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Welcome back to another Sunday.
🤤 I'll be taking you deeper with me into my very visceral journey into creativity, as I start this 12 week course-in-book I just started reading: The Artist's Way
📖 Julia Cameron's cult-classic book provides a path to recover the creative self which we somehow lose in life.
✨ Only 1 week in, and I can assure you that this is good stuff. It's smack at the fulcrum of inner work, creativity and spirituality that I have been craving.
👨🏭 Expect shorter and more guttural posts, as I focus my creative channeling towards completing my first compiled work in the next few months!
🎙️ Also happy to announce that 6 episodes of the Gumpcast season 2 have been recorded. Can't wait to share these new installments with you when ready!
Week 1: From My Artist’s Journal
The first thing the book did for me was help me untangle the concept of God from my inner problems with religion.
According to her, God is simply a creator, and when we create we are in contact with God. That's it.
That feels right to me, when I write - especially when I write well- it really seems channeled. It's like someone whispers things to me. Weird but true.
It makes sense why the Greeks worshipped the Muses, but that is a story for another time. You can be sure that the Musing about Muses is coming at you one upcoming Sunday.
The Basic Tools of the Artist’s Way
1- Morning Pages:
This entails 3 pages of automatic writing in the morning. The idea is to let all our demons or the 'Censors' of our creativity out on the page.
It's amazing how we can all do that, and how effective it is.
✅ I did my morning pages for 12 days in a row now. I feel lighter and more prepared to create everyday. So this thing works!
2- Artist’s Date:
This is about taking yourself -alone- to a place that your inner child would want to be in.
✅ For me it turned into a 4 hour hike to the redwoods and back. Something I've been wanting to do since I moved to Oakland.
We played a game of writing poems using the words on park benches. That was a lot of fun!
It is always fascinating what happens when I let the inner kid play.
👇 Below is one of many poems that came to me on that trip.
Other activities in my creative recovery that I’ve accomplished last week:
Remembering a shameful first public speaking experience and how I felt like I let my father down. Realized that this is more alive for me than I expected.
Revisited childhood memories of friends abandoning me, and how that stifles my freedom of expression through fear. Cleared that shit out too.
Reflected on my biggest creative advocates -Paul and Khaled- being the most active and oldest voices in my life, alongside my sister and my grandpa. I wrote down something’s they told me about my writing on a Post-It that I keep where I write.
Found a keyboard and acted out a fantasy of mine of playing with Pink Floyd as part of the band. I played Hey You with Roger Nick and Dave. The crowd went wild.
Been in conversation with God. He has improved my writing dramatically. Sankis God, as we say in the Middle East.
Started working on a small collection of Poems that seem to really want to come out of me. This will be my first complete writing work. Beta reader requests will be sent out soon!
End result:
I feel like I'm on a clear path towards my first published work, and feel much more confident in my ability to continue working on the novel regardless of how long it takes.
Also psyched for week 2!
Till then here is a poem that is still in draft mode, inspired by my Artist’s date in the woods.

Rest & Nourish -
A poem to help you be still for a damn second
Rest here and Nourish your spirit, among these Redwood elders. Trees once so big they were landmarks for ships in the ocean. In only 60 first years of the 19th century The vast sea of skyscraper plants were cut down to a small pond of stumps. All that is left are seeds of that Greatest ever Generation. So just sit your ass and relax, and enough doing. All that is left Is for you to Be seated and Grateful that you're still breathing. Let these trees pinch You with reality's miracle.
See you next Sunday 🎪
Musing #19 : The Artist's Way
So stoked you got your time with those magical redwoods. And I've rested my weary behind on that bench quite a few times, just forgetting where it is :D Great post and moving poem. This line exactly:
"All that is left
Is for you to
Be seated "
How do we remind ourselves to not just end, but start there as well?
Thank you for sharing the tools, your magical moments and your beautiful poetry. Can’t wait to let my demons out onto my journal 😋😬