January 17
The Artist’s Way…Basic Tools
The Artist’s Way starts with two “Basic Tools” – morning pages and the artist date. Morning pages are done every day…three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing. The artist date is done once a week…a block of time where you go alone on an excursion.
To help motivate me, I bought a pretty spiral notebook to write my morning pages. I’ve only done them for a week, so I don’t have much to say about them yet. I’m just committing to do them every day for twelve weeks. Some mornings the words, thoughts and ideas come fast and smooth. Other mornings the words are a nonsensical brain-dump or not even that good. The idea though is that there is no “right” way to do the morning pages. Just doing them is right.
While your morning pages can be looked at as “sending,” the artist date is for “receiving.” My first artist date was to the Goodwill store to look for inspiration. No problem there. A key to the artist date is to be alone.
Fuller, richer descriptions of both the morning pages and the artist date can be found in the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. This week, I’ll start Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety. I’ll let you know how it goes.