Engaging the Great Creator

This is really it when it comes down to it. In summary, The Artist’s Way is essentially the simple process of engaging the Great Creator in discovering and recovering our creative powers. We seek to establish a workable connection with God.

This is the value of morning pages. Because we make it a habit to write during the in-between state of wakefulness and sleepiness, when the Unconscious is still in the ascendant, we build and daily strengthen this connection and flow to the well of our natural talent. By faith we collaborate with God.

When we abide with the Great Creator, we bloom. This is the metaphor of the Vine and the branches in the Gospel according to St. John, chapter 15. There needs to be a shift in the consciousness for creativity to flow. Our job is to clear the pathways. The Great Creator does the creating through us.  

Think and grow rich

So I’ve taken to reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I read half of the first chapter. The very first sentence of chapter one has jumped up at me as something very significant. “Truly, ‘thoughts are things,’ and powerful things at that when mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire for their translation into riches…”

This is so clear. The call to think and grow rich is not passive. It’s not to think passively, but the think part is the ideation, acknowledging that thoughts and ideas are actual things, and that the next step is to actively grow rich, by which I feel it means to burn with desire to manifest and actualise into material reality these ideas.

There’s determination, passion, desire. These are the fuel that keeps a man to function as if it is impossible to fail in manifesting his goal.

There are stories I want to manifest into published books. I also want to manifest health in my body. I’ll commit to studying this book at my own pace and see if it will help me manifest goals.

My artist’s prayer and creed

I know that in one of the tasks, Julia Cameron invites us to write our own artist’s prayer. This one is mine, and I lift the words entirely from the Bible, from the Voice Bible translation. The shema I adapted here for myself.

Artist Prayer

Listen, Rico.

Jesus is the Eternal God.

Jesus is the One True God.

And you shall love Jesus with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. You shall love all whom Jesus loves as you love yourself.

Our Father in heaven,

let Your Name remain holy.

Bring about Your Kingdom.

Manifest Your Will here on earth as it is manifest in Heaven.

Give us each day that day’s bread—no more no less.

And forgive us our debts as we forgive those who owe us something.

Let us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Yours is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory for the Ages.

Jesus, let Your Kingdom be, and let it be powerful and glorious forever.

Holy Spirit, let me be Present with You. I love You. Amen.

Artist Creed

Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking.

The Voice was and is God.

This celestial Word remained ever present with the Creator;

His speech shaped the entire cosmos.

Immersed in the practice of creating,

all things that exist were birthed in Him.

His breath filled all things

with a living, breathing light—

A light that thrives in the depths of darkness,

blazes through murky bottoms.

It cannot and will not be quenched.

Having shared these, I don’t think I’ll have any problem using the word GOD during this round of TAW.

Into the water again

I am thinking that if ever we do go to the Duran family reunion for Christmas, and if we skip the usual, boring, staid, predictable Bible devotion on Christ’s birth, as if we’re all in first grade Sunday School, and if, by some miracle, I was allowed to sort of lead the devotion, which I doubt because Mama Z and Papa Z hate to be outshone, but if ever, I would ask this question: “How does your relationship with Christ look like from where you are now?”

The long form of the question is, and as you can see, it’s really directed to Mama Z and Papa Z more than any other persons, which I hope they’ll burst into a monologue each that would suffice for this year’s family devotion: “You’ve been walking with Jesus far longer than any of us in this room. What does it look like from there? From your spiritual vantage point, what have you learned about God for sure? I guess what I’m really asking is, what do you now know about God that you didn’t know when you were our age that might encourage us to keep walking with Jesus?”

I hope I remember to recite that question in that exact phrasing. I actually am genuinely curious how they would answer this. And I hope they’d be honest and not be superior.

I am beginning a journey of The Artist’s Way again, because today, 19 September 2025, I am so depressed, and have been for the past two weeks. What I really want to do is to finish reading all of Anne Rice’s novels before we leave for New Orleans in October. But I guess I need TAW. I’ve asked Argel for an I Ching reading, but he’s still in class in Benilde, so I’ll have to wait for his reply.

I got the idea for my Christmas question from the Introduction to The Complete Artist’s Way compilation. My intention for this round of TAW is true shadow work, real dark shadow work. Let’s see if I get to do it.

There are several addictions and dopamine compulsions that have plagued me as an adult, and really now I don’t mind blogging about this because it is 2025 and nobody, as in nobody, reads blogs anymore. 

I wish to recommit myself to daily morning pages, yoga, breath work, writing practice, lectio divina, vipassana, and a weekly artist date. I also hope to add nightly journaling and a quick yoga. I don’t know. I’ve been thinking. I know how it feels to be off-centre, to be dazed, to see the whole world through a grey haze. But when I do my practice, I feel more alive, alert, awake to the colours of the world. Can that Consciousness actually be my normal? And is that what it means to enter the flow of a creative life? And can it lead me to a life that’s free from addictions?

And so here I am. I will commit thirteen weeks to The Artist’s Way, another thirteen weeks to Walking in this World, and another thirteen weeks to Finding Water. If I have the stamina for it, I just might tackle Vein of Gold. Well, we’ll see. Thanks for reading.