'The Listening Path' is deaf | The Everyday Artist

I’ve had it with Julia Cameron rehashing ‘The Artist’s Way‘ with every new book she writes.

When her new book, ‘The Listening Path,’ came out this year, I had hopes that Julia was speaking to a ‘new method of heightened attention’ – as promised by the back cover. Also, somehow I thought her artistic wisdom born of the years of experience would meet our times’ current turbulence in a relevant way.

That is not the case. ‘The Listening Path’ feels deaf to me. It is yet another echo of ‘The Artist’s Way,‘ and I feel disappointed.

You know, I registered this domain, THEEVERDAYARTIST.COM, over 20 years ago. It was inspired by ‘The Artist’s Way.’ Through that book, I took on the belief that everyone had the right to be artistic. In my mind, an everyday artist was a regular person, possessing no special talent or skill, or education. Julia gave me the courage to think I could be an artist. She gave me the permission to think thoughts I would not have dared to. Her book changed my life, and through the years, I have gifted ‘The Artist’s Way’ to more people than I can remember.

The thing is, sooner or later, we have to say goodbye to our gurus. These wise people give us the schooling we need to get to the threshold, but we need to cross over ourselves. Goodbyes are not always easy but move on, we must.

While ‘The Artist’s Way’ embraced and grew me, ‘The Listening Path’ fails to hear what I need now.

It does, however, leave me with a hunger to ‘listen’ to my needs.

So thank you, dear Julia, for getting me here.

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