Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection

"I love Julia Cameron. I read everything she ever puts out. She’s just so comforting, I think that’s the best word to describe her. I think I’ve also been seeking that sort of maternal, grandmother’s wisdom. She’s in her late seventies, I think. Julia’s work, across all her books, is about helping artists become unblocked. It’s really interesting, because I think Julia Cameron’s books are like Trojan horses. She talks about intense topics, through quite a broad lens. And she’ll use words like ‘God’ in her books, but prefaces it with the statement that she’s talking about ‘creative energy’, which I think appeals to younger people who might not be religious. I think at this time in history, so many of us feel lost because we don’t have anything to believe in. Most of us don’t have a religion, or it’s fading away. We might not have a strong sense of community, especially if you live in the city. Julia Cameron is asking the reader to believe in something again. For her, it’s speaking out loud. You don’t have to believe you’re praying for something, it’s just manifesting your hopes and dreams by talking outwardly about what you want. She’s very into journaling, and putting things out there. Even if you don’t know where those things are going out to, I think she’s just asking you to believe in the world again. There is something about her that really seems to capture people. I think it’s because she’s so honest and vulnerable about her own journey. In the new book, she recaps on her alcoholism. Her life was going one of two ways, and thank God it went this way, where she got sober. The thing that got her out of the grips of that was her Morning Pages. And the ‘seeking wisdom’ she talks about in this book is seeking help not only from people around her in her physical form, but more widely, from people who have passed away. Not in a woo-woo way, but by writing them letters or speaking out loud to them. That’s an interesting thing about her. It could turn a lot of people off. But weirdly, she brings everyone in. Her book Floor Sample is one of my favourite memoirs. It’s about her alcoholism and being married to Martin Scorsese, and how she nearly ruined her career—but got it back again. So I just find her endlessly inspiring and I have interviewed for my podcast three times now!"