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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.

-Julia Cameron

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I Believe That The

Julia Cameron

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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.

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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.

We Waste A Lot Of Time And A Lot Of Talent Trying To Write For The Common Reader, Whom We Will Never Meet. Instead We Should Be Writing For Our Ideal Reader.

The Need To Be A Great Artist Makes It Hard To Be An Artist. The Need To Produce A Great Work Of Art Makes It Hard To Produce Any Art At All. . . Fear Is What Blocks An Artist. The Fear Of Not Being Good Enough. The Fear Of Not Finishing. The Fear Of Failure And Of Success. The Fear Of Beginning At All.

I Believe That What We Want To Write Wants To Be Written. I Believe That As I Have An Impulse To Create, The Something I Want To Create Has An Impulse To Want To Be Born. My Job, Then, Is To Show Up On The Page And Let That Something Move Through Me, In A Sense, What Wants To Be Written Is None Of My Business.

I Am What I Am Again: A Writer. I Have Metabolized The Injury Into Art.

No Matter What Your Age Or Your Life Path, Whether Making Art Is Your Career Or Your Hobby Or Your Dream, It Is Not Too Late Or Too Egotistical Or Too Selfish Or Too Silly To Work On Your Creativity.

Creativity Is God's Gift To Us. Using Our Creativity Is Our Gift Back To God.

Making Art Is A Rite Of Initiation. People Change Their Souls.

Just As A Good Rain Clears The Air, A Good Writing Day Clears The Psyche.

The Face Of Love Is Variable. I Am Able To Love Without Demanding That My Relationships Assume The Structures And Forms I Might Choose For Them. My Love Is Fluid, Flexible, Committed, Creative. My Love Allows People And Events To Unfold As They Need. My Love Is Not Controlling. It Does Not Dictate Or Demand. My Love Allows Those I Love The Freedom To Assume The Forms Most True To Them. I Release All Those I Love From My Preconceptions Of Their Path. I Allow Them The Dignity Of Self-definition While I Offer Them A Constant Love That Is Every Variable In Shape.

Creativity Makes Life Useful To Us. It Also Makes Us Useful To Life.

In Our Human Lives, We Are Often Impatient, Ill-tempered, Inappropriate. We Find It Difficult To Treat Our Intimates With The Love We Really Hold For Them. Despite This, They Bear With Us Because Of The Larger, Higher Level Of Family That They Honor Even In Our Outbursts. This Is Their Commitment.

We Will Experience The Life We Have The Faith To Experience.

Judging Your Early Artistic Efforts Is Artist Abuse.

The Beginner's Humility And Openness Lead To Exploration. Exploration Leads To Accomplishment. All Of It Begins At The Beginning, With The First Small And Scary Step.

Creativity Is Not And Never Has Been Sensible.

You Are Your Own Promised Land, Your Own New Frontier.

We Don't Often Talk About The Fact That Writing Is All About Rhythm. When You Get Too Up In Your Head, You Can Lose A Lot Of Your Writing. Sometimes What A Writer Really Needs To Do Is Go Dancing.

Writing-and This Is The Big Secret-wants To Be Written. Writing Loves A Writer The Way God Loves A True Devotee. Writing Will Fill Your Heart If You Let It. It Will Fill Your Pages And Help To Fill Your Life.

Creativity Is A Spiritual Issue.

Did You Write Today? Then You're A Writer Today.

We Don't Always Know What Makes Us Happy. We Know, Instead, What We Think Should. We Are Baffled And Confused When Our Attempts At Happiness Fail.

Leap, And The Net Appears.

A Career Must Be Husbanded. Care Must Be Taken. Everyday Must Bring Some Small Bit Of Progress. How Would An Artist With Any Self-worth Act? Act That Way.

Doing Work Points The Way To New And Better Work To Be Done.

Possibility Is Far More Frightening Than Impossibility.

All Of Us Contain A Divine, Expressive Spark, A Creative Candle Intended To Light Our Path And That Of Our Fellows.

Creativity Is God's Will For Us And Should Be Practiced Like Any Other Spiritual Practice -a Day At A Time.

We Should Write Because Writing Brings Clarity And Passion To The Act Of Living. Writing Is Sensual, Experiential, Grounding. We Should Write Because Writing Is Good For The Soul. We Should Write Because Writing Yields Us A Body Of Work, A Felt Path Through The World We Live In.

Expect The Universe To Support Your Dream. It Will.

I Ask To Be Made Beautiful Like The Trees Are Beautiful, Each Growing According To A Unique Plan. Lop Off A Limb And And The Tree Will Accommodate It's Loss, Still Growing And Still Beautiful. It Is My Hope To Be Able To Flourish In A Similar Fashion, Taking On The Shape And Dimensions That Is Intended For Me.

When You Are Feeling Too Dull And Too Domesticated Get On A Horse, Sit Tall In The Saddle, And For A Moment Live In A World That Feels Like Risk And Adventure.

I Surrender My Anxiety And My Sense Of Urgency. I Allow God To Guide Me In The Pacing Of My Life. I Open My Heart To God's Timing. I Release My Deadlines, Agendas, And Stridency To The Gentle Yet Often Swift Pacing Of God. As I Open My Heart To God's Unfoldings, My Heart Attains Peace. As I Relax Into God's Timing, My Heart Contains Comfort. As I Allow God To Set The Tone And Schedule Of My Days, I Find Myself In The Right Time And Place, Open And Available To God's Opportunities.

My Heart Holds The World In Tender Awe.

You Are Either Losing Your Mind -- Or Gaining Your Soul.

Clock Is Ticking

Take A Small Step In The Direction Of A Dream And Watch The Synchronous Doors Flying Open

By Being Willing To Be A Bad Artist, You Have A Chance To Be An Artist, And Perhaps, Over Time, A Very Good One.

As We Open Our Creative Channel To The Creator, Many Gentle But Powerful Changes Are To Be Expected.

"god Does Not Give Us More Than We Can Handle," I Am Told But I Wonder If God Doesn't Overestimate Me Just A Little. Or Perhaps, And This Is Likely, I Underestimate God.

Anger Is Meant To Be Acted On. It Is Not Meant To Be Acted Out. Anger Points The Direction. We Are Meant To Use Anger As Fuel To Take The Actions We Need To Move Where Our Anger Points Us. With A Little Thought, We Can Usually Translate The Message That Our Anger Is Sending Us.

I Am A Gate For God To Accomplish Great Things. Through Me And With Me, New Life Enters The World.

Sometimes The Dying Live More Fiercely And Wisely Than The Rest Of Us. (146)

Life Is A Spiritual Dance And That Our Unseen Partner Has Steps To Teach Us If We Will Allow Ourselves To Be Led. The Next Time You Are Restless, Remind Yourself It Is The Universe Asking 'shall We Dance?

It Is The Use Of Creativity Which Heals The Creative Wound.

Spirituality Can Release Blocks, Lead You To Ideas, And Make Your Life Artful. Sometimes When We Pray For Guidance, We're Guided In Unexpected Directions. We May Want A Lofty Answer And We Get The Intuition To Clean Our Bedroom. It Can Seem So Humble And Picky And That You Don't Necessarily Think Of It Spiritual Guidance.

It Is On These (20min) Walks That My Best Ideas Come To Me. It Is While Walking That Difficult Clarity Emerges. It Is While Walking That I Experience A Sense Of Well-being And Connection, And It Is In Walking That I Live Most Prayerfully.

Creativity - Like Human Life Itself - Begins In Darkness... Bright Ideas Are Preceded By A Gestation Period That Is Interior, Murky, And Completely Necessary.

Gestation Period

The Heart Of Creativity Is An Experience Of The Mystical Union; The Heart Of The Mystical Union Is An Experience Of Creativity.

Art Is Born In Attention.

Exercise Often Moves Us Straight From Stagnation To Inspiration, From Problem To Solution, From Self-pity To Self-respect.

The Reward For Attention Is Always Healing.

As An Experienced Artist, I Carry My Work Like A Secret Pregnancy. I Am Always Aware Of Inner Life And The Need To Protect It.

Mystery Is At The Heart Of Creativity. As Creative Channels, We Need To Trust The Darkness.

Do Not Call Procrastination Laziness. Call It Fear.

Procrastination

I Started Writing Morning Pages Just To Keep My Hand In, You Know, Just Because I Was A Writer And I Didn't Know What Else To Do But Write. And Then One Day As I Was Writing, A Character Came Sort Of Strolling In And I Realized, Oh My God, I Don't Have To Be Just A Screenwriter. I Can Write Novels.

Mystery Is At The Heart Of Creativity. That, And Surprise.

I Learned, When Hit By Loss, To Ask The Right Question: "what Next?" Instead Of "why Me?" . . . Whenever I Am Willing To Ask "what Is Necessary Next?" I Have Moved Ahead. Whenever I Have Taken No For A Final Answer I Have Stalled And Gotten Stuck.

Creativity Is Our True Nature; Blocks Are An Unnatural Thwarting Of A Process At Once As Normal And As Miraculous As The Blossoming Of A Flower At The End Of A Slender Green Stem.

The Opposite Of Prosperity Is Not Poverty. It Is Anxiety.

When We Do What We Really Love, Money Will Come, The Door Will Open. We Feel Useful And Work As A Game That

And [now] I Think I’ll Probably Write A Lot About Birds. 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.

Apologies Are The Art Of Spiritual Housekeeping. They Help To Put And Keep Our Lives In Order.

When We Stop Playing God, God Can Play Through Us.

When I Talk About A Writing Life, I'm Talking About A Life In Which Writing Is The Dominant Response To Living.

Agendas Tend To Drain The Life Out Of Relationships.

Soul Is Not About Function; It's About Beauty, Form, And Memory.

It Is The Inner Commitment To Be True To Ourselves And Follow Our Dreams That Triggers The Support Of The Universe.

All Of Us Are Far Richer Than We Imagine. None Of Us Possesses A Life Devoid Of Magic.

Writing Is Like Breathing, It's Possible To Learn To Do It Well, But The Point Is To Do It No Matter What.

We All Have Time To Write. We Have Time To Write The Minute We Are Willing To Write Badly, To Chase A Dead End, To Scribble A Few Words, To Write For The Hell Of It Instead Of For The Perfect And Polished Result.

The Artist's Way Is A Spiritual Journey, A Pilrimage Home To The Self.

When We Clear The Physical Clutter From Our Lives, We Literally Make Way For Inspiration And 'good, Orderly Direction' To Enter.

We Should Write, Above All, Because We Are Writers, Whether We Call Ourselves That Or Not.

Survival Lies In Sanity, And Sanity Lies In Paying Attention...the Capacity For Delight Is The Gift Of Paying Attention.

Perfectionism Doesn't Believe In Practice Shots. It Doesn't Believe In Improvement. Perfectionism Has Never Heard That Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Badly--and That If We Allow Ourselves To Do Something Badly We Might In Time Become Quite Good At It. Perfectionism Measures Our Beginner's Work Against The Finished Work Of Masters. Perfectionism Thrives On Comparison And Competition. It Doesn't Know How To Say, "good Try," Or "job Well Done." The Critic Does Not Believe In Creative Glee--or Any Glee At All, For That Matter. No, Perfectionism Is A Serious Matter.

Our Modern Ideas Of 'functioning' Through Things Are Really Quite Inhuman. We Have This Idea That No Matter What Is Going On We Still Have To Color Between The Lines, Act Normal.

If We Are Forever Yearning For More Time, We Are Forever Discounting What Is Offered.

All Too Often, It Is Audacity And Not Talent That Moves An Artist To Center Stage.

As You Explore Your Inner World, Your Outer World Will Come More Sharply Into Focus. As You Face Your Imagined Barriers, You Will Encounter Real Ones, As Well.

I Am Compassionate. I Allow My Heart And Imagination To Embrace The Difficulties And Concerns Of Others. While Maintaining My Own Balance, I Find It Within Myself To Extend Sympathy, Attention, And Support. When They Are Grieved, I Listen With Openness And Gentle Strength. I Offer Loyalty, Friendship, And Human Understanding. Without Undermining Or Enabling, I Aid And Assist Others To Find Their Strength. I Allow The Healing Power Of The Universe To Flow Through Me, Soothing The Hearts And Feelings Of Those I Encounter.

Love Is The Substance Of All Life. Everything Is Connected In Love, Absolutely Everything.

Our Moods And Insights Are Transitory. This Current Is A Flow Of Grace Moving Us To Our Right Livelihood, Companions, Destiny.

We Tend To Think Being Hard On Ourselves Will Make Us Strong. But It Is Cherishing Ourselves That Gives Us Strength

Creativity Is Always A Leap Of Faith. You're Faced With A Blank Page, Blank Easel, Or An Empty Stage.

The Artist Brain Is The Sensory Brain: Sight And Sound, Smell And Taste, Touch. These Are The Elements Of Magic, And Magic Is The Elemental Stuff Of Art. In Filling The Well, Think Magic. Think Delight. Think Fun. Do Not Think Duty. Do Not Do What You Should Do-spiritual Sit-ups Like Reading A Dull But Recommended Critical Text. Do What Intrigues You, Explore What Interests You; Think Mystery, Not Mastery.

We Are The Origin Of Our Art, Its Homeland. Viewed This Way, Originality Is The Process Of Remaining True To Ourselves.

We Don't Always Know What Makes Us Happy. We Know, Instead, What We Think Should. We Are Baffled And Confused When Our Attempts At Happiness Fail...we Are Mute When It Comes To Naming Accurately Our Own Preferences, Delights, Gifts, Talents. The Voice Of Our Original Self Is Often Muffled, Overwhelmed, Even Strangled, By The Voices Of Other People's Expectations. The Tongue Of The Original Self Is The Language Of The Heart.

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.

If You Are Too Busy To Develop Your Talents, You Are Too Busy.

A Sketch Book Freezes Time. It Is An Instantaneous Form Of Meditation Focusing Us On The Worth Of Every Passing Moment.

Passing Moments

I Believe That When We Ask To Be Led, We Are Led, And There's Nothing Too Small Or Esoteric For Spiritual Help.

Any Little Bit Of Experimenting In Self-nurturance Is Very Frightening For Most Of Us.

Artists Love Other Artists. Shadow Artists Are Gravitating To Their Rightful Tribe But Cannot Yet Claim Their Birthright. Very Often Audacity, Not Talent, Makes One Person An Artist And Another A Shadow Artist-hiding In The Shadows, Afraid To Step Out And Expose The Dream To The Light, Fearful That It Will Disintegrate To The Touch.

To Write Is To Right Things. A Path Will Emerge.

Creativity Requires Faith. Faith Requires That We Relinquish Control.

In A Sense, As We Are Creative Beings, Our Lives Become Our Work Of Art.

I Am Breathing In And Out. Realizing This, I Began To Notice That Each Moment Was Not Without Its Beauty.

If You Think Of The Universe As A Vast Electrical Sea In Which You Are Immersed And From Which You Are Formed, Opening To Your Creativity Changes You From Something Bobbing In That Sea To A More Fully Functioning, More Conscious, More Cooperative Part Of That Ecosystem.

Writing Is A Spiritual Practice In That People That Have No Spiritual Path Can Undertake It And, As They Write, They Begin To Wake Up To A Larger Connection. After A While, People Tend To Find That There Is Some Muse That They Are Connecting To.

Answered Prayers Are Scary. They Imply Responsibility. You Asked For It. Now That You've Got It, What Are You Going To Do? Why Else The Cautionary Phrase Watch Out For What You Pray For; You Might Just Get It?

Making Art Has Taught Me That The Tiniest Smidgen Of Progress Is Something To Be Cherished.

The Refusal To Be Creative Is An Act Of Self-will And Is Counter To Our True Nature. When We Are Open To Our Creativity, We Are Opening To God: Good, Orderly Direction. As We Pursue Our Creative Fulfillment, All Elements Of Our Life Move Toward Harmony. As We Strengthen Our Creativity, We Strengthen Our Connection To The Creator Within. Artists Love Other Artists. Our Relationship To God Is Co-creative, Artist To Artist. It Is God's Will For Us To Live In Creative Abundance.

Creativity - Like Human Life Itself - Begins In Darkness.

Gestation Period

Here's What I Like About God: Trees Are Crooked, Mountains Are Lumpy, A Lot Of His Creatures Are Funny Looking, And He Made It All Anyway. He Didn't Let The Aardvark Convince Him He Had No Business Designing Creatures. He Didn't Make A Puffer Fish And Get Discouraged, No, The Maker Made Things - And Still Does.

Workaholism Is A Block, Not A Building Block.

Building Blocks

The Growth Of One Blesses All. I Am Commited To Grow In Love. All That I Touch, I Leave In Love. I Move Through This World Consciously And Creatively.

Procrastination Is Not Laziness", I Tell Him. "it Is Fear. Call It By Its Right Name, And Forgive Yourself.

Procrastination

Doubt Comes To The Door In Darkness, Pretending To Be Alone And In Need Of Your Compassionate Ear. But If You Let Him In, He'll Bring His Friends.

The Creative Process Is A Process Of Surrender, Not Control.

What We Really Want To Do Is What We Are Really Meant To Do. When We Do What We Are Meant To Do, Money Comes To Us, Doors Open For Us, We Feel Useful, And The Work We Do Feels Like Play To Us.

When Writing Becomes Too Dominant, It Gets Leached Of Its Own Power. We Spend More And More Time Writing And We Have Less And Less To Write About.

There Is Not One Pink Flower, Or Even Fifty Pink Flowers, But Hundreds. Snowflakes, Of Course, Are The Ultimate Exercise In Sheer Creative Glee. No Two Alike. This Creator Looks Suspiciously Like Someone Who Just Might Send Us Support For Our Creative Ventures.

It Is Important To Remember That At First Blush, Going Sane Feels Just Like Going Crazy.

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.

It Is All Too Easy As An Artist To Allow The Shape Of Our Career To Be Dictated To Us By Others. We Can So Easily Wait To Be Chosen. Such Passivity Invites Despair. To Remain Healthy And Vital, Artists Must Stay Proactive In Their Own Behalf.

Our Internal Artist Is Always Our Creative Child.

Art Is The Imagination At Play In The Field Of Time. Let Yourself Play.

Setting Skepticism Aside, Even Briefly, Can Make For Very Interesting Explorations. It Is Not Necessary That We Change Any Of Our Beliefs. It Is Necessary That We Examine Them.

Workaholism Is An Addiction, And Like All Addictions, It Blocks Creative Energy.

Walk With Me To The Edge Of The City, / Take Off Your Shoes And Feel The Earth. / Remember Who You Are. You Are A Star. / A Mountain, That Fountain In The Sun. / Your Heart Is The Velvet Cave / Where Birds Sing.

We Talk About Self-expression But Need To Pause And Remember That Self-expression Requires A Self To Express.

Just As Blood Is A Fact Of Your Physical Body And Nothing You Invented, Creativity Is A Fact Of Your Spiritual Body And Nothing You Must Invent.

What We Really Want To Do Is What We Are Really Meant To Do.

Writing Is A Combination Of Being Alert To Your Outer Surroundings And Alive To Your Inner Reality.

In Dance, In Composition, In Sculpture, The Experience Is The Same: We Are More The Conduit Than The Creator Of What We Express.

One Of Our Chief Needs As Creative Beings Is Support. Unfortunately, This Can Be Hard To Come By. Ideally, We Would Be Nurtured And Encourages First By Our Nuclear Family And Then By Ever-widening Circles Of Friends, Teachers, Well-wishers. As Young Artists, We Need And Want To Be Acknowledged For Our Attempts And Efforts As Well As For Our Achievements And Triumphs. Unfortunately, Many Artists Never Receive This Critical Early Encouragement. As A Result, They May Not Know They Are Artists At All.

There Will Be Many Times When We Won't Look Good-to Ourselves Or Anyone Else. We Need To Stop Demanding That We Do. It Is Impossible To Get Better And Look Good At The Same Time.

I Honor My Importance And The Importance Of Others. None Of Us Is Dispensable, None Of Us Is Replacable. In The Chorus Of Life Each Of Us Brings A True Note, A Perfect Pitch That Adds To The Harmony Of The Whole. I Act Creatively And Consciously To Actively Endorse And Encourage The Expansion Of Those Whose Lives I Touch. Believing In The Goodness Of Each, I Add To The Goodness Of All. We Bless Each Other Even In Passing.

When We Write About Our Lives We Respond To Them. As We Respond To Them We Are Rendered More Fluid, More Centered, More Agile On Our Own Behalf. We Are Tendered Conscious.

As Artists, We Must Learn To Be Self-nourishing. We Must Become Alert Enough To Consciously Replenish Our Creative Resources As We Draw On Them.

All Change Can Be Expansive In Potential. The Choice Is Ours.

As You Move Toward A Dream, The Dream Moves Toward You.

Next To Morning Pages And Artist Dates, The Most Potent Tool For Contacting Inner Guidance And Creativity Is Walking.

In Order To Have A Real Relationship With Our Creativity, We Must Take The Time And Care To Cultivate It.

The Grace To Be A Beginner Is Always The Best Prayer For An Artist.

Writing Just For The Hell Of It Is Heaven.

What We Focus On, We Empower And Enlarge. Good Multiplies When Focused Upon. Negativity Multiplies When Focused Upon. The Choice Is Ours: Which Do We Want More Of?

Art Is An Act Of The Soul, Not The Intellect. When We Are Dealing With People's Dreams - Their Visions, Really - We Are In The Realm Of The Sacred. We Are Involved With Forces And Energies Larger Than Our Own. We Are Engaged In A Sacred Transaction Of Which We Know Only A Little: The Shadow, Not The Shape.

Money Cannot Fill An Empty Soul.

There Is No Such Thing As Being Done With An Artistic Life. Frustrations And Rewards Exist At All Levels On The Path.

Many Of Us Believe That 'real Artists' Do Not Experience Self-doubt. In Truth, Artists Are People Who Have Learned To Live With Doubt And Do The Work Anyway.

Writing Is An Act Of Cherishing... It Is An Act Of Love.

Treating Myself Like A Precious Object Will Make Me Strong.

For Today, All You Need Is The Grace To Begin Beginning.

When We Let God Be God And Work Through Us, We Experience Both A Sense Of Serenity And Excitement.

If You Want To Write A Novel, It's The Divine Mind Wanting To Express.

In Order To Create, We Draw From Our Inner Well. This Inner Well, An Artistic Reservoir, Is Ideally Like A Well Stocked Fish Pond... If We Don't Give Some Attention To Upkeep, Our Well Is Apt To Become Depleted, Stagnant, Or Blocked... As Artists, We Must Learn To Be Self Nourishing. We Must Become Alert Enough To Consciously Replenish Our Creative Resources As We Draw On Them - To Re-stock The Trout Pond, So To Speak.

I Think Of Making Love And Making Art As Being Very Parallel. Even The Most Amateur Attempt Can Be Thrilling.

Love Is The Greatest Medicine. I Ask To Be Healing Medicine For Others. I Ask My Heart To Expand Its Boundaries And To Love Others As They Wish To Be Loved. I Ask My Heart To Expand Its Boundaries And Open To My Being Loved As I Wish To Be Loved.

Art Is A Spiritual Practice. We May Not, And Need Not, Do It Perfectly.

Nothing Dies Harder Than A Bad Idea. And Few Ideas Are Worse Than The Ones We Have About Art.

It Is My Experience Both As An Artist And As A Teacher That When We Move Out On Faith Into The Act Of Creation, The Universe Is Able To Advance. It Is A Little Like Opening The Gate At The Top Of A Field Irrigation System. Once We Remove The Blocks, The Flow Moves In.

As We Move Toward Our Dreams, We Move Toward Our Divinity.

Water Seeks Its Own Level And Water Rises Collectively

Art Is Not About Thinking Something Up. It Is The Opposite - Getting Something Down.

Selecting A Challenge And Meeting It Creates A Sense Of Self-empowerment That Becomes The Ground For Further Successful Challenges.

When We Survey Our Lives, Seeking To Fulfil Our Creativity, We Often See We Had A Dream That Went Glimmering Because We Believed, And Those Around Us Believed, That The Dream Was Beyond Our Reach.

At It's Essence, Art Is An Alchemical Process. Alchemy Is A Process Of Transformation.

Enthusiasm Is Not An Emotional State. It Is A Spiritual Commitment, A Loving Surrender To Our Creative Process. Enthusiasm - From The Greek, Filled With God - Is An Ongoing Energy Supply Tapped Into The Flow Of Life Itself.

Artists Are Visionaries. We Routinely Practice A Form Of Faith, Seeing Clearly And Moving Toward A Creative Goal That Shimmers In The Distance - Often Visible To Us, But Invisible To Those Around Us.

Taking The Time To Write In Our Lives Gives Us The Time Of Our Lives. As We Describe Our Environments, We Begin To Savor Them. Even The Most Rushed And Pell-mell Life Begins To Take On The Patina Of Being Cherished.

You Are On The Look Out For Experience, Strength, And Hope. You Want To Hear From The Horse's Mouth Exactly How Disappointments Have Been Survived. It Helps To Know That The Greats Have Had Hard Times Too And That Your Own Hard Times Merely Make You Part Of The Club.

When You Feel Yourself To Be In Critical Condition, You Must Treat Yourself As Gently As You Would A Sick Friend.

Love Is Not Love If It Is Compelled By Reason And Driven By Logic - Love Exists In Spite Of Those Things, Not Because Of Them. It Is A Emotion Which Needs No Fuel To Fire It Or Oxygen To Feed It; If You Have To Look For The Why, Then Stop Looking; It Was Never There At All.

Writing Is Like Listening To A Melody Line In My Head. Note By Note, It Knows Where It Wants To Go. I Follow It And Lay It Down. I Can Pare It, Shape It, And Polish It Later...my Job Is To Take Down The Dribs And Drabs - To Free-associate, If You Will, Knowing That The Associations Have Their Own Plans For Where We're Going With All This.

Most Artists, Ashamed Of Their Need For Encouragement, Try To Carry Their Work To Term Like A Secret Pregnancy.

We Undertake Certain Spiritual Exercises To Achieve Alignment With The Creative Energy Of The Universe.

When We Open Ourselves To Exploring Our Creativity, We Open Ourselves To God: Good, Orderly Direction.

Become Willing To See The Hand Of God And Accept It As A Friend's Offer To Help You With What You Are Doing.

The Doing Of Something Productive Regardless Of The Outcome Is An Act Of Faith. The Doing Of A Small Something When A Large Something Is Too Much For Us Is Perhaps Especially An Act Of Faith. Faith Means Going Forward By Whatever Means We Can.

There Is A Treadmill Quality To Workaholism.

Creativity Is A Fact Of Your Spiritual Body

Stop Telling Yourself That Dreams Don't Matter, That They Are Only Dreams And That You Should Be More Sensible.

I Plant The Seeds Of Love In My Heart. I Plant The Seeds Of Love In The Hearts Of Others.

And Why Are We Supposed To Be Serious About God? Did God Show Up And Crack The Whip? “you There, Annie In Ohio, I See You Laughing A Lot And Frankly It Really Pisses Me Off . . . “ (50)

Pray To Catch The Bus, Then Run As Fast As You Can.

Rather Than Being Taught To Ask Ourselves Who We Are, We Are Schooled To Ask Others. We Are, In Effect, Trained To Listen To Others’ Versions Of Ourselves.

In Creativity, As In Running, You Have To Start Where You Are.

Progress, Not Perfection, Is What We Should Be Asking Of Ourselves.

Progress Not Perfection

Pivotal To A Happy Writing Life Is A Practice Of Daily Personal Writing.

Creativity Is The Natural Order Of Life. Life Is Energy: Pure Creative Energy.

We Imagine That If We Had Time We Would Quiet Our More Shallow Selves And Listen To A Deeper Flow Of Inspiration. Again, This Is A Myth That Lets Us Off The Hook - If I Wait For Enough Time To Listen, I Don't Have To Listen Now, I Don't Have To Take Responsibility For Being Available To What Is Trying To Bubble Up Today.

Our Tears Prepare The Ground For Our Future Growth.

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.

If We Have Plain Old Ordinary Fear Then We Are Within Reach Of A Solution. Fear Has Been With Humankind For Millennia And We Do Know What To Do About It-pray About It, Talk About It, Feel The Fear, And Do It Anyway. Artistic Fear, On The Other Hand, Sounds Somehow Nastier And More Virulent, Like It Just Might Not Yield To Ordinary Solutions-and Yet It Does, The Moment We Become Humble Enough To Try Ordinary Solutions.

So Much Of An Artist's Career Hinges On The Sense That We Are Going Somewhere, That We Are Not Just Trapped By The Four Walls Of Wherever We Are. For Creative Sanity, I Must Believe That If I Just Do The Next Right Thing, A Path Will Unfold For Me.

Left To It's Own Devices, Writing Is Like Weather. It Has A Drama, A Form, A Force To It That Shapes The Day. Just As Good Rain Clears The Air, A Good Writing Day Clears The Psyche. There Is Something Very Right About Simply Letting Yourself Write. And The Way To Do That Is To Begin, To Begin Where You Are.

If You Work On Your Creativity, You Deepen Your Spirituality. And If You Work On Your Spirituality, You Deepen Your Creativity.

When I Ask For Help With My Creativity, I Get It.

It Is Not The Act Of Making Art That Is Painful. It Is The Desire To Make Something And Not Acting On It That Causes Pain....a Day When I Don't Write Is Less Happy. This Is Not Discipline. It Is Affection, Enthusiasm, Adventure-any Number Of Other Words Besides Discipline.

Some People Find It Easier To Picture The Stream Of Inspiration As Being Like Radio Waves Of All Sorts Being Broadcast At All Times. With Practice, We Learn To Hear The Desired Frequency On Request. We Tune In To The Frequency We Want.

As Artists, We Belong To An Ancient And Holy Tribe. We Are The Carriers Of The Truth That Spirit Moves Through Us All. When We Deal With One Another, We Are Dealing Not Merely With Our Own Human Personalities But Also With The Unseen But Ever-present Throng Of Ideas, Visions, Stories, Poems, Songs, Sculptures, Art-as-facts That Crowd The Temple Of Consciousness Waiting Their Turn To Be Born.

Wherever You Are Is Always The Right Place. There Is Never A Need To Fix Anything, To Hitch Up The Bootstraps Of The Soul And Start At Some Higher Place. Start Right Where You Are.

Practice Being Kind To Yourself In Small, Concrete Ways. Look At Your Refrigerator. Are You Feeding Yourself Nicely? Do You Have Socdks? An Extra Set Of Sheets? What About A New House Plant? A Thermos For The Long Drive To Work? Allow Yourself To Pitch Out Some Of Your Ragged Clothes. You Don't Have To Keep Everything.

You Need To Create Pathways In Your Consciousness Through Which The Creative Forces Operate.

Writing Responds Well To Some Gentle Scheduling. A Day Job Not Only Promotes Solvency, It Promotes Creativity As Well.

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.

Nothing Dies Harder Than A Bad Idea.

You Do Not Need To Work To Become Spiritual. You Are Spiritual; You Need Only To Remember That Fact. Spirit Is Within You. God Is Within You. (67)

I Learned To Just Show Up At The Page And Write Down What I Heard. Writing Became More Like Eavesdropping And Less Like Inventing A Nuclear Bomb.

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William Moulton Marston

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