The Artist’s Way, Week Twelve: Recovering a Sense of Faith
We have reached the final week of my series on The Artist’s Way, a workbook focused on creative recovery. Check out my posts on Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, and Week 11 if you haven’t already. This week acknowledges the inherently mysterious spiritual heart of creativity and reaffirms the different tools and practices taught in the course.
Trusting
The Artist’s Way journey is all about reconnecting to your inner artist, uncovering the deepest desire of your heart, and taking affirmative actions towards making those dreams come true, with unwavering faith in God and constant grace towards yourself. Despite the occasional U-turns and fighting against blockages and resistance, we step out in faith, trusting that God created us to be creative and using our creativity is our gift back to God.
“Creativity requires faith. Faith requires that we relinquish control. This is frightening and we resist it … We are not accustomed to thinking that God’s will for us and our own inner dreams can coincide … The truth is that we are meant to be bountiful and live.”
Mystery
Creativity is formed in the dark inner crevices of our consciousness. Cameron encourages us to trust this dark mystery of creativity. She uses many different metaphors to illustrate her point
“Brainchildren, like all babies, should not be dragged from the creative womb prematurely.”
“Ideas, like stalactites and stalagmites, form in the dark inner cave of consciousness. They form in drips and drops, not by squared-off building blocks.”
“We must learn to not pull our ideas up by the roots to see if they are growing.”
“[Like bread] an idea needs to rise. If you poke at it too much at the beginning, if you keep checking on it, it will never rise. A loaf of bread or a cake, baking, must stay for a good long time in the darkness and safety of the oven. Open that oven too soon and the bread collapses.”
“All 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.”
The Test
Cameron shares a theory that just when you’ve become a true champion of your inner artist and you’re steps away from the biggest creative breakthrough you’ve known, The Test will appear. You will randomly get a raise at your awful dead-end job; your close friends will try to talk you out of pursuing your artistic pursuits; something or other will come up that will test your faith in the dream you’ve been slowly manifesting throughout your artistic journey. To overcome this test, we must learn to trust ourselves, shy away from the doubters, and voice our plans only to our allies. This is why it is crucial to know who your allies are. Set your goals and set your boundaries.
“You must hold your intention within yourself, stocking it with power. Only then will you be able to manifest what you desire.”
Tasks
At the end of every chapter, Cameron lists several ways we can take action on this week’s lesson, we are meant to choose a couple that speak to us and complete them throughout the week.
Here are the tasks I chose:
Take a look at your current areas of procrastination. What are the payoffs in your waiting? Locate the hidden fears.
List five people you can talk to about your dreams and with whom you feel supported to dream and then plan.
Share this book with a friend. Remember that the miracle is one artist sharing with another. Trust God. Trust yourself.
