Words matter. These are the best Julia Cameron Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The original ‘Artist’s Way’ focused on the nurturing of the self. The ‘Artist’s Way for Parents’ focuses both on nurturing the self and nurturing the children in our care.
When we clear the physical clutter from our lives, we literally make way for inspiration and ‘good, orderly direction’ to enter.
In my experience, divorce takes you out for about 10 years, but you hear people talk about it lightly. The same with depression. You only have to have one good breakdown before you realize you need help. It’s pretty frightening.
People get so focused on the big dream that they forget about the process.
We have a lot of pressures on children very young. We have ambition. We over-schedule our children. We want them to have soccer lessons and violin lessons… I think children need to have at least an hour of fun a day.
So much of our mythology around money centers on the illusion that if we had ‘more,’ we would be more comfortable and more able to access our creativity. But creativity and prosperity are spiritual matters, not fiscal ones.
Faith is almost the bottom line of creativity; it requires a leap of faith any time we undertake a creative endeavor, whether this is going to the easel, or the page, or onto the stage – or for that matter, in a homelier way, picking out the right fabric for the kitchen curtains, which is also a creative act.
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.
My work unblocks people, and then I look at the work that they do, and I think, ‘My God, how could they not have known they were talented? How could they not have known?’
I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.
The tools of ‘The Prosperous Heart’ help people to embrace the life that they actually have, where they often find that they already have ‘enough.’
My mother set us to an activity and let us be.
Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.
Because if you’re trying to write and you have unlimited time, you can procrastinate an unlimited account, but if you have limited time, you rush to the page trying to get something down in the little bit of fragment of time that you have, and you may write a great deal that way.
Creativity – like human life itself – begins in darkness.
My new house has a deck that wraps around my writing room; my writing room has many windows, and outside the windows I’ve hung bird feeders… for enticing different species. So I imagine I will be writing about that.
My life is at least as intricate as my readers’ lives. People say that ‘The Artist’s Way’ changed their lives, but when they talk about ‘Floor Sample,’ they tell me, ‘I was with you all the way.’
Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite – getting something down.
In limits, there is freedom. Creativity thrives within structure. Creating safe havens where our children are allowed to dream, play, make a mess and, yes, clean it up, we teach them respect for themselves and others.
Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.
I think everybody encounters difficulty. It’s just more pitched in some people.
Buy tabloids. Celebrity gossip is engrossing. Celebrity cellulite can make you forget turbulence.
For most people, creativity is a serious business. They forget the telling phrase ‘the play of ideas’ and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to play.
A God Jar is anything you wish it to be, in which you can put your wishes, dreams, problems, prayers. You may want to think of it as a spiritual mailbox.
When I went in, my editor said, ‘I hope you don’t think you’re a writer.’ And I said, ‘I hope you don’t think I’m a journalist.’ And, uh, turned out we were both right.
We go into parenting, and we discover that we don’t have the answers. We are at a loss.
‘Faith and Will’ sprang from my personal experience with passing through a dark spiritual time.
I believe that the ‘dark night of the soul’ is a common spiritual experience. I believe, too, that the answer is continued seeking and perseverance. It helps to know that others have endured a loss of faith.
‘Faith and Will’ is aimed at the same readership as ‘The Artist’s Way.’ The book is for spiritual seekers in all walks of life.
Creativity is always a leap of faith. You’re faced with a blank page, blank easel, or an empty stage.
The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.
I think we have a great deal of mythology around writing. We believe that only a few people can really do it. I wrote a book called ‘The Right to Write.’ In it, I argued that all of us have the capacity to write. That it’s as normal to write as it is to speak.
When it was suggested that I write a memoir I said, ‘I’m not old enough. I’m not distinguished enough.’ But I went home and sat down to write, and the material for the book just came flooding into my hands.
Art used to be made in the name of faith. We made cathedrals, we made stained-glass windows, we made murals.
When we put the pen to paper, we articulate things in our life that we may have felt vague about. Before you write about something, somebody says, ‘How do you feel?’ and you say, ‘Oh, I feel okay.’ Then you write about it, and you discover you don’t feel okay.
