Creativity and Prayer with Julia Cameron

[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As some of you will remember, at the end of last year, we put together a series on iconic self-help books ahead of the new year and how they might inform some of your New Year's resolutions. We took a new look at the Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, the classic by Julia Cameron released in 1992. For those of you don't know the Artist's Way, it makes the bold claim that anyone can be an artist if you follow the book's 12-week creativity course.

That book has sold over five million copies and been translated into 40 languages and has changed the way of a lot of people think about creativity. We had people call up that day who were so grateful to Julia Cameron from generations who have read her book and wanted to talk to her. Well, now, 30 years later, Julia Cameron is introducing an addendum to the Artist's Way in a new book, a practice she calls Creative Prayer. The new book is called Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection. Julia Cameron joins me now. Welcome back to WNYC, Julia. So great to have you again and great that it's so close to your previous appearance.

Julia Cameron: Well, thank you. It's good to be here and I'm eager to talk to you.

Brian Lehrer: Before we get into the details of the book and the different forms of prayer that you outline in the book that you recommend that people can use in connection with their creativity, do you want to talk briefly about how you came to prayer yourself? Were you always a religious person?

Julia Cameron: No, I was not. I was raised Catholic and that turned me off to religion. I found myself-- Well, today is a special day for me, it's the 44th anniversary of my getting sober. When I got sober, they said to me, "If you want to stay sober, you have to pray." [chuckles] "I should pray? I hate prayer." They said, "Well, you must believe in something." I thought about it and I said, "Well, I believe in a line from Dylan Thomas, 'The force that through the green fuse drives the flower. I guess I could pray to that creative energy." That was the beginning of my prayer life, it was necessity.

Brian Lehrer: It really gets into something that you outline in the book for people to do, you encourage folks to outline their God concept, like make a list of the 10 characteristics of the God concept that they grew up with. Why is that important to get out on the page? Is it to get away from God as an old white man with a long white beard, things like that?

Julia Cameron: Yes, that's exactly right. Many of us grow up with an idea of God as an authoritarian parent figure, who is stern and disapproving and feels like we are never good enough. When we put it down on the page and look at it, it's astonishingly negative. What I am telling people to do is write down your negatives and then make another list of traits you would like God to have. Being encouraging, supportive, tolerant, loves to cha-cha, good-humored, and that when they make the list of the positives, they can begin to relate to that God. It's a radical notion that we can design our own God. I'd found that it works.

Brian Lehrer: Humanity created God rather than God created humanity in that telling. The first form of prayer in your book is the prayer of petition. You can petition the Lord with prayer. To explain it, you write, "Sometimes it's asking for guidance as if from a wise elder, sometimes it's asking for help as if from a protector, sometimes it's asking for a wish to be granted," what you call a Santa Claus prayer. Why do you believe prayers or petition are important to the creativity process?

Julia Cameron: Well, I think that we need to learn that we can successfully ask God for a boon. When we pray for petition, we're saying, "Here I am, I'm not very strong and you're all powerful, could you please help me?" When we say, "Could you please help me?" this can extend to our creativity. We can say, "Could you please help me," as in my case, "Write this book?"

Brian Lehrer: I guess, your prayer was answered because you wrote this book.

Julia Cameron: Yes, I think the book is an answered prayer.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, in the last 10 minutes of the show today, maybe we'll get as cosmic as we can possibly get and invite you to take up Julia Cameron's imagine God exercise. As a serious question, if you do pray, if you have a concept of God, how do you imagine God? 212-433-WNYC, if anybody has an answer to that question, 212-433-9692. You heard Julia mentioned the duality of how people tend to imagine God. Often it's negative, as she said. Then invited people to list 10 qualities they would like to have in a God. If you pray, how do you imagine God? 212-433-WNYC. Would that help others, in your opinion? 212-433-9692, if anybody imagines God in a particular way at all that you can put into words.

We talked about petition, prayers. The next form of prayer is the prayer of gratitude. What might that sound like and where do you think that intersects with creativity for you?

Julia Cameron: Gratitude is an elected state. We can try to be more grateful. When we try to be more grateful, we find we have a whole list of things, Brian, that we're grateful for. It can be very basic like my health, the roof over my head, the food in the refrigerator. It can be very picky like, "I'm grateful I have pretty hands, I'm grateful I have an ability to say thank you." The prayers of gratitude are the prayers of an awakened heart.

Brian Lehrer: Finally, before we go to some calls, there are prayers of praise. How do you differentiate prayers of gratitude from prayers of praise?

Julia Cameron: I think it's a matter of scope. I think with our prayers of gratitude, we're being very personal and small-scale grateful for many petty things. When we have the prayers of praise, the scope opens up. It's like, "Wow, God, the Grand Canyon is magnificent. The moon is beautiful." It's more a question of a prayer of awe.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting that you mentioned awe because here's a tweet that just came in, I think you'll like this. "Four types of prayer," writes this listener, "Please, thank you, oops, and wow." There's your book in four words, please, thank you, oops, and wow.

Julia Cameron: Yes, it sounds like that somebody who's right on track.

Brian Lehrer: Emily in Topeka, Kansas, you're on WNYC with Julia Cameron. Hi, Emily.

Emily: Hi, it's such a pleasure. I'm a former New Yorker, Brian, so I felt like it was okay to call in. I also went through the Artist's Way in the '90s and it led me to make changes in my life. I am also in recovery. Like her, I had difficulty with this concept of the higher power. I decided to use the idea of time and time and timing in Kismet, and throw something out there and wait for whatever was going to come back to come back. Many times it was not what I expected but better than I could have imagined. I'm so surprised at your recovery, I'm so pleased that you've come out with this book because it makes a lot of sense to me and probably a lot of other people as well.

Brian Lehrer: Emily, thank you so much. By the way, even if you're from Topeka, Kansas and you've never been in New York, you're allowed to call this show. Jorge in New Haven, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jorge.

Jorge: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me on. Just to the question of how I envision God when I pray. It comes from an image from Terrence Malik's Tree of Life film, 2011 I think. A movie that's not very explicitly religious, but had an impact on me. The image from that movie is an internal flame that burned before the formation of the universe throughout the existing universe and continues to burn after the universe is no more. I just wanted to share that with your audience and give a promo for the movie, which I think is great. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Jorge, thank you very much. Nat in Central Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nat.

Nat: Yes, Brian, thank you so much for taking my call. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear just fine. You have a concept of how you think of God?

Nat: Yes. I'm sorry. I don't think of God as a single entity, but really all of the spirits who have gone before us and that they are all there to help us out in our daily lives.

Brian Lehrer: Nat, thank you very much. That's an interesting one, Julia, God as all the human beings who have ever lived before us.

Julia Cameron: Well, I have a friend who's a Lakota elder and he gets up every morning and he prays to the ancestors. He says we live in a very primitive culture that we don't have respect for the ancestors. He says if we lived in Japan, we would have a whole alter to the ancestors.

Brian Lehrer: Chuck, in the 34th Street area, you're on WNYC. Hi, Chuck.

Chuck: Hey. I was curious of your guest. I read the Artist's Way when I was younger, 30 years ago, when I was in high school. I was wondering if you [unintelligible 00:12:26] considered the Buddhist tradition because I'm a [unintelligible 00:12:29] Buddhist, [unintelligible 00:12:30] similar to what Tina Turner did to really transform her life, what we call this [unintelligible 00:12:35] human evolution. We think of [unintelligible 00:12:37] God, [unintelligible 00:12:38] ourselves as human beings united with other humans that think that gives the power of God [unintelligible 00:12:44]. I was curious if Buddhism has been yet even considered in her work?

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Julia?

Julia Cameron: Yes. I think it's a powerful practice and I am grateful that he called in and volunteered it. I have a girlfriend I talked to last night and I told her that I was celebrating my anniversary today and she said, "Oh, I'll chant for you."

Brian Lehrer: Nice. Thank you, and thank you, Chuck. Abby in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Abby, we're starting to run out time in the segment, so we've got about 20 seconds for you. Hi, there.

Abby: Hi, Julia. Congratulations on your sobriety. I myself have 30 years. I've met you many times. I've done your book in groups several times. The first time I did it, maybe, I don't know, 18 years ago, there were 10 people in my group. We all came up with what we wanted to do. Somebody wanted commercials, I wanted to start a school, somebody else wanted to move to California. By the end of 12 weeks, every single person's desire had come true.

It's incredibly powerful. I recommend the book and all of your books to everyone. I'm so proud of you on your sobriety. I'm only alive because of my sobriety and my creativity is flourishing because of you. I have met you several times and I'm just so appreciative of you. Thank you so very much for being who you are.

Brian Lehrer: Talk about expressing gratitude. Abby, thank you so much. Before we run out of time, one caller, I'm not going to have time to put him on the air, calling in to say, "God is studied by science and is a social construct." Maybe it's an obvious question or a good way to end, what do you say to people who don't believe in God or maybe who've had a negative experience with religion and are reluctant to use this kind of religious terminology but want to enhance their creativity, which is your main purpose? We have 30 seconds.

Julia Cameron: I say to them, don't let semantics be a bar for you. Try the practices, and if you try practices, you will have what I call a spiritual awakening, and which you may not call anything of the kind, it's just an emergence of a belief and a benevolent something.

Brian Lehrer: With a belief and a benevolent something, we leave it with Julia Cameron, best selling author of more than 40 books. Of course, The Artist's Way is her best known. Her new book is called Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection. By the way, you can catch Julia at upcoming virtual event hosted by the New York Open Center. It'll be January, 31st at seven o'clock. She'll be in conversation with her long time editor, Joel Fotinos, talking about seeking wisdom. You can go to the Brian Lehrer show page, we'll have a link to it there. Julia, thank you so much.

Julia Cameron: Thank you, Brian. Good to talk to you.

 

 

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.