Chapter 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength
The Artist's Way Journey - On Lost Time
Welcome to the eighth post in a 12-week series dedicated to exploring creativity and artistic identity through Julia Cameron’s 1994 course The Artist’s Way! Whether you are completing the course alongside me, joining us in the future, or here to learn from my insights and reflections, the following series of posts will remain a safe space for discussion and reflection wherever you are in your artistic journey.
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In Chapter 8, we grieve lost time and begin again.
“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 cretaive risks. You will identify immediate and practical changes you can make in your current life. You will excavate early conditioning that may have encouraged you to settle for far less than you desire creatively.”
Reflecting on Chapter 8
Lost time.
In my mind, the hands of a clock chase the hours with inexorable greed. My humdrum existence pales and greens with nausea each time I check its bloated face. My heart sinks in my chest, my limbs grow heavy with disappointment, and I re-enter the endless cycle of grieving for time lost. I berate myself for the lost opportunities and promise, god damn it I promise, that the next hour will be better spent. Then my feet drag and I convince myself it’s useless — I’m too tired / sad / uninspired / old / late to the game / unworthy / boring to try. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.
“All artists must learn the art of surviving loss: loss of hope, loss of face, loss of money, loss of self-belief.”
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, p.129
Mourning lost time is a universal human experience, not just one shared by artists. Grieving is an active process we are constantly in the throws of, whether we acknowledge it or not. Some things bring grief to the forefront in ways that are impossible to ignore, and other things, like small disappointments or loss of money on a creative venture, bubble in the background and are easier to keep our backs to. This ignored grief, left unchecked, creates a subconscious sense of failure that permeates our future attempts at creation. In chapter 8, Cameron reminds us of the importance of grieving our creative losses.
“The unmourned disappointment becomes the barrier that separates us from future dreams.”
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, p.130
Art is tricky to contend with internally because many of us recognise that mastery of our chosen crafts requires time, continuous effort, and patience. The passing of time often makes my chest squeeze and sends me into a small panic. I worry that I’ve wasted too much time and thus my craft is forevermore irredeemable. It’s important here to recognise two small, but honest truths: we will never be able to regain lost time, and we are never promised future time.
These aren’t easy truths and it makes sense that we spiral when we feel we’ve been careless with our allotted life. What is important is this: every end is an opportunity to begin.
“Every loss must be viewed as a potential gain; it’s all in the framing. Every end is a beginning. We know that. But we tend to forget it as we move through grief.”
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, p.134
Fyodor Dostoyevsky once said, “Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear most”, and it’s true. Putting pen to paper, body to motion, fingertips to instrument despite our grief is the bravest thing we can do. It completes the cycle: we lose, we mourn, and finally, we begin again.
Our strength as artists lies in our rebellion against father time, for “to become overly cerebral is to become crippled” (p.132). It is human to check the clock, but not to live within it. True strength lies in our ability to grieve and in our audacity to try.
Are you brave enough to try?
“Creativity occurs in the moment, and in the moment we are timeless.”
— Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way, p.139
Chapter 8 Check-In:
How are your morning pages going?
Did you have an artist date?
What’s one thing you feel you’ve lost to time?
Yours in strength,
Caitlin ❧