I am writing this on a Monday, which is when I have been going through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Rather than hyper-charging through the book in twelve set weeks, which is how it is set up, I’ve been doing one chapter per month. I chose Mondays as my day to go through the prompts at the end of each chapter, which is a soothing way to start my week.

Being that it is April, I am wrapping up my time on chapter 4, which is titled “Recovering a sense of integrity.” There is a challenge presented in this chapter that caught me off-guard when I came to it, and that is to have a week of reading deprivation. Yes, you read that correctly- no reading. The purpose of doing this, Cameron writes, is to ‘thrust’ us back into the sensory world, without any novel or newspaper to shield us. It brings us some self-awareness of the constant chatter that fills any void. Without turning to a book, we will find our way into other activities that we’ve been neglecting. “Sooner or later,” she writes, “if you are not reading, you will run out of work and be forced to play. You’ll light some incense or put on an old jazz record or paint a shelf turquoise, and then you will feel not just better but actually a little excited.”

I already felt this a bit last night, which was my first day of this, as I sat on the floor of my bedroom and stretched before going to bed for the night. It felt good to connect with my body in that pre-sleep period of calm.

I did cheat a little bit on this no reading rule yesterday. I found myself reading some articles on my phone yesterday that had popped up when I was checking the news. I didn’t even think about it, and suddenly, there I was. I will do better with this today!

And before anyone calls me out here- Julia Cameron allows for reading of The Artist’s Way and doing the prompts to continue even during this reading deprivation week. This is not cheating!

Today I chose this prompt from the end of the chapter (#6, to be exact): Write your own Artist’s Prayer.

The Artist’s Way is a very spiritual book. It is that way without being religious, and the spirituality piece speaks to creativity in all its forms, meaning that someone can even go through all these prompts even if they don’t label themselves as spiritual. The ‘creative spark’ or ‘inner muse’ or ‘flow,’ whatever resonates, can be subbed in for all these mentions of a higher power or source. Cameron herself makes that very clear. Here is Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Prayer, which is included in the book. As you see her Artist’s Prayer does mirror the Lord’s Prayer slightly, and so I also loosely followed that in my original version before I whittled it down. And in the spirit of writing and what happens to you when you feel that lift of expression, I decided on impulse to submit a version of mine to a 100 word writing contest, just for fun. Once results are announced, I’ll share it here.

Cheers to a week of no reading- wish me luck!

Reading Deprivation

Miscellany

contemplating life