What's your concept of God?
Julia Cameron's Seeking Wisdom, week 1
Welcome to the week one post for Julia Cameron’s Seeking Wisdom! Keep reading for my reactions to the first chapter, followed by the weekly check in.
Writing is prayer.
-Franz Kafka
Introduction
Before we get into the meat and potatoes of week 1, Cameron provides an introduction with the scope of the book, followed by her usual instructions for using the tools of The Artist’s Way.
Seeking Wisdom is centered around the idea of examining the “God concept” we were raised with. Our understanding of God, Cameron says, is the core of our relationship to God. So, this book is really an exercise in the possibility of conversing with a Higher Power.
Cameron shares her own story of confronting her alcoholism when her daughter was an infant, and the directive to pray if she wanted to stay sober. The push to believe in something is what drew Cameron more deeply into her creative work. For her, the two are linked. “Creativity is a path to spirituality- and spirituality is a path to creativity,” she writes.
Cameron prescribes her usual Morning Pages, weekly Artist’s Date and twice-weekly, 20-minute walks. In this book, she adds a fourth tool: writing out guidance. In order to record the guidance received from prayer, she began to pray on the page, asking for help and then writing out the response she “heard.” In this way, prayer became a dialogue, not a monologue. She suggests using this tool once a day, or more often if needed.
God Concept
This is the part where I admit I didn’t really look at this book before assigning it to myself (and you!). From page 1, Cameron’s discussion of spirituality had me feeling a little… rankled.
I was raised Catholic. On a Catholicism scale from 1-10, my childhood was an 8. We were at mass every weekend, no excuses, and probably all the holy days of obligation, as well. I did CCD (which I believe is now called something else), and was confirmed sophomore year of high school.
My husband was raised Catholic too, and we jumped through all the necessary hoops (they don’t make it easy) to have a Catholic wedding. But, neither of us have attended mass on a consistent basis since high school. In recent years, my parents have become more devoutly Catholic; my (step)dad is a deacon in our diocese.
It’s hard for me to completely untangle my feelings about organized religion, although I’m finding it comes up a lot in my memoir. I think most people who grew up Catholic brought a healthy dose of guilt and shame into adulthood; at least that’s the case with my friends. (My mom, who converted to Catholicism when she married my dad at 20, had no idea what I was referring to when I mentioned “Catholic guilt.”) It’s not that I’m not religious now, or have a problem with everything the church stands for (although there are things I don’t agree with). I think there are some really beautiful things about Catholicism in particular, and in general, I think it’s a good idea to have a spiritual life, whatever that means to you. Mostly, attending mass on a regular basis with my particular set of disabled children does not feel accessible to me. Yes, there are probably solutions. And yet it’s one more thing that’s put on me to figure out.
So, I’m bringing a little bit of baggage with me as I begin this book.
Cameron opens by telling the story of Adam and Eve from two different perspectives, one with a jealous, punishing God, and the second with a loving God who welcomes prayers.
Cameron, too, was raised Catholic.
The Individuality of Talking to God
“Prayer is both very universal and very individual,” Cameron writes. She then spends several pages reporting on how her friends pray, including a weird story from her friend Laura about listening to her intuition and not chatting up a Starbucks barista that ended up murdering his wife and children and burying them in a marsh (?!).
Of the anecdotes, I identified with Nick’s spiritual practices the most as he talked about prayer being energy focused for the good. Overall though, I found this part of the chapter to read a little oddly. So much talk about what her friends were wearing, and the manner in which they ate food! It doesn’t matter! If they’re writers or artists it’d be more helpful to know what they’re inspired by! But I digress.
Check In
I got back into the habit of writing “Morning Pages,” although I’ve been writing them at night. I know Cameron frowns on this, stating that writing them at night doesn’t help us direct our day, and instead we’re just reflecting on a day that’s already happened, which we have no power to change. Fair point, but I’m not sure why thoughtfully thinking through your day can’t actually happen the night before.
I’m not sure if I did an Artist’s Date this week- does a meditation count? My yoga studio hosted something for the spring equinox and I went even though it I wasn’t sure what to expect.
And no walks, of course— my kids were home all week for spring break.
If you’re reading along with me, feel free to check in in the comments!
How many days this week did you do your morning pages?
Did you take an Artist Date? How was it?
Did you take your walks?
Did you try asking for guidance in writing, and then listening to the answer?
This post on spiritual practices feels connected to your thoughts here: https://alixklingenberg.substack.com/p/exploring-the-sacred-unknown
Hi Julia. I love that you're doing this project! I did the artist's way for the first time in my life last summer. Then i did morning pages consistently for several months. Then I stopped doing them--instead I just write thoughts during the day in the same kind of notebook i used for the morning pages. I'll say that I've noticed that doing the morning pages really DID ground my life for me. It was the one thing I did consistently, 7 days a week. I'm going to go back to them, as I miss that feeling of grounded-ness. My favorite week was the dreaded No Media week. It was fantastic, and I know it's worth repeating. (I did cheat by reading novels in the evening.) After the artist's way, I looked at some of her other books, hoping to have some sort of program to follow, because I enjoyed most of the first book. But the other books just didn't work for me. I'm enjoying seeing you go into them here and taking what works for you and leaving the rest behind. Thank you for doing this! I do find the idea of "asking for guidance" intriguing and perhaps I will try it. I don't know yet.