In our busy lives,
we have often lost track of what can truly make us happy.
The Artist Date, the second exercise, is to set time aside
specifically to be alone with yourself, a time to stand
outside the flow of hurried time. "When I step aside
from pushing time." Cameron concludes, "from racing
the clock, even for just one hour, I feel more connected.
I recognize we are all in this together. I learn that it
is beautiful. The Artist Date is a way of acknowledging
there is an artist within and it's a way of filling up.
As artists, we must learn to be self-nourishing."
After a remarkable career, that has helped millions, she
asks us to incorporate her newest tool for daily maintenance.
"We don't have enough worldly encouragement,"
she told me. "Often artists are working alone thinking
they are crazy. Doubt, the most poisonous drink, at the
artist's table, can erode our thoughts so, Walking In
This World was born. Designed to help the artist along
the way, it is written as a 12-week journey. The Weekly
Walk shows readers how to inhabit this world with a childlike
inquisitiveness with which each of us is born. As we stretch
our legs," Cameron adds, "we stretch our minds
and souls."
If you're an artist yearning to be free, following the exercises
in her books will help you to take flight. I urge you to
utilize her simple and effective exercises that will help
to spur your imagination and recover your creativity. Break
loose from the grip of your established ways of thinking
and allow the artist (poet, writer, actor, creative wonder)
in you OUT! Now go, have fun and unblock your creative life.
Liz Sterling-Southeast Feature Editor
liz@balancemagazine.com
© 2003 Balance Magazine
