Morning Pages

When I picture my ideal day, it would probably start with morning pages. I am still so surprised at what I can access when I dedicate myself to this habit. Maybe having a standing date with meeting your shadow first thing in the morning doesn’t sound very inviting, but I have grown to love what I get out of it. You can write them any time of the day and reap benefits, but using the liminal space between sleep and awake seems optimal because you are writing before the ego’s defenses are in place.

Morning pages are my rarified space of guaranteed privacy, so the unfiltered nature of what comes out onto the paper can really say some stuff. Knowing that no one else can see it and that it is going straight to the trash afterwards creates a safe container for the old to be cleared away and the new to emerge. Morning pages also help me observe my mind and recognize that I am not my thoughts. The ego’s defenses are always going to be there and that is exactly what the morning pages reveal to me. I get to begin again in a clean space for being open, present and alive to whatever life will be unfolding in a brand new day. (Is this where all the best art can be made?)

Julia Cameron explains that this exercise might even be called the Mourning Pages, because in many ways they are “a farewell to life as you knew it and an introduction to life as it’s going to be.” To take all the accumulated gunk and clutter in my psyche and recycle it into a creative clean slate right before my very eyes feels like an ideal way to start to my summer.