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Recovering a Sense of Autonomy: The Artist’s Way Month Eleven Recap (Chapter Eleven)

Hi! If you’re new here: I’m doing a year-long series where I work through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and document it here on the blog. This is the eleventh post of the series, all about recovering a sense of autonomy; you can find the explanation for this series here and the previous post here.

Before we begin: I started making Youtube videos again! My most recent one is all about my slow summer morning (no routines!) and how I read tarot cards.

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Recovering a sense of autonomy: acceptance

“I am an artist,” is how Cameron begins this chapter. “As an artist,” she continues, “I may need a different mix of stability and flow from other people.”

This is something I’ve been discovering about myself these past months. While I’m able to work a full time job, I get home at the end of the day with the life sucked out of me, no energy left to work on my creative pursuits. 

I know now that what works for me is a mix of part time, flexible work that I can do when I want. I recognize this to be a privileged place to be—not everyone is able to find flexible (sometimes remote) work in their field. But I’ve built the groundwork that allows me to do this, and I’m glad for it. I know it’ll serve me well in the months and years to come.

Recovering a sense of autonomy: success

In this chapter, Cameron also speaks to creativity as a spiritual practice, and that because of this, success may look different to us—or to those around us. 

When we’re thinking about our own success, we need to dig in and find what success means to us, not to others. Because we view and move through the world differently, how we view success for ourselves and in our practice will be different too.

And that’s okay. We shouldn’t ever build our lives based on what someone else wants for us, anyway. That’s a sure recipe for unhappiness.

Recovering a sense of autonomy: artist’s altar

Cameron also states that, in order to recover a sense of autonomy and remain creative and happy, we need to ensure we’re spiritually centered. One way of doing this is with an artist’s altar.

An artist’s altar should be centered on sensory experiences, and things that bring us joy. This can be anything from small stones, to dried flowers, to a wax seal given by a friend. My own altar has all of these things, plus crystals, candles, shells, and incense. 

An artist’s altar doesn’t have to be big; it can be in a small corner of your house, or on a windowsill out of the way. The point is to have a place you can go to to ground and come back to yourself so you’re able to create freely.

Morning pages

Morning pages written this month: 24/31

For those of you unfamiliar with The Artist’s Way or morning pages: morning pages are a daily writing exercise where you dump everything in your brain onto the page. You’re supposed to just write—no stopping or reading back on what you read—for three whole pages. If you don’t know what to write, you write “I don’t know what to write” until you do.

Personally, I’ve never been all that good at following rules or instructions (no surprise to anyone who knows me in real life!). However, I do take these as guidelines. So, for the first few days, I was writing my morning pages by the book: three pages, no stopping or looking back. 

But, aside from my morning pages, I have a journal where I write every day: thoughts, ideas, what I’m planning for the day. Basically, morning pages, but smaller. And because I didn’t want to give up this journaling practice, and I also didn’t want to do three morning pages and write in my journal, I ended up combining them, which has worked so well for me.

This month, I did most of my morning pages: 24/31. I’m finding that so much came up for me this month when writing my morning pages. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m nearing the end of this experiment, or because things are changing in my life all the time right now. All I know is that I welcome everything that’s coming.

Artist dates

Another pillar of The Artist’s Way is artist dates, where you (the artist) take yourself on at least one date a week. This could be anything from writing in a coffee shop to visiting an art gallery to making art in the park. The goal of this is to “nurture your inner artist,” as Cameron states in the introduction of the book. 

You can read about how I’ve bent the rules to this in this post.

During July, I took myself on seven artist dates:

• Writing in a cafe alone x3 
• Knitting in a cafe with a friend x2
• Reading at the park alone x1
• Sitting by a lake alone x1

While I’m not generally a summer person (I’m an autumn girl through and through), it has been nice to be able to spend more time outdoors in nice weather. I find myself actually wanting to go exploring near the river or foraging in the woods. And reading outdoors is always lovely.

Tasks

In every chapter of The Artist’s Way, Cameron outlines a list of tasks for the reader to engage in. Each chapter’s list is extensive, and so I choose just a few to do. This month, I chose:

“Buy yourself a special creativity notebook. Number pages from one through seven. Give one page each to the following categories: health, possessions, leisure, relationships, creativity, career, and spirituality. With no thought as to practicality, list ten wishes in each area. All right, it’s a lot. Let yourself dream a little here.”

“List five ways you plan to nurture yourself in the next six months: courses you will take, supplies you will allow yourself, artist’s dates, and vacations just for you.

—Above quotes are taken from The Artist’s Way, Chapter Eleven

Some important creative things of note for this month:

• I did a bit more work in my messy art journal and am having sooo much fun with it. It’s so nice to have a place to create that has zero expectations (put on by me, of course).
• I edited some poems and wrote some more. I haven’t written much poetry this year—such a change from previous years—so it was nice to dip back into it.
• I designed a couple stickers to sell in my shop! They’re allllmost done, and when they are, you’ll be able to find them here.
• I returned to an old novel I’d already written almost 30,000 words on. I’m determined to get the first draft done sometime this autumn (if not sooner).
• I started sewing a pair of red gingham shorts and did some minor clothing surgery on my old clothes (read: cut them up to fit better).
• I finished knitting a chunky light pink cardigan and started in on a cherry red one.
• I kept making youtube videos, writing blog and substack posts, and creating things for my patreon account.

How did you make time to be creative this month? And what did you create?

xoxo

Catherine

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Some more posts you may like

Digging down into the dirt to find who I used to be: A year of creativity

How to Start an Herb Garden at Home: Herb Gardening for Beginners

Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection: The Artist’s Way Month Ten Recap (Chapter Ten)

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