Mecca
I read an AW post on someone’s blog yesterday where the writer mentioned that all of Julia Cameron’s focus on recovery wasn’t resonating with her. (I’m sorry I’m not linking to the post, but I surfed through all 100 AW blogs yesterday and I can’t remember now where I read it.) I would tend to agree.
When I began this AW blog, I didn’t know what to call it (which is obvious when you look at the generic URL: artistswayblog). I settled on the name “A Creative Pilgrimage” when I read the opening paragraph of the Introduction to the 10th Anniversary Edition of the book where Cameron writes: “Art is an act of faith, and we practice practicing it. Sometimes we are called on pilgrimages on its behalf and, like many pilgrims, we doubt the call even as we answer it. But answer we do.”
My dictionary defines a pilgrim as a person who travels to a sacred or revered place as an act of devotion, and a pilgrimage as a journey made to a place as a mark of respect. I like those connotations.
I’ve been in recovery. Almost 16 years ago, I walked into my first A.A. meeting. Now that felt like recovery. This does not to me. The AW journey (at least this time around) feels to me more like a pilgrimage. It feels like I’m finding the path that will allow me to travel to my sacred creative place. And what could be more self-respecting than to have the faith to travel that path in spite of my doubts--all with the intention of honoring my creative self?
Last night I began the reading for Week 2, and right off the bat Cameron was describing “recovery symptoms.” This is a very subjective, individual experience, so I can only speak for myself. I associate recovery with trying to get back to a place where I once was--to return to a former self, but a healthier version of it. This doesn’t feel like that for me. This feels like discovering facets of my self that have long been buried. It's a process, for me, that calls for archaeological skills of the first order, since entire cities have been built over parts of my creative self.
So I’m on a pilgrimage and I have to do some excavating along the way. Maybe you’re in recovery. We each have our own path, and I’m not here to judge anyone’s journey. All roads lead to (creative) Mecca. I’d just like to say to the other members of the AW group that however you define your journey, I’m glad we’re on it together.
posted by Marilyn @ 12:29 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
if you know you've built cities over some of your creative aspects and you now endeavor to get out the ground-penetrating sonar and dig them out, i hear in that that you're sure those treasures are there and have been there, underneath it all. which is so cool. and i don't know but i bet those buried treasures have been weeping into your well and enchanting your groundwater all this time.
i love to hear folks clarifying what works or resonates for them and what doesn't in the, um, textbook. it helps me understand and articulate my own perspective that much more comprehensively. and regarding that last sentence, Right Back Atcha!
Marilyn,
I haven't felt much of a spirit of "recovery" in my journey either. How do you recover, or unblock, something that you never knew you had?
Pilgrimage resonates with me also... a journey to a sacred place, where not only is the place important, but the journey itself is just as important. The journey, AND the other pilgrims who speak to you along the way.
I also agree with Eliza... Marilyn your presence on our "pilgrimage" is definately adding light to our way. I'm glad to be "pilgrimaging" with you too! :)
Thank you - this is wonderful, I love this perspective! I think there are, for me, some elements of recovery - there was a time in college, I'd like to recover that - but in some ways a journey or pilgrimage is still an easier image to take to heart. Because I don't have to get back to just exactly where I was in college, even though it might be my inspiration. (Goodness, I'd rather not start eating cafeteria food again, for one thing!)
i love your perspective on things marilyn. i've taken the approach in the past with aw to take what is useful and leave behind what didn't resonate. and even with that, i got so much from the journey. for each of us it will be different.
i think cameron does well to say in the intro that we should use this book creatively. indeed we should! and indeed we are!!xoxoxox
That's a great way of putting it: being on a pilgrimage (which I can't spell!)...when I think of recovery, though, I don't think of it in the 'from illness' sense, but more like recovering lost innocence or enthusiasm or...the artistic freedom of a 4yr old.
Just my 2cents!
Thanks for your insights,
Tara
I love this idea about a pilgrimage. I notice we are all using the word journey a lot too. You put this so beautifully. I hope it is okay, but I put a link to this post in what I wrote tonight. Happy trails...
marilyn....i too have some weirdness with julia's ways of describing things, but i'm glad that i'm doing this with you (someone who gets that feeling). that's really all that matters to me- feeling good about my own personal journey, however that may be, and sharing it with great people like you! thanks for your thoughts :)
I enjoy reading critical perspectives on what Julia writes about because I hate to think of this journey as a following a "how to book"... We all need to take from it what we can, and make it our own.
You know what is exciting--that I was just thinking and writing about this and then came here right after. I feel like this is more of an apprenticeship for me, a training, or yes, a pilgrimage. I feel like I AM creative--but that I need to hone that creativity. It is about practice. About showing up every day at the page. That part resonates with me--but recovering, not at all. I'm glad to hear your perspective--as you actually have a point of comparision. I felt very validated reading your post on this.
Very well put. I agree. (Of course.)
I feel the same way! I'm definitely not recovering, but rediscovering myself. That's why I called mine: Simply Audra Marie...because I'm unearthing that little girl I lost many years ago and she will help me define the woman I am becoming today.
Isn't this a wonderful journey with awesome companions along the way?
It feels a bit like excavating to me...(similar to what eliza is saying I think); like a pilgrimage inside myself. so interesting. i appreciate the way you invite us to look at things marilyn. thank you.
Post a Comment
<< Home