More Exerpts from Julia Cameron

More things to think about!!!~~~~~~ From Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way Every Day

Artists date fire the imagination.They spark whimsy.They encourage play.Since art is about "the play of ideas",Artists Dates feed our work.They gently replenish the inner well. Artist Dates restock our supply of images.

The obsession with time is really an obsession with perfection.

When we are clear about who we are and what we are doing,the energy flows freely and we experience no strain.When we resist what that energy might show us or where it might take us,we often experience a shaky, out-of-control feeling.We want to shut down the flow and regain our sense of control.We slam on the psychic brakes.Every creative person has myriad ways to block creativity.The choice to block always works in the short run and fails in the long run.

The divine mind knows no distance. When we ask to be lead,we are lead.When we ask to be guided,we are guided. When we ask to be taught,we are taught. Guidance and generosity are always closer at hand than we may think.It always falls to us to be open to receiving guidance and to pry for the willingness and openness to know it when it arrives.

The ego wants us to be "in the mood" to make art at the very least. and yet.as any working artist will  honestly tell you,waiting for the mood is a huge time waster.We are married to our art and just as the first caress can lead to interest between a long-married couple,the first lick of work can lead to an appetite for work.In other words, mood more often follows action than instigates.

Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.How we hate that idea.We know it as beginners but forget as we advance. Trail-and-Error becomes beneath our dignity.Of course it does.It pulls the rug out from underneath our seriousness.We don't really have a nice big block to stand behind while we "figure things out". Whats to figure out?

Remember that art is process.The process is supposed to be fun. For our purposes,"the journey is always the only arrival" may be interpreted to mean that our creative work is actually our creativity itself at play in the field of time. At the heart of this play is the mystery of joy.

We need a more artful world, and that means we need you and the specific contribution that you and you alone can make.

Sometimes we need to sit up and ignore the cricks in our back and shoulders and just begin.That's how it is with art.We just need to begin Begin where you are,with who you are.

We've all heard that the unexamined life is not worth living.but consider too that the unlived life is not worth examining.The success of a creative recovery hinges on our ability to move out of the head and into action