by Cathy Baker | Faith |
by Cathy Baker
Remember this post?
Today’s date with your artist within includes a trip to your local coffee or tea shoppe. Now, this is my kind of date!
“Write out your ideal day. Take yourself out to a coffee shop or cafe. Settle in with a notepad and give yourself permission to dream. Imagine, in vivid detail, your ideal day. Where are you? What are you doing? Who shared the day with you? When did you wake up? What did you eat? What activity did you engage in? Fill in the details of your day. Be specific.” -Julia Cameron, The Miracle of the Artist Date
Save the Date:
Play time comes easy for some. For others, like myself, not so much. Don’t get me wrong. Spending time with my grandchildren, hanging out with friends (especially during “lobby time” at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer’s Conference!), and mountain trips with my hubster makes me downright giddy. But sometimes the seriousness of intentionality tempers my more playful side. For instance, instead of writing about my ideal day I’d be more likely to write out my current to-do’s and details for future projects. It just seems like a better use of time. (wink wink)
Sometimes the best use of time is releasing the need to find the best use of time.
You’re Invited:
Pick a day. Pack up your notebook and head to your favorite cafe. Your date awaits. If you want to go on a double date, let me know!
So where are you and your artist within headed for your day-dreamy date? If you’re at the conference with me this week, I have a feeling the cafe of choice will be The Clouds. 🙂
[As
always, I welcome any comments you would like to share! I’m at Blue
Ridge Mountains Christian Writer’s Conference this week so it will be a
few days before I can respond.]
by Cathy Baker | Faith |
by Cathy Baker
Your creative energy called. Yet the only thing it heard on the receiving end was a busy signal:
Beep. (My schedule is packed.)
Beep. (I’m not a creative person.)
Beep. (Who has the energy for creativity?)
No wonder it feels a bit neglected, even forgotten. It’s time to take the artist within on a date.
The Artist Date is a basic tool of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. She asks her students to undertake one Artist Date per week.
“I tell students to seek mystery, not mastery on their dates. I urge them to explore with childlike wonder rather than adult intellect. Artist Dates are intended to be fun.” – Julia Cameron
If at this point you’re asking why you should continue reading this post, remember: in whatever way(s) our Creator gifted you, there is a place for creativity…for He is most creative of all.
Save the Date:
The first Artist Date Julia proposes is this: go to a park. “A park is a very concentrated dose of beauty. Note the plantings carefully plotted out. Note the diversity of the vegetation. You may wish to carry a camera. Record your favorite sight. Allow yourself to dawdle. Soak in the season. Give yourself at least an hour. Scoop up a pine cone. Fill your pockets with acorns. Feel your mind unkinking. Say hello to your soul.”
You’re Invited:
What nearby park would be the perfect place for your first Artist Date?
“Art is an image-using system,” I tell students. “Imagine yourself as having an inner trout pond filled with images. When you use your creativity, you are drawing from this inner pond. When you draw on it heavily, you will over-fish your pond. Images will be harder and harder to come by unless you begin to consciously replenish your store of images. Taking your Artist Date replenishes your pond.” – Julia Cameron
by Cathy Baker | Faith |
by Cathy Baker
May is “National Date Your Mate Month” but we’re going to add our own creative spin (pun intended) to the mix.
This month, I’ll be sharing a variety of ways to date—but not just our mate. I’ll be using these two main resources, along with anything else the Lord lays on my heart to share:
- Playdates with God, by Laura J. Boggess
- Artist Dates, by Julia Cameron
We’ll explore what it means to spend time with God in fresh and unique ways through Laura’s book and through Julia’s, we’ll learn how to nurture our God-given creative selves through one-in-one dates.
I’m excited about our May dates. How about you?
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Romans 12:9-10
by Cathy Baker | Faith |
The Right to Write by Julia Cameron has been my constant companion over the past few months. It’s a perfect fit for my purse while waiting for friends or appointments. Practically every page is dog-eared, underlined, or asterisked. Several weeks ago, I shared this post on Morning Pages as a result.
Today, I’m sharing a tool called Evening Notes. After all, not every one is a morning person, right?
It goes something like this: Ten minutes before you fall asleep, jot down a few simple sentences about your day. Julia uses this as her example:
“Today was productive but uphill. I seemed to be fighting a depression but I took good actions anyhow. I’m really stewing over my friendship with Michael. I wonder what better can be done on the project at work…”
From these sentences, extract a single question to consider before falling asleep. Julia chose What can I do about the project at work?
Simply pose the question and don’t worry about the answer. Thanks to our brilliantly and divinely designed minds (thank You, God) many of our answers begin to emerge at some point.
I’ve experienced similar circumstances when doing something “mindless” like walking, taking a shower, or taking my dog out for a potty break. Ideas and answers to questions long forgotten find their way to the surface when least expected. No doubt, a different part of the brain is at work here and it’s awe-inspiring when it happens.
Julia Cameron encourages those who try this tool to be alert, to notice and tabulate small, positive changes or answers.
Practicing both Morning Pages and Evening Notes is optimal but on those mornings when even a third cup of liquid caffeine refuses to rally a creative bone, it’s nice to know we have an evening option.
How about you? Are you a morning person? Do you tend to write more in the mornings or evenings?
The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands (Psalm 19:1).
by Cathy Baker | Faith |
A few of my childhood friends
An only child, such as myself, is known for entertaining imaginary friends. With them we clinked tea cups, whispered at bedtime and played out back in the summertime. It was only recently, however, that I realized another trusted friend had hitched a ride to my adulthood.
“Writing is a friend whose shoulder we can cry on. Writing is a confidant who listens and lets us sort things out. Writing is a comrade, marching with us through the steep days of sorrow and despair.” -Julia Cameron, The Right to Write
Writing has been a friend, a constant companion throughout my life. One letter in the above picture was handwritten to my grandfather when I was a young girl, maybe 8, asking if he loved me (using the reliable ✔ the box method, of course.) Another letter was to my cousin, Lisa, during a typing (yes, typing!) class in middle school. In high school I kept a daily diary and I’ve journaled my prayers for over twenty years. Over the past several years, God has also awakened a desire to write in ways I never imagined.
Like any true friendship, love is to be reciprocated. Here are four ways I try to show the love:
- Listen to the promptings within. Don’t ignore them. Jot them down! I carry a tiny Moleskin wherever I go. My scribbling rarely lets me down. How I wish I could say the same for my memory.
- Respond to those ideas. Pray over them, drink coffee, write a terrible first draft, drink more coffee. If you’re not quite ready to explore the ideas further, that’s okay. Keep them close by, ready for action.
- Feed the friendship. No one wants to take a friend for granted. If God has called us to write, it’s our responsibility to hone our God-inspired skills to the best of our ability. We notice intricate details, the dialogue of a couple eating ice cream behind us, along with a host of other quirks. Let’s return the love by reading, writing, and thanking God often.
- Rest. We wouldn’t exhaust our friends by keeping them on the go for days on end, would we? Our writing deserves the same benefit. I’ve failed miserably in the past but now I’m taking a break from writing on Sundays. No getting-ahead-on-my-blog-schedule kind of writing for me. I refuse to give up the truth that if God can rest one day from creating, so can I.
Imagine. Long before I knew or appreciated it, God decided to tuck a friend in my pocket that would help see me through a myriad of situations in my life.
How about you? Whether you consider yourself a writer or not, how can you look back and see your God-inspired skills used in unexpected ways?
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Psalm 139:1-4
