Week 8- Recovering a Sense of Strength

The Artist’s Way --

A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity


Recovering a Sense of Strength


This week tackles another major creative block: time. You will explore the ways in which you have used your perception of time to preclude taking creative risks. You will identify immediate and practical changes you can make in your current life. You will excavate the early conditioning that may have encouraged you to settle for far less than you desire creatively.

KEY IDEAS:

Survival

All artists must learn the art of surviving loss.
Our artist is a child.
Unmourned disappointment becomes a barrier that separates us from future dreams.
The Ivory Power

Creativity cannot be quantified in intellectual terms.
The thrust of intellectualism runs counter to the creative impulse.
Gain Disguised as Loss

Art is the act of structuring time . . . every end is a beginning.
When hit by loss, ask the right questions – “what next?” instead of “Why me?”
Age & Time: Product & Process

“I’m too old” – an excuse to save ourselves from the emotional cost of ego deflation involved in being a beginner.
Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are ageless.
Filling the Form

Taking the next small step instead of skipping ahead to a large one for which you may not yet be prepared.
Early Patternings: An Exercise Page 144

Affirmations Page 145

Read Chapter Eight
Do Tasks at end of chapter
Read “Basic Principles” daily
Read Affirmations daily
Write Morning Pages daily
Go on an Artist’s Date this week