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... 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.

-Julia Cameron

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... Success Or Failure,

Julia Cameron

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... 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.

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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.

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

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

An Artist Requires The Upkeep Of Creative Solitude. An Artist Requires The Healing Of Time Alone. Without This Period Of Recharging, Our Artist Becomes Depleted. Until We Experience The Freedom Of Solitude, We Cannot Connect Authentically. We May Be Enmeshed, But We Are Not Encountered. Art Lies In The Moment Of Encounter. We Meet Our Truth And We Meet Ourselves And We Meet Our Self-expression.

An Artist Paints, Dances, Draws, Writes, Designs, Or Acts At The Expanding Edge Of Consciousness. We Press Into The Unknown Rather Than The Known. This Makes Life Lovely And Lively.

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.

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

Fatigue Can Make It Hard To Have Faith. Too Much Busyness Can Make It Hard To Have Faith. Too Much Of Too Little Solitude Can Impact Faith. For That Matter, So Can A Bout Of Hunger Or Overwork, Anything Carried To An Extreme. Faith Thrives On Routine. Look At Any Monastery And You Will See That. Faith Keeps On Keeping On.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

We Always Do The Best We Can By The Light We Have To See By.

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

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.

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

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.

Creativity Is Not And Never Has Been Sensible.

Art Is One Of The Few Careers Without A Mandatory Retirement Age.

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

Do Not Call Procrastination Laziness. Call It Fear.

Procrastination

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.

"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.

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

What Would A Nontoxic God Think Of Your Creative Goals? Might Such A God Really Exist?

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.

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

Far From Making Me Feel Different And Special, My [spiritual] Experiences Made Me Feel The Same, Ordinary, And Interconnected. If I Felt More Spiritual, Everyone Else Felt More Spiritual As Well. (276)

Perfectionism Has Nothing To Do With Getting It Right. It Has Nothing To Do With Fixing Things. It Has Nothing To Do With Standards. Perfectionism Is A Refusal To Let Yourself Move Forward. It Is A Loop-an Obsessive, Debilitating Closed System That Causes You To Get Stuck In The Details Of What You Are Writing Or Painting Or Making And To Lose Sight Of The Whole.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

Creativity Is A Fact Of Your Spiritual Body

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.

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 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.

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

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

Our Internal Artist Is Always Our Creative Child.

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.

Once We Are Willing To Accept That Anything Worth Doing Might Even Be Worth Doing Badly, Our Options Widen.

Adversity Is A Misperception As All Works Toward The Good.

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.

All Too Often Too Often We Try To Push, Pull, Outline And Control Our Ideas Instead Of Letting Them Grow Organically. The Creative Process Is A Process Of Surrender, Not Control.mystery Is At The Heart Of Creativity. That, And Surprise.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Serious Art Is Born From Serious Play.

There Is A Connection Between Self-nurturing And Self-respect.

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.

Possibility Is Far More Frightening Than Impossibility.

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.

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

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 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

It Hurts Like Hell When The World Won't Invest In You. But It's Excruciating, Almost More Than You Can Bear, When You Don't Believe And Invest In Yourself.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Am Due At The Page.

Creativity Occurs In The Moment, And In The Moment We Are Timeless.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Water Seeks Its Own Level And Water Rises Collectively

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.

Nothing Dies Harder Than A Bad Idea.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Our Tears Prepare The Ground For Our Future Growth.

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

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

As Children We Hoard And Gloat Over Words. Words Give Ownership: We Name Our World And We Claim It...children Trust The Power Of Words.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Making Art Is An Act Of Faith.

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

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

Procrastination

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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)

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?

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

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.

Often It Is Tenacity, Not Talent, That Rules The Day.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Creativity - Like Human Life Itself - Begins In Darkness.

Gestation Period

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

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

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

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 Stop Playing God, God Can Play Through Us.

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

Money Cannot Fill An Empty Soul.

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.

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.

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.

Creativity Requires Faith. Faith Requires That We Relinquish Control.

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.

Choice By Choice, Moment By Moment, I Build The Necklace Of My Day, Stringing Together The Choices That Form Artful Living.

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

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

There Is A Treadmill Quality To Workaholism.

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

Anger Is Meant To Be Acted Upon. It Is Not Meant To Be Acted Out.

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

Passing Moments

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

You Will Learn To Enjoy The Process... And To Surrender Your Need To Control The Result. You Will Discover The Joy Of Practising Your Creativity. The Process, Not The Product, Will Become Your Focus.

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.

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

You Are Asked To Keep A Ledger - A Small Notebook Will Do - Of Money In And Money Out. Counting Brings Clarity, And Clarity Is One Of The First And Finest Fruits Of Prosperity.

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.

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.

Writing Is Medicine. It Is An Appropriate Antidote To Injury. It Is An Appropriate Companion For Any Difficult Change.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Workaholism Is A Block, Not A Building Block.

Building Blocks

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

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

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.

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.

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

Clock Is Ticking

Agendas Tend To Drain The Life Out Of Relationships.

Judging Your Early Artistic Efforts Is Artist Abuse.

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

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

The Reward For Attention Is Always 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.

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.

We Are Not Accustomed To Thinking That God's Will For Us And Our Own Inner Dreams Can Coincide.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Accept The Fact That You're An Artist And Stop Second-guessing Yourself. Just Do It.

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.

Expect The Universe To Support Your Dream. It Will.

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