Customer Reviews

Inspirations: Meditations from The Artist's Way

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Having the brilliant, healing work of Julia Cameron boiled down and packaged into a portable book is divine. You can carry her words of wisdom with you everywhere and read on any topic for instant reflection and inspiration. What an excellent idea for those walking "The Artist's Way" path. These meditations are necessary for the journey of all artists.

*****

This book contains short meditations from Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way". If you are a fan of Cameron, the guru of creativity for artists and writers, you will certainly enjoy this. It is a small book with only 100 pages, but they are packed with wisdom---a short paragraph on each page. At the end of the book is a list of 20 affirmations, making this little book a very useful help to anyone involved in creative pursuits.

*****

Meditations are wonderful pathways to bypass the doubts that lie in our cyncial intellectual minds. Serious students of The Artist's Way who desire a deeper practice to harness their creative fuel will love this. Cameron brings jewels to call forth the inner voice into the outer world. Her works are a sacred and rare tool for artistic practices and courageous creative lives. One of the real pearls from Cameron's work is the focus on the value of art, apart from the commerical market forces that has Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton on The New York Times bestselling list.

I accidentally bought this book. I was trying to buy the regular book, and I downloaded the preview (two pages), and this book looked right. And for roughly 6 dollars seemed right for a full book, and it has all these stellar reviews. Must be the real book. What a deal!

No, it isn't. This is a 100 page summary of the real book, with a few mantras at the end.

Just make sure this is really what you want. It most likely isn't.

This is a book for the spiritual artist, one who believes you can achieve anything in terms of artistic gratification by drawing on truths long held deep inside of you. One accesses those glimpses of the cosmic design by allowing the creative energy to express itself without conscious plans. The true artist, according to Cameron, is one who allows God to shine through the darkness of one's confusion and express Herself. All thoughts, all ideas, all art spring from the Creator. We are mere channels for a divine purpose, and that, Cameron would argue, speaks to the glory of man.

Cameron notes that creativity heals the artist as well as others. It is part of the divine order of which creativity is from God and of God. Creativity is, moreover, synonymous with Truth and love and as such is the essence of happiness as well. For believers as well as seekers, this tiny book of aphorisms and meditations is THE answer since it corresponds in its ideas to most religious writings and spiritual texts.

God and the artist are co-creators of destiny and as such are immersed in life and art. Not really simplistic, this book is at once both basic and profound because it is hard for a large part of the world's population to deny its fundamental truths. If you are religious or spiritual, its understated thoughts will strike you as true because your faith is intuitive. If you are a believer and an artist, the little book may empower you as well by heightening your belief in the value of art in general as well as one's own creations.

It reminds me of "The Sayings of Confucius," the "bible" of the Orient. I have read Confucius many times, but it always strikes me as something anybody could write, if her heart were in the right place and her devotion to truth complete. Set "The Artist's Way" beside your bed and read it before you begin your next chapter, your next painting, your next musical score or screenplay. Food for thought.

Marjorie Meyerle

author of Bread of Shame