I’m not doing the AW this time around but have done it a couple of times in the past. The first time I was doing it was with an internet newsgroup for support.

I really struggled with the terminology on my first pass through but it is worth struggling with it. Ideally you need to come out of it with more self-knowledge and more tricks for shifting yourself into art-mind (or whatever you like to call it).

If an exericise doesn’t have the desired effect then the challenge is to create one that does for you. Its by really rewriting the book as you go, and recreating the exercises to suit yourself that you will get the most out of it.

And that’s why I didn’t join in this time around - I’ve moved so far away from morning pages etc. that I thought I’d be interfering… however last night I realised I was still tuning into this AW group’s energy and so I’ve just set myself a set of exercises on the general themes (reworded where necessary) they bear little resemblence to the book but they will mean I get more out of being loosely in the same flow as all the others doing this work now.

And on expectations - its hard to get that right - I think Kat is right in saying having no expectation is best, but of course without some sort of expectation at all you wouldn’t have the motivation to start something like this…

And by the way - I love your collages

And the tree idea is a beautiful one even if it hasn’t worked the way you hoped.

Thanks for sharing your experiences