If we have plain old ordinary fear then we are within reach of a solution. Fear has been with humankind for millennia and we do know what to do about it – pray about it, talk about it, feel the fear, and do it anyway. “Artistic” fear, on the other hand, sounds somehow nastier and more virulent, like it just might not yield to ordinary solutions – and yet it does, the moment we become humble enough to try ordinary solutions.
When people do not want to see something, they get mad at the one who shows them.
We must trust our process, look beyond “results.
One of the reasons many of us avoid meditation is that we think of it as work – and work we may not do perfectly. What if we didn’t have to do it perfectly? What if we didn’t have to “do” it at all? What if we could rest – and let God do the rest?
Fame will come to some. Honor will visit all who work.
Once writing becomes an act of listening instead of an act of speech, a great deal of the ego goes out of it.
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. PABLO PICASSO.
As an artist, I do not need to be rich but I do need to be richly supported. I cannot allow my emotional and intellectual life to stagnate or the work will show it. My life will show it.
To be an artist is to recognize the particular. To appreciate the peculiar. To allow a sense of play in your relationship to accepted standards. To ask the question “Why?” To be an artist is to risk admitting that much of what is money, property, and prestige strikes you as just a little silly.
Fame is a spiritual drug. It is often a by-product of our artistic work, but like nuclear waste, it can be a very dangerous by-product.
The myth that we must have “time” – more time – in order to create is a myth that keeps us from using the time we do have.
No matter is too complex for the healing impact of divine mind. Divine mind arranges everything to its highest order. What lies within you knows how to act and when to act. Tuned to divine mind, you have an unshakable inner clarity that makes proper and appropriate choices. Your good is assured.
Your depression is exhaustion. Like Atlas, you try to carry this world on your own shoulders. This was never my intention. Allow me to carry the world.
Making our art, we make artful lives.
In order to achieve escape velocity, we must learn to keep our own counsel, to move silently among doubters, to voice our plans only among our allies, and to name our allies accurately.
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. MARTHA GRAHAM.
Owning something also means owning up to something. It means accepting responsibility, which means, literally, responsibility. When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them, we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are rendered conscious. Each day, each life, is a series of choices, and as we use the lens of writing to view our lives, we see our choices.
The “if I had time” lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born – without the luxury of time.
The trick to finding writing time, then, is to write from love and not with an eye to product.
There is a path for each of us. When we are on our right path, we have a surefootedness. We know the next right action – Although not necessarily what is just around the bend.