Weltman shares ways to tap into your intuitive creativity

Article by Jennifer Stolzer.
Photos by Steven Langhorst.

Deborah Terra Weltman helped writers tap into their intuitive creativity during an interactive workshop Sept. 9. She shared her personal experiences, as well as ideas from Julia Cameron’s 1992 book, The Artist’s Way. 

Deborah finds joy in creative work of any kind, especially work that inspires personal and spiritual growth. She adores creative problem-solving, magical places, “treasure hunts,” and imagining from new perspectives. She defined “intuitive creativity” as “being taught from within” rather than looking outside yourself for guidance. 

 “I always wanted to be a visual artist,” she said, “but I remember thinking I wasn’t good enough, even in grade school.” Because of that, she didn’t take art classes, which meant she didn’t have portfolio when it came time for college. “So I got a degree in psychology.

Later, after taking art classes as an adult at the community college, Deborah realized she had a particular artistic style. “I remember in a life-drawing class, at end of the period, it looked like we were all drawing different people but we were drawing the same model. I thought, ‘How is this possible?’ By the end of semester, we could recognize who had done each drawing, could easily see their individual style.”

She built up a portfolio and got accepted into Webster University, where she earned an art degree and teacher’s certification. “I focused on creative mindset – we all need to be able to think creatively.”

Morning Pages

Exhausted, after a single year of teaching in public school, she went into picture framing as a way of getting back into doing art while using creative problem-solving skills. Along the way, she started doing one of Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way techniques: “Morning Pages.” Each day, you write three pages in a journal, to clear your mind so creativity can flow.

“I’ve journaled prayers, to-do lists, written my thoughts on what I was reading. Usually about three-fourths of the three-page requirement in, I don’t know what else to write. I do what Julia Cameron suggests for that: I simply write, ‘I don't know what to write’ over and over until something shows up in my mind. It’s a meditative practice and something always pops through,” Deborah said. “I often have the experience of feeling an opening. And when that next thought comes, I write on that.”

That is how she become a writer. One evening as she was getting ready to go to bed, Deborah had the feeling that an idea wanted to come through. “It was the beginning of a story. That was a nice surprise.”

The other two main components of The Artist’s Way are the twelve weeks of readings and exercises in the book and the Artist’s Dates. Deborah found it helpful to do the work with a group of friends. The eight regular attendees in the first group took turns teaching, doing one chapter every two weeks. “Each of us had our own teaching style,” she noted. 

The readings introduced concepts such as “poisonous playmates,” “crazy-makers,” and

"going sane” -- that’s when you start to do what’s important to you instead of doing what you “should.”

“From The Artist’s Way, I learned to be willing to be a bad artist—a beginner,” she said, adding “after all, not many people are born able to write novels."

Also from the book she learned to look at jealousy as a way of getting information about what one wants. “Pay attention – it (jealousy) will tell you what’s exciting and meaningful to you.”

Similarly, she suggested relabeling “failures.” For instance, someone in a cooking class had Jell-O that wouldn’t jell. The instructor said, “Then it’s not Jell-O, it’s strawberry sauce; serve it on ice cream.”

From the “time-travel exercise” in The Artist’s Way, Deborah identified old enemies of her creativity.  “I was shocked to remember my grade-school art teacher who said my project wasn’t good because green and purple didn’t go together. And years later, in community college – I was about thirty at the time and not quite as susceptible – my instructor said ‘you can’t do that,’ about my creative idea.  I knew he said that because it was something he couldn’t do.” Later Deborah learned of an artist who had done exactly what she had earlier envisioned. It was possible!

Filling the Creative Well

The Artist’s Date, the third component of The Artist’s Way, brings joy and creativity together: you go by yourself, to do something you find interesting, to fill up your creative well. “Some of my Artist’s Way friends had much better creative-well-filling ideas than I did – like taking a blanket to the park and lying down to cloud-watch. Others would go to events found in the Riverfront Times; one loved to go to Disney cartoon movies, even at the risk of being stared at as the only adult there in the theater without a child.”

Deborah quoted Julia Cameron, who wrote, “Focused on process, our creative life retains a sense of adventure. Focused on product, the same creative life can feel foolish or barren.” And “It is a paradox of creative recovery that we must get serious about taking ourselves lightly. We must work at learning to play.”

Shirley MacLaine’s 2001 book The Camino about walking the 500-mile Camino de Santiago trail across Spain particularly intrigued Deborah, but she didn’t move forward on the inspiration until the year she was to turn sixty. 

Deborah wrote morning journal pages regularly. “One day as I was I was doing my morning pages it came to me that if I didn’t do the Camino walk that year, I probably never would.”  This thought was followed by a response from beyond Deborah: “…and your life will be forfeit.”

 “I went “huh?” – I was pretty freaked out … but I kept writing pages, thinking about ways I could make this trip happen.” She asked her Artist’s Way group for help and they had good ideas. “At some point, I realized I’d have to do fundraising and would have to ask for help. One night, after an Artist’s Way meeting at my home, I saw that one of my friends had left a check on my pillow with ‘pleasant dreams of the Camino’ written in the subject line.”

“Before the Camino, I had so many fears, such as ‘Will my body be up to the task of walking twelve to fifteen miles per day?’ I didn’t have anyone to ask, so I used a technique called automatic writing to dialogue with my body about what it needed to be able to do the Camino,” she said. “I do think answers came from within me, as well as some from outside of me – some answers spoke to what I would experience while on Camino... experiences that had yet to happen.”

Deborah demonstrated the technique she had used to dialog with her body, automatic writing, also called direct writing. She described it as a way to access what some might call the subconscious or a higher source. 

Automatic Writing Exercise

Exercise: On your paper write: “Q” for QUESTION. Then write a question that has some meat to it (what if, why, how…), not a “yes” or “no” question.

Write “A” for “ANSWER”, then close your eyes. Take a breath, let it out. Then in your mind’s eye, visualize a gray screen. Don’t try to remember your question.

When a few words come into your mind, write them down,  then close your eyes again and go back to the gray screen. 

Keep doing that until the flow of words stops. Then ask, “Is there more?”

When the flow of words is complete, then, and only then, look at what you’ve written.

“Instead of hearing words, you may see words as if written on a chalkboard, or you may have a feeling in your body … sometimes the first answer will offer another question,” she said. 

Another way to access creativity is JOURNEY WORK. Often you use a rhythmic sound like drumming to take you to another place with an animal ally or a teacher to learn a lesson or understand something specifically. Some people when journeying have dialog with animal allies or teachers, but Deborah said she had physical experiences. For instance, on a journey to a sacred pool where salmon swam, suddenly she realized she could see from both sides of her head like a fish instead of through forward-facing human eyes. She hopes to be able to use this insight in her creative work.

She described two ways to access DREAM WISDOM. On a notebook by your bed, record the date, then write: “I will remember my dreams.” When you wake, you may remember “a corner” of a dream, which can act as a thread to help you pull the whole dream back.

Another way is to record the date and then: “In my dreams tonight, I would like guidance on …”

In the morning, write down what you remember. It may not always make sense right away. Dreams are symbolic and may need translation, but symbols are often universal. Using them may add another level to your writing

“If you are journaling or writing dreams, you will begin to notice synchronicities in your life,” she said.  “For instance, you may see a bumper sticker on the car in front of you at the same time the radio announcer says the same words.”

You may also want to pay attention to symbols in your body. For instance, constipation may indicate fear of letting go, pains in neck may refer to specific people, or you may be itching to get away. “If it’s meaningful to you in some way, it may work in your writing, too.” 

Other techniques to open creatively may included:

·         MEDITATION: in a meditative state, ask for guidance from a favorite author. Or, see if story ideas come.

·         Consider story titles which can be important, can sell the work.

·         Critique groups can provide useful input. Julia Cameron says that good criticism is that which is greeted with an internal “ah ha” and which leads to a new and valid path for your work.

·         You can create a “RANDOM IDEA Card Deck.” If you get stuck in your writing, pull a card. See if what you’ve written brings up ideas that will work in your story.

Round-Robin Storytelling

Exercise: To illustrate this technique, Deborah gave everyone a notecard and said to write down a situation. The notes were placed face-down in the center of each table. The participants were divided into groups to do “ROUND-ROBIN” Story-Telling. One person started a story, told it for a short bit and then “threw” it, perhaps in mid-sentence, to the person on their right. Whenever a person felt stuck as to where to take the story next, they could pick up a “situation card” for inspiration. 

Deborah also told the true story of two bestselling authors who discovered they had independently come up with the same story idea -- an Amazonian rain-forest business venture gone wrong, involving a long-suffering spinster employee who is quietly in love with her married boss, and sent on his behalf to the rainforest to handle the fiasco... also a love story.

“The point I took from this was that stories are alive,” Deborah said. “Ideas are alive. They’re floating around in the ether, and they visit a lot of people. If an idea comes to you, grab it… If you put it down, the Muses may take it to someone else.”

Deborah did get to go walk the Camino. While in Spain she journaled daily. “The Camino was a fabulous adventure. My life is NOT forfeit!” The daily journal entries became the foundation of her upcoming book, Camino Lessons: Losing 21st Century Fears on an Ancient Pilgrimage Trail (due out from PenUltimate Press this fall). Deborah teaches classes in “The Artist’s Way,” “Treasure Journaling,” and “Realizing Big Dreams” at the local community college and other venues. She is also the author and illustrator of two 75-card decks: “A Seeker’s Guide to Internal Paradigm Shift, What if…? Cards" (questions to guide and bless your day) and "A Seeker's Guide to Money and Abundance, What if…? Cards” (questions focusing on peace and plenty). View a sample of her “What if…? Cards” online at: www.whatifcards.com or contact Deborah at: terraartframe@sbcglobal.net