The Artist's Way

you wouldn’t imagine their grace from their web-footed
walks.
I drank a cup of tea at Edgar’s Cafe this afternoon, the
cafe named for Edgar Allan Poe, who lived down here and
died farther uptown, all the way in the Bronx. I’ve looked
up into Leonard Bernstein’s ground-floor windows at the
Dakota, and gone a little numb each time I pass the arched
entryway where John Lennon was shot. In this apartment, I
am a scant block from Duke Ellington’s haunts, and there’s
a street named after him too. Manhattan is a town full of
ghosts. Creative power—and powers—course through its
vertical canyons.
It was in Manhattan that I first began teaching the Artist’s
Way. Like all artists—like all of us if we listen—I
experience inspiration. I was “called” to teach and I
answered that call somewhat grudgingly. What about my
art? I wondered. I had not yet learned that we do tend to
practice what we preach, that in unblocking others I would
unblock myself, and that, like all artists, I would thrive more
easily with some companionship, with kindred souls making
kindred leaps of faith. Called to teach, I could not imagine
the good teaching would bring to me and, through me, to
others.
In 1978 I began teaching artists how to “unblock” and
“get back on their feet” after a creative injury. I shared with
them the tools I had learned through my own creative
practice. I kept it all as easy and gentle as I could.
“Remember, there is a creative energy that wants to