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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.

-Julia Cameron

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Practice Being Kind To

Julia Cameron

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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.

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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.

Life Is What We Make Of It. Whether We Conceive Of An Inner God Force Or An Other, Outer God, Doesn't Matter. Relying On That Force Does.

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

It's Impossible To Get Better And Look Good At The Same Time.

Try Approving Of Yourself Just As You Are, And Spoiling Yourself Rotten With Small Kid's Pleasures.

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

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

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.

Technology Teaches Passivity. Absorbed In Our Devices - At Any Age - We Are Absorbed In Someone Elses Perspective.

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

Expect The Universe To Support Your Dream. It Will.

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.

Don't Try To 'fix' The Child's Boredom - Rather, Let The Child Find His Or Her Inner Resources.

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

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

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 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.

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.

When We Are On Our Right Path, We Have A Surefootedness.

I Bless The Wisdom Of My Loving Heart. Love Is A Form Of Listening. I Listen With A Loving Heart. I Listen To The Love Within My Heart And I Hear The Love In The Hearts Of Others.

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.

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

Clock Is Ticking

The Voice Of Our Original Self Is Often Muffled, Overwhelmed, Even Strangled, By The Voices Of Other People’s Expectations.

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

Possibility Is Far More Frightening Than Impossibility.

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

Agendas Tend To Drain The Life Out Of Relationships.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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

Remembering That God Is My Source, We Are In The Spiritual Position Of Having An Unlimited Bank Account. Most Of Us Never Consider How Powerful The Creator Really Is. Instead, We Draw Limited Amounts Of The Power Available To Us. We Decide How Powerful God Is For Us. We Unconsciously Set A Limit On How Much God Can Give Us Or Help Us. We Are Stingy With Ourselves. And If We Receive A Gift Beyond Our Imagining, We Often Send It Back.

Sometimes, In Order To Go Forward, You Must First Go Back.

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

Do What Intrigues You, Explore What Interests You; Think Mystery, Not Mastery.

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

Making Art Is An Act Of Faith.

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

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

The Creator Made Us Creative. Our Creativity Is Our Gift From God. Our Use Of It Is Our Gift To God. Accepting This Bargain Is The Beginning Of True Self-acceptance.

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.

We Must Attend To What Our Inner Guidance Is Nudging Us Toward.

Nothing Dies Harder Than A Bad Idea.

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.

But Do You Know How Old I Will Be By The Time I Learn To Really Play The Piano / Act / Paint / Write A Decent Play?" Yes . . . The Same Age You Will Be If You Don't.

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

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

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

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.

Treating Myself Like A Precious Object Will Make Me Strong.

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

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

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

Artistic Anorexia & Sexual Avoidance Have The Same Root Fears – Fear Of Intimacy, Fear Of Exposure, Fear Of Failure”.

In Times Of Pain, When The Future Is Too Terrifying To Contemplate And The Past Too Painful To Remember, I Have Learned To Pay Attention To Right Now. The Precise Moment I Was In Was Always The Only Safe Place For Me.

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.

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.

We Are Meant To Midwife Dreams For One Another. Success Occurs In Clusters

Creativity Flourishes When We Have A Sense Of Safety And Self-acceptance.

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.

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.

Creativity Is Not And Never Has Been Sensible.

Creativity Is The Life Force That Dylan Thomas Called 'the Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower.

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

Adversity Is A Misperception As All Works Toward The Good.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Leap, And The Net Appears.

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

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 Go Into Parenting, And We Discover That We Don't Have The Answers. We Are At A Loss.

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.

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?

When We Seek Daily Spiritual Guidance, We Are Guided Toward The Next Step Forward For Our Art. Sometimes The Step Is Very Small. Sometimes The Step Is, "wait. Not Now." Sometimes The Step Is, "work On Something Else For A While." When We Are Open To Divine Guidance, We Will Receive It. It Will Come To Us As The Hunch, The Inkling, The Itch. It Will Come To Us As Timely Conversations With Others. It Will Come To Us In Many Ways--but It Will Come.

Divine Guidance

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

We Are Ourselves Creations. We Are Meant To Continue Creativity By Being Creative Ourselves. This Is The God-force Extending Itself Through Us. Creativity Is God's Gift To Us. Using Creativity Is Our Gift Back To God.

When We Walk, The Two Halves Of Our Brains Converse.

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.

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.

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

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

It Takes Constant Vigilance Not To Slip Into Negativity Or Simple Apathy. It Takes Courage To Believe Over Any Given Period Of Time That We Are Getting Better And Not Sliding Into Decline.

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

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)

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

Workaholism Is A Block, Not A Building Block.

Building Blocks

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

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.

By Listening To The Creator Within, We Are Led To Our Right Path.

When I Listen To Love, I Am Listening To My True Nature. When I Express Love, I Am Expressing My True Nature. All Of Us Love. All Of Us Do It More And More Perfectly. The Past Has Brought Us Both Ashes And Diamonds. In The Present We Find The Flowers Of What We've Planted And The Seeds Of What We Are Becoming. I Plant The Seeds Of Love In My Heart. I Plant The Seeds Of Love In The Hearts Of Others.

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

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.

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

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

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

Your Mood Doesn't Really Matter. Some Of The Best Creative Work Gets Done On The Days When You Feel That Everything You're Doing Is Just Plain Junk.

We Need To Bridge Our Sense Of Loneliness And Disconnection With A Sense Of Community And Continuity Even If We Must Manufacture It From Our Time On The Web And Our Use Of Calling Cards To Connect Long Distance. We Must “log On” Somewhere, And If It Is Only In Cyberspace, That Is Still Far Better Than Nowhere At All. (264)

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

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

Balance Is The Key To My Serenity. I Attain Balance By Listening To My Inner Wisdom And To The Wisdom Of Others. There Is No Situation In Which I Cannot Find A Point Of Balance. There Is No Circumstance In Which I Cannot Find Inner Harmony. As I Ask To Be Led Into Equilibrium And Clarity, I Will Find That My Answers Come To Me. I Am Wiser Than I Know, More Capable Of Right Action And Attitudes Than I Yet Believe. In Every Event, I Seek The Balance Point Of God's Action Through Me.

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.

I Honor The Wisdom Of Life. I Learn From Life In All Its Forms. The Tree Teaches Me. The Sparrow And The Wren Sing My Song. I Am Open To The Lessons Life Brings Me From The Earth. I Learn From The Wind, From The Sun, From The Small Flowers, And From The Stars. I Walk Without Arrogance. I Learn From All I Encounter. I Open My Mind And Heart To The Guidance And Love That Come To Me From The Natural World.

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.

When I Listen To Love, I Am Listening To My True Nature. When I Express Love, I Am Expressing My True Nature

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

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.

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?

We Must Learn To Let The Flow Manifest Itself Where It Will.....not Where We Will It.

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.

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?

Perfectionism Is Not A Quest For The Best. It Is A Pursuit Of The Worst In Ourselves, The Part That Tells Us That Nothing We Do Will Ever Be Good Enough - That We Should Try Again.

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

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

While There Is No Quick Fix For Instant, Pain-free Creativity, Creative Recovery (or Discovery) Is A Teachable, Trackable Spiritual Process. Each Of Us Is Complex And Highly Individual, Yet There Are Common Recognizable Denominators To The Creative Recovery Process.

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.

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

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

"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.

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.

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

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.

We Have This Idea That We Need To Be In The Mood To Write. We Don't.

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.

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.

At Root, A Pearl Is A 'disturbance' A Beauty Caused By Something That Isn't Supposed To Be There, About Which Something Needs To Be Done. It Is The Interruption Of Equilibrium That Creates Beauty. Beauty Is A Response To Provocation, To Intrusion. ... The Pearl's Beauty Is Made As A Result Of Insult.

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

Judging Your Early Artistic Efforts Is Artist Abuse. . . Remember That In Order To Recover As An Artist, You Must Be Willing To Be A Bad Artist. Give Yourself Permission To Be A Beginner. By Being Willing To Be A Bad Artist, You Have A Chance To Be An Artist, And Perhaps, Over Time, A Very Good One

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

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

Being In The Mood To Write, Like Being In The Mood To Make Love, Is A Luxury That Isn't Necessary In A Long-term Relationship. Just As The First Caress Can Lead To A Change Of Heart, The First Sentence, However Tentative And Awkward, Can Lead To A Desire To Go Just A Little Further.

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.

I Believe That I Am Very Lucky To Have Close Friends Who Are Faithful. From My Friends, I Have Learned The Importance Of Perseverance.

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.

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.

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

Art Opens The Closets, Airs Out The Cellars And Attics. It Brings Healing.

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.

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.

Serious Art Is Born From Serious Play.

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

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.

Do Not Call Procrastination Laziness. Call It Fear.

Procrastination

In Order To Thrive As Artists We Need To Be Available To The Universal Flow. When We Put A Stopper On Our Capacity For Joy By Anorectically Declining The Small Gifts Of Life, We Turn Aside The Larger Gifts As Well.

... Success Or Failure, The Truth Of A Life Really Has Little To Do With Its Quality. The Quality Of Life Is In Proportion, Always, To The Capacity For Delight. The Capacity For Delight Is The Gift Of Paying Attention.

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

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