The Artist's Way - Week 3

Week 3 Journal

The Artist’s Way Week 3 - Recovering a Sense of Power

I used to think that there were hard lines between the right and wrong ways to do things, but it turns out that I don’t really believe in many hard lines. 

Insights from this week’s reading:

I really enjoyed the Week 3 chapter. It started with a section about anger as a form of fuel, stating that "Anger shows us what our boundaries are," and that "Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction" (Cameron 61). This was really insightful for me for a few reasons. 

I don’t generally identify with anger. I don’t think I feel angry very often. But while reading, I noticed the ways that anger does show up in my life. It shows up as jealousy towards others (like, others doing things I wish I were doing), and most often, it shows up toward myself (“why haven’t you done this?” why did you do that?” — in a negative, rather than inquisitive, tone.) I often dismiss my own anger, even considering it unhealthy or unreasonable. That is likely rooted in some childhood stuff. However, anger only becomes unhealthy or unreasonable when directly or negatively acted upon. I think anger, in my case anyway, just needs a little more translation. 

So as suggested, I listened to my anger this week, and treated it like a tricky piece of literature that was saying one thing, but was actually about something else, something deeper. That was in fact the case. One example of my recent anger included jealousy towards someone I knew who achieved something really awesome. What my anger told me in this situation was that I want to do that! So, I should go do it. I should take steps toward that. Or, if I don’t actually want to, I need to investigate why and wonder what made me think I wanted that in the first place. Someone else’s success is not in direct proportion to my “failure.” And I haven’t failed at anything, here. In fact, the thing that person achieved is something that I had already done. So was I afraid that it would diminish my own accomplishment? Perhaps. But it doesn’t. And now I can further investigate those feelings and insecurities rather than dismiss them completely or…umm…write them off with some bullshit affirmation about how I am where I need to be. (Sorry not sorry.) (I am still finding value in my affirmation work, I swear.) 

Week three ended up being about two weeks long. In that time, I missed three days worth of morning pages, each before work days. C’est la vie. As I reflected upon last week, it was not the end of the world. I was not hard on myself about it. I continued on as soon as I was able. I used to think that there were hard lines between the right and wrong ways to do things, but it turns out that I don’t really believe in many hard lines. I’m not failing at The Artist’s Way course work. I also didn’t fail school when I didn’t hand in a couple homework assignments, even if I thought that they may as well just kick me out for not being perfect. I am still learning and growing with myself so much through this process, and that’s the whole point of this for me.

The reading also talked about synchronicity.  I really identified with the following quote from page 62:

The chapter somewhat expresses that when we ask, we often receive. There is more to this than what I’m going to write about at this moment, but this idea segues nicely into one of the week one check in questions:

Did you notice any synchronicity this week? What was it? 

Yes, I did! I’ve been finding four-leaf clovers like crazy. This is not a new phenomenon for me, but I do go through lulls where I don’t find any for months at a time, and I was in one of those (which to, to be fair, did align with the never ending winter). 

I was thinking about one of my favorite book quotes from Madeline Miller’s Circe that reads, “Let me say what sorcery is not: it is not divine power, which comes with a thought and a blink. It must be made and worked, planned and searched out, dug up, dried, chopped and ground, cooked, spoken over, and sung. Even after all that, it can fail, as gods do not. If my herbs are not fresh enough, if my attention falters, if my will is weak, the draughts go stale and rancid in my hands.” I think this quote so beautifully describes how everything in life, particularly those that are transformative, take work. Cooking, baking, learning and mastering a skill (music, art, so much more), gardening, even cleaning… It all takes effort. It’s exhausting, but it’s also beyond magical. The things we put our time into must really matter to us. 

So, back to the clovers. I’ve been finding them since I was a child, and in the last eight ish years in particular, finding four-leaf (or five-leaf) clovers has become a sort of spiritual practice for me. I’ve always thought of them as a little wink from the universe, a little sign that I am in communication with some divine source, some sort of greater connectedness between everything. However, I don’t think  anything in life just magically appears or works out. I think attention and intention are invaluable. And I realized that if I wanted to start finding clovers this year, I had to pay attention. Well, I started paying attention. And there they were. 

clovers from week three