Reading Deprivation Week, Day 1

Week Four of The Artist's Way finds me not reading (and therefore not looking at email, Facebook, etc.). It also has me paying attention to and monitoring intake. Julia Cameron says this week:

If we monitor the inflow and keep it to a minimum, we will be rewarded for our reading deprivation 

with embarrassing speed.

It was helpful that she distinguishes such things as TV binging (insert hours of The Wire), drugs, sugar, gossip, radio, etc. I see that I don't need to cut all of these out all of the time, but to fully get the benefit . . . the aforementioned reward . . . I want to play along. I even turned off my phone last night before bed. After 8 pm I will turn it back on again. Not having it on, not having the screen to watch for text messages nor the movement to send a text, is giving me the sense of being on vacation. What I've so been craving.

It reminds me of going to the Vipassana courses in just a little way. Like, what will I do, who will I be, without my habits and hobbies? Yikes. Last time I went to a Vipassana course and stripped myself of all of my habits and hobbies - and added about six hours of meditation in each day - I went moderately bonkers. 

This afternoon I watched a wonderful video that Netflix had recommended to me. It's called How to Draw a Bunny, about the artist Ray Johnson. I love the synchronicity of this film of a creative life coming to me in the midst of The Artist's Way, and even more so, the synchronicity of Ray Johnson being primarily a collage-ist = one of my very favorite ways of creating art. Not only that, but last night I took down off of my wall the collage I'd made during my last run of AW, about a year and a half ago. I've loved the collage and have felt connected with it, but I had recently felt it was time to go ahead and take it down. See what might come next.

After I finished the Ray Johnson movie (and if you get it, be sure to watch the deleted scenes in the extras: there's some great stuff there), I spotted the above painting sitting on my table, waiting to be given away. So I took it with some thumb tacks across the street to the bus stop. It's sunny and windy outside today, warm and almost hot, and I was glad I had two thumb tacks - really push pins - and that they slipped into the wood so easily. The pole is covered in rusted staples from years of leaflets and concert announcement. I wonder how long my sign will stay up there and if it will make anyone smile?

I appreciate Sundays.