Listening is in danger of becoming just another overused buzzword, especially in the organizational world. One possibility for saving it from that fate is Julia Cameron’s new book, The Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention (A 6-Week Artist’s Way Program). Cameron is a one-woman publishing phenomenon, going back to The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, originally published in 1992 and later in a 25th anniversary edition. Will there be a 30th anniversary edition next year?
The Listening Path employs tools familiar from The Artist’s Way and other Cameron books, such as morning pages, artist dates, and walks. And although it shares some of the themes of creativity/creation with those books, the intent here is to draw readers into deep attention to and engagement with our everyday environments, for benefits that go beyond creativity. Listening becomes its own reward, as we discover valuable things in our life that were there all along, but perhaps taken for granted or overlooked.
The amazingly prolific Cameron, with her experience as an author, journalist, playwright, producer, and more, is her own best advertisement for productively living the creative life. The new book features quotes from dialogues with her friends, interior monologues, and examples from her own career. Interspersed are ‘Try This’ segments where she offers specific instructions on how to apply The Listening Path approach. For instance, in the ‘Try This’ about a suggested twenty-minute walk, she writes: “Now, write down one aha from your walk. We receive insights and ideas when we walk; walking opens us to a higher form of listening, which might be called guidance or intuition.” She also provides a periodic “Check In,” in which she reminds the reader “Have you kept up with your Morning Pages, Artist Dates, and Walks?” Also: “Name one memorable experience of listening. What was the aha that came from it for you?”
The format is divided into six segments of one week each: “Listening to Our Environment,” “Listening to Others,” “Listening to Our Higher Self,” “Listening Beyond the Veil,” “Listening to Our Heroes,” and “Listening to Silence.” This is listening in a variety of senses, not just what we overtly and consciously hear. It can also mean listening for inner cues about our thoughts and behaviors, and listening to nature in all its variety. One of the most valuable aspects of the book is to help us perceive things (sounds or otherwise) intentionally in different ways.
Cameron (and especially The Artist’s Way) has developed tremendous name recognition, and many people have tried her tools and found them useful, even life-changing. This goes especially for the use of morning pages, possibly the best-known feature of The Artist’s Way. Many high-level creatives have vouched for it, such as Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert, and Pete Townshend of The Who. It also fits in well with the popularity of journaling, and variations of it, like bullet journaling.
As in Cameron’s other work, the new book is openly spiritual, though not necessarily religious. “Because it is sourced in honesty,” she writes, “the listening path is a spiritual path. As we listen for our personal truth, we have a universal truth.” And she is not afraid of venturing into far-out territory, such as holding imaginary written dialogues with the famed 19th/20th century psychiatrist Carl Jung, and Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous/A.A. Cameron also points out that Jung and Wilson had also corresponded with each other.
The Listening Path teaches readers to be comfortable with being themselves, yet to be open and receptive to learning from others, and especially to learning from one’s environment. The hope is that after six weeks (which probably can be repeated endlessly), readers will listen to music in new and different ways, read more deeply by listening to the voice of the author, listen to people (those already in one’s life and others) with the thought of learning something new, and listen to themselves more seriously.
Listening has almost become a lost art, and we often don’t expect it when we are talking with people individually or within groups. Being genuinely listened to feels rare, and all the more welcome, when it happens. Perhaps Julia Cameron and her book will help more people to pause, reflect, and give the gift of listening to others.