Julia Cameron

I like her. I really like her.

Julia is the author of The Artist's Way which I read about 15 years ago and it really has helped me to understand about the artist's life - that is to say the creative life.
And we are all artists and we all have different forms of creativity.

This book is designed to be a project that you go through every week - there are different assignments for you to do. And the purpose is to help remove the blocks to being creative.

One of the basic understandings of her process is the idea of "morning pages" - starting every day writing three pages - notebook sized pages. It is a way to get it out - the stuff inside yourself and it really helps you to see what you are carrying around inside yourself. It is just amazing. Many people if I tell them about it are immediately resistant and often in a judgmental way. Because they are too busy with important stuff and I must just have an easier life. Anyway, that has been my experience in talking about this to others. And I know how hard it is to do this - which is why I so often do not. but I also know the process works well.

When I do morning pages - I often am writing to God about the events of my life. Getting it down on paper is invaluable in later seeing and understanding with greater clarity what is going on. But that is just me -

A year and a half ago Susan and I went to a workshop that she led on creativity. In Sedona. And it was wonderful. I blogged about it at the time. The way she led us was as important as the understandings I received in the workshop. And it brought me back to moarning pages for a while and just to re-learning how much God wants us to be creative.

The reason I write this morning about it is that I picked up a book by her yesterday at the library called "Faith and Will." It is really interesting to me. First of all - it has no chapters - it is like a long talk by Julia about her relationship with God. She has written it at a time in which she is experiencing a "God absence" or "A dark night of the soul." Her writing it is a way to help her through this time. And these times are part of the life of the faithful.

Her experience and expressions of God are not at all tied to religion but they really speak to me. She is kind of "out there" and even writes honestly about her issues with having nervous breakdowns - but as I read this book I feel so connected to her understandings about the life of faith.

Check it out.