One Particular Muse

Creativity doesn’t just happen all by itself. Extraordinary forces spur it on from the shadows. They’re sowers of seeds, brain stormers, cheerleaders, and coaches that flex inspirational muscle, give a directional push or an encouraging, if unspoken, “Go ahead, give it a whirl. Surprise yourself.” The world would be lacking a whole lot of wonderful if these forces ever quit their nurturing nudging. There’d be far fewer ideas and inventions, plays and paintings, novels and movies, songs and sonnets. Inspiration would lay dormant.

The ancient Greeks were savvy to the catalyst behind creative thought and doing. Their mythology celebrated nine goddesses, muses actually, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyn. The muses oversaw and cultivated the arts and sciences. I imagine the Greeks carved statues of the nine so the non-divine had tangible reminders to invoke and implore for conceptual guidance as needed.

Recently I reread Steven Pressfields’ book, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battle.

True enough, the occasional internal blockade, an embargo on creative juices being allowed to flow and stimulate creativity does happen. Pressfield and I are not immune. It results when we resist our divine calling to create, when we can’t overcome our own inertia, sometimes not knowing what direction to travel having too many options that cloud our ability to choose just one, or when we let fear and lack of clarity of the outcome stop us from starting or finishing. In his book Pressfield talks about The Legend of Bagger Vance, a novel he wrote you may be familiar with that was made into a movie. It starred Matt Damon and Will Smith. If you play golf it’s a must see. If you don’t I believe you’ll still enjoy it. Golf is merely the theme used to convey the movie’s message and Will Smith plays a magical, most likable role.

I perceive the movie as a contemporary tale about a muse at work, a revamp of the ancient Greeks’ version of the source of inspiration. In his book The War of Art Pressfield stresses his belief in and import of angels and muses, those invisible persuasions of a higher realm – the ones that conspire to inspire. Pressfield invokes his muse daily before he commences his creative work by reading the start of Homer’s Odyssey, the T.E. Lawrence translation. I’m certain, too, of the existence and magic of guardian angels and muses. I absolutely believe the Universe has and continues to send many angels to watch over and protect me from bad JuJu, others and myself. Thank you! Thank you!

I know at least one of my muses and, like the Greeks, have a statue of sort, a reminder to ask her for conceptual guidance. I don’t know if others know who their muses are but I’m certain of this particular one of mine. Her name is Phyllis. Phyllis is my mother. She died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack in October, 1996. Her death rocked my world and changed it, surprisingly, in a remarkable way.

Before her death, my creative endeavors included dabbling in stained glass and basketry, some sewing and writing human interest articles for a local paper but not the visual arts of drawing or painting. Didn’t think I had the right stuff for that type of creativity.

A tad over four months after her death, however, on a whim, I took a one-night workshop titled Reawakening Your Creativity Through Expressive Arts that stirred in me a need to draw and paint. I’m convinced it was Phyllis who was guiding and conspiring to lead me away from my emotional despair over her loss. After I started getting absorbed in teaching myself to draw and dabble with watercolor I wrote the poem Birth by Death. It speaks volumes of my sorrow and the realization of her nurturing beyond the grave.

Birth by Death

by Carol A. Watson  9.4.97

The hole she left is broad

I fall into it most unexpectedly

Grateful that it’s not

So deep I can still crawl out.

Twice she gave me life

Once together with my father

Then alone at her last breath.

As she left this plane she tugged and pulled

She drew me out and passed

Her breath to me.

I thought she’d taken me with her

To a black, constricting, empty place

Until I trudged through the mire

Of tears and back into the light.

She’d taken only my heart and left

Instead her soul.

How is it through death we grow

And through its pain we come to know?

Through her death I gained new life

I newly draw and write

Feeling her with me and in me

Nourished by her love which never died.

This new way of expressing what I loved through visual art was like discovering a newfangled, wondrous world. The possibilities were astounding. I experimented, created, stumbled, experimented more and fell in love with what I found I was capable of doing which increased my excitement to do and learn even more.

I don’t remember the exact time frame but believe it was several years after writing the poem, Birth by Death that Steve and I took a day trip to the north part of Connecticut to the Granby area. It was an autumn weekend and we happened on a local bazaar at a quintessential, small, white New England church. Someone had carved the cutest figures from basswood, a compact Santa, a white-bearded peasant and a green-faced wizardess complete with magic hat, among others. They were simple in design but oozed an abundance of enchantment. They whispered to me to take them home and were ridiculously inexpensive at five dollars or so apiece. They got their wish.

The squat, little Santa was just too danged cute. He’d reside on the mantel over the fireplace at Christmastime.

The white-bearded peasant, or so I saw him, reminded me of my Polish grandfather, my dziakek (gah-Dek), my mother’s father. My grandfather didn’t have a beard like this humble, charming, wood figure but did have white hair, a distinctive nose and a cap he’d often wear even in the house. There was a gentleness alive in the wooden countenance that also reminded me of my dziakek’s mild demeanor. With his red Christmasy stocking cap he’d fit right in on the mantel with the new santa, the santa Steve had carved for me and several others that came out once a year to help celebrate the holiday.

But it was the wizardess that was the most precious of the trio. Right off, the stars on the hat implied the potential magic this figure held. The face although not beautiful was adorable just the same and wore a touch of Polish character. I could overlook the fact that the Wicked Witch of the West in Oz had a green face because I was sure this wizardess was a good one, not from the dark side. Adorable trumps evil any day and I found this figure downright adorable. But it was when I turned the wizardess over and looked at the bottom of the carving that I was certain this was Phyllis, my muse. The date on the bottom was 1996, the same year Phyllis transitioned to another dimension and started guiding me in her new capacity as muse, not just mother!

Up to this point I’d felt she was responsible for working behind the scenes silently coaxing and goading me towards new personal discoveries of my creative potential. But now I had visual confirmation it was true and an idol, a statue, like the Greeks, as a physical reminder when I waffled or lost my pluck to play and grow my art. The wizardess-muse Phyllis didn’t look anything like my earthly mother, but that’s the way reincarnation works.

So Phyllis the Muse secured a place in my Petite Studio alongside a favorite framed picture of my mother sitting atop a stone wall when she was in her late teens or early twenties. I pick her up sometimes and implore her for help and guidance. She even occasionally gets kisses on her little green nose. Usually, though, she sits quietly observing my studio activities.

Rereading The War of Art a second time sparked me to consider invoking my muse by also reading T.E. Lawrence’s translation of the start of Homer’s Odyssey as Pressfield does daily.  But just as in high school English Lit where it was agony dissecting each phrase in an attempt to try and understand what Shakespeare was saying in his Early Modern English, I found the Lawrence translation to be as inaccessible to understanding as the great William.

No problem. I wrote my own in my own vernacular with a teensy tone of lofty to give it the reverence an invocation warrants.

Carol’s Invocation of the Muse

Phyllis, Divine Creative Muse,

grant that I may awaken and

through my mind’s eye and hands,

bring life to the sacred expression

of imagination you bestow on me

through my art.

May I be fearless and follow the

uncharted rhythms that lead me

to the golden reward of original

and heartfelt expression and, by

so doing honor the gift you work

through me.

May I be diligent and tenacious in

my craft and nurture it to its

highest potential.

I’m not as diligent reading my invocation to Phyllis daily as Pressfield writes he is reading his from the Odyssey. Before writing mine in July, I relied on more informal, off-the-cuff, sporadic imploring and sometimes downright pleading. It seemed to serve me well.

I know Phyllis has my back and my creative happiness and growth at the front and top of her roster of magical muse must-do’s. What writing and reading my invocation does do for me is serve as a reminder that the process of creativity is an ever changing one, one to be fearless with and grateful for – a sacred gift from the gods themselves nurtured by the muses and for me, one particularly extra special muse. 

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Photo Credit:  Lead photo is of The Sarcophagus of the Muse by Aquila

Taken from the Collection at The Louvre on line

Posted by carol@mylifewithcreativity.com & filed under Inspiration. This post has 4 comments.