Notes from Walking in This World, Week 3 Discovering a Sense of Perspective, Section 2 Art Is Therapeutic, Not Therapy.

Julia Cameron writes, "when we are blocked creatively, we often experience ourselves as miserable." Julia has developed tools for blasting through our blocks. "Art is therapeutic. It is not therapy." We become whole when we practice our art form.

"Art is alchemy. It turns the ore of life into gold. Learning to make art rather than drama from a heated imagination is a skill best learned early and practiced fully. If we are to make living art - and an art of living-we must be willing to stand knee-deep in the rapids of the human condition, accepting that life, by its nature, is turbulent, powerful and mysterious. It is the artist's bet that life is better encountered and expressed than diminished and discounted by trying to "fix it" therapeutically. It is the artist's conviction that understanding something intellectually is often far less healing than making something artistically transformative from our shattered selves." We can use the drama of our lives in our stories, music, painting, sculpture... We can turn our misery into a work of art.