Rendezvous with the Soul

“Art is a spiritual transaction.”  I had owned a gallery and custom frame studio for five years before Julia Cameron’s words tripped into my awareness, but they instantly rang true.

Over the years, I had witnessed this wisdom play out repeatedly. Someone would walk into the gallery with no intention to purchase. And rather magically, a work of art would find some deeply neglected part of them that just needed to be recognized; and it was as if it reached out, tapped them on the shoulder and said, “I see you and I completely understand.”

It was sacred, profound, and humbling to witness. It is also why I have often said, “art chooses YOU.” 

Having been the privileged and appropriately passive participant of such rendezvous, I secretly despised those gallery visitors who arrived with an engineer’s precision in their art quest. Scripted like a grocery list, they arrived with an exact size, color, and general idea of what they were hopeful to pick up during their visit. Convinced buying art was like visiting a hardware store, they expected me to walk them to an aisle where they could search a collection of bins that held the exact nut and bolt, they needed to complete their month’s long project.

I admit, I would begrudgingly play along. I was in business after all. If I could locate that proverbial needle in a haystack, both an artist and I would stand to bank a little income. But experience had already shown me, my best role was to stay out of the way of spiritually ordained art-felt moments.

It was this context in which I first met Julia Cameron’s words. At the time, I did not care to know why she chose to write them, nor did I dare to explore the meaning I personally attributed to them. They stood as self-evident.

“Art is a Spiritual Transaction”

Julia Cameron

To be honest, it was not until I started engaging in my own creative process of writing that I fully recognized the other elements held within the magic of those chance encounters at the gallery.

Now, I fully appreciate there was first, a soul that endeavored to express. Next, a human being accepted the challenge and persevered to bring an ephemeral truth into form on this earthly plane. AND the exact human heart that needed to hear its message walked through the door at the exact time its messenger was waiting.

Humbled by this new awareness, I can’t help but find myself wondering more specifically what Julia Cameron meant to convey by her words as it seems they hold a much deeper intended meaning.

Sitting at the center of this new inquiry is not only the nature of spirituality; but also, a keen interest in how creating art intersects with a spiritual experience?

I grew up in a home that defined a relationship with the Divine through religion. Their path was clear, linear, all knowing…CERTAIN. My dance with spirituality has been anything but certain. If I am being honest, for many years, spirituality felt completely inaccessible, and I could not figure out why it appeared so much easier for others. (To learn more about how I arrived at my current spiritual footing read my blog post “A Wiser Part of Me”)

Today, I have been fortunate to have experienced a handful of rarefied moments of pure connection, which is how I define spirituality. In my experience, the feeling always has a flavor of “coming home,” reunion or remembering. In some cases, it has felt like various parts of me “returned home” and I felt fully integrated or complete. At other times, I have felt a reunion with the soul of another, or something greater, which I call “My Origin.”

Most of these I experienced in meditation, although some were facilitated through somatic healing modalities. I would also argue that almost all my spiritual experiences happened as a byproduct of my commitment to foster a spiritual connection. You cannot have a relationship with anything without putting time and effort into it.

Regardless of who or what I was feeling more in union with, each of these experiences have felt so outside of description you can only point to the word, ‘ineffable’ and nod. And in nearly every case, so struck by its sublimity, I tried to grasp hold of the experience, only to be reminded of its ephemeral nature.

Much like an addiction, spiritual encounters hold an allure that beckons me, and without fail, I pursue them. It has been profoundly rewarding and equally frustrating.

For centuries, spiritual teachers have advised, it will take lifetimes and earnest discipline before we can abide with such knowing. Others have equally convincing lessons that our connection with the spiritual has always been available. We simply need to practice noticing its presence.

In my experience, spirituality is not only accessible, it is also our birthright. But our connection becomes inaccessible as soon as we try to define it, grasp it or will our way to it. At best, we can cultivate opportunities for it to reveal itself.

Which finds me circling back to this intersection between art and the spiritual. If I may, I feel compelled to share a bit about my relationship with the creative process. Which I dare say, is strangely similar in nature to my relationship with my spirituality.

My creative spirit first entered my meditation portal in the early pre-pandemic months of 2020. Up until that moment, my meditation time had always been a space to practice being present for more than the activity of my mind. To be clear, it is not to its exclusion, it simply is a space where my attention broadens and deepens.

The door to my creativity, cracked open long enough to have three words slip past it. They were mysterious and instantly felt IMPORTANT. For the balance of that meditation, I asked them what they wanted me to know. No answers came forth. The next morning, my first waking thought was, “You are going to write a book about these.” 

Its clarity and certitude made negotiation unnecessary. Keep in mind, I had no idea what the words were intending, but when our business had been shut down due to the pandemic, I took the time to create a writing space and faithfully arrived at my computer eager to find out what the words wanted me to share with the world. 

Now a confession, my computer houses a collection of creative contents, concealed and unidentifiable to the casual passerby. But if I were a visual artist, and my creative efforts were held within the confines of four walls, what you would see is a room full of grotesque, ill-formed figures, all seemingly trapped at the precipice of possibility. For the uninformed viewer, it would likely feel like a lovely landscape of promise. For the creator, (me) it is a land mine of frustration.

Now, during my meditation practice, I am endlessly wooed by a parade of ideas that knock at the door of my consciousness; each eager to have their visit met with hospitality. And, I admit, inspiration is my favorite visitor. Its arrival will always be met with welcome, and an invitation to come in and share a thing or two about itself. I gleefully settle in and listen to what it must convey and enjoy how eloquently it is delivered. And maybe this is why they each invariably ask, “would you be willing to bring this to the world?” 

Usually, I am so enamored with their message, I naively agree to the mission. Despite evidence from my past, I submit to the request with youthful compliance and unreliable confidence. It shouldn’t be hard, right? I heard the way the words organized in my mind, and I saw the larger meaning they held. What could be so hard about capturing their essence and assembling a few thousand characters onto the expansive white field emanating from the computer screen?

And yet, it is at this crossroads things seem to seize up. Now, the ideas play coy, dodging full expression and giggling about their hidden places. Like a cat crouching under a bed, strategically located directly in the center where no grasping hands can reach, the ideas look back at me, blinking with a content knowing they sit in plain sight and remain safely unavailable for direct contact.

When my creative spirit accepts the challenge, heroic levels of patience, passion, and persistence endeavor to coax and cajole the recalcitrant idea from its resting place. But what once arrived urgent, readily accessible, and exuberant to be shared now settles in for what feels like an obstinate standoff, or in some cases, a full-on arm-wrestling match.

As joyfully as they arrive, I often sympathize that they chose such a clumsy tool that seems wholly mismatched for the task at hand. Why is it they arrive so clear, so playful and so alive and then resist expression, as if my agreement to their request feels as cruel and unnatural as pinning butterfly wings into a display case?

My creative process invites me to explore things within myself that have preferred to remain hidden. It challenges me to unburden myself from things that no longer serve me. And perhaps most challenging of all, it calls me forward to a higher potential that absolutely terrifies me.

There is no doubt the creative process is a rendezvous with the Soul. It is not for the faint of heart. It requires patience, courage, humility, presence, and commitment. It, too, is richly rewarding and equally frustrating. But if you accept its invitation, it is a doorway to spiritual evolution.

I now open it up to you. What has been your experience spiritually? Creatively? Do you agree with Julia Cameron’s premise that art is a spiritual transaction?