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literary The Vein of Gold A Journey to Your Creative Hear! by Julia Cameron C P . Putnam's Sons 367 pp.. $32.50 hardcover Review by Gloria Loree G o t any New Year's resolutions? The only New Year's resolution I can even remember making is the year I swore I would never again work in a restaurant on New Year's Eve (it really is a nightmarish way to bring in a new year). Happily. I haven't had to break that resolution. 1 know I must have made a lot of self-improvement types of resolutions over the years, and I'm hoping they just became part of my psyche and no longer take any conscious resolve to maintain. As I working in the arts community. I know a lot of people are going to make resolutions to really start working on their art: to get in the studio and paint, sit down at the computer and write, start auditioning in earnest... If you do have resolutions involving your art or creative spirit, chances are you have been blocking your creative energy with a lot of excuses (like that old one that says you want to pay the rent this month) and fears (like the fear of moving back home when you do get evicted). If fears and blocks are what's wedged between you and your art. you might want to give Julia Cameron's new book. The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart, a try. Cameron is the author of the widely popular The Artist's Way (which has sold over 800.000 copies in North America alone) and says that while her first book was about discovery and reunion. The Vein of Gold is about healing and rehabilitation (the very essence of a New Year's resolution, no'?). Both books are about being gentle with your creative self and working through the fears and reasons for not creating your art or living more creatively. But Cameron says this second book is deeper. It still require you to write in a diary each morning and to Artistic New Year's Resolutions Anyone take yourself on what Cameron calls artist's dates, but the inclusion of music and sound work and walking are important elements she has added. Cameron says her work changed completely three years ago when she met Tim Wheaton. a musician and sound healer. She says incorporating her work with Wheaton's has resulted in her writing music and lyrics she never thought she was capable of. Wheaton in turn has added poetry readings and prose writing to his large repertoire of musical accomplishments (which include producing 17 CDs and being one of the founding members of the Eurythmics). In 77ie Vein of Gold Cameron writes, "Sound can be used to create a more melodic flow in our daily lives and in our relationship to ourselves. Unlike verbal or visual communications, sound works directly on our emotional state." She says the music Wheaton injects in her workshops creates a feeling of safety and is a much more profound way to teach. I think I understood what she was saying when Wheaton pulled out a beautiful wooden flute in the lobby of the hotel where I was interviewing them and began to play and then read from some of Julia's poetry. The music allowed me to really hear the words as well as his gorgeous tones as he read, and the combined experience left my heart pounding. I would have to refer back to the poem itself to tell you specifically what he was reading: what I remember is the feeling, the experience. And maybe that's what Cameron meant when she said, "Art isn't intellectual, it comes from the heart." Wheaton's music allowed me to feel what I now have trouble finding words to describe. The main point Cameron keeps returning to is. "Arts are not just a form of entertainment; the arts are also a very fundamental tool of healing and self-expression." Cameron says everyone, including professional artists, can benefit from her techniques and even become more prolific or branch into new disciplines after working with them. A former journalist and Hollywood screenwriter who used to be married to Martin Scorsese, she walks her talk. She has gone from living in California and working as a screen writer to living in Taos, New Mexico, and also writing poetry, plays and musicals, books, and running workshops on creative exploration. So back to that resolution. If you want to play, heal, and express yourself and use the arts as a tool, then Cameron provides many techniques for you. And you don't have to call it a resolution, you can just make it something you've been meaning to do. and now seems like a good time. If nothing else. Cameron's book is full of inspirational quotes. Delving into them can be enough to get you going (they helped motivate me to finish this article). Here's a couple of quotes from The Vein of Gold. "You must do the one thing you think you cannot do." --Eleanor Roosevelt "The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only she who listens can speak." --Dag Hammarskjold "I believe talent is like electricity. We don't understand --Maya Angelou electricity.We use it"