Invoking the Muse

Yes, I changed the blog format.  Got tired of the white text on black.

The writing prompt (from Deena Metzger) is:  Picture your muse, and invoke her.

My muse is fickle.  She flies in and out and flits about at her own whim.  She laughs at the idea that she is my muse, belonging to me, meant to come and inspire at my beck and call. Her job may be to inspire, but she has her own existence and doesn’t just wink into being when I choose, remaining dormant in the in-between times.  She is a being with work and purpose, and with a life of her own.

And so, she visits me when she desires or deems it necessary.  Or not even that – when she just plain decides.  She has that edge to her, a snittyness, a self-absorption.  She is fairy-like, ephemeral, arbitrary, spontaneous, even a bit reckless.  Sometimes she tosses just a glimmer of an idea my way, as though sprinkling a dash of fairy dust.  If I catch it, I might shape it into a poem, or jot down a seed of an idea to examine later.  (Or never.)

There are times, though, that she settles down with me for a little while, opening my eyes and my mind to something new, intriguing, beautiful.  She is a muse who loves beauty and surrounds herself with color, light and fragrance.  Does it help me at all to solicit her aid, to pray for her to visit me?  I really don’t know, but it can’t hurt.  The old stories all tell us that the gods want our attention, our offerings.  And really, we do need them, our muses.  Is there anything more valuable than creativity?  Creativity is life.  Even at night when we sleep, we get to visit our own dream theaters, where creativity reigns.

Right now I feel her hovering nearby.  I crave her magic.  I am not happy when, as Rumi says, “I’ve been so woven into the mesh of my trivial errands.”   Where she goes when she is not here I do not and cannot know.  I guess it’s none of my business.  All I can do is entreat her to visit me as often and for as long as she can.  And so I am offering her now the aroma of citrus and peppermint.  I hope that will call her to me.  Muse, please come and enrich my life!

P.S.  SoulCollage® often functions as my muse as well.  This morning I did a little birthday reading, 3 cards (body, mind, spirit).  What an inspiring little blessing of a reading!  The second and third are probably pretty obvious; they are called My Exuberant Child (what my mind needs - more play!) and Hummingbird Child (a spirit gift, for sure).  The first, for my body, I call Omen, and it represents my instinctual self paying attention to the messages of the natural world (the shooting star).