Get to know your muse. While the Greeks believed the Muses were the daughters of Zeus, 8 goddesses who symbolized the arts and sciences, your muse may be very different. What is your muse made of and what does she eat? Is she marble or flesh? Is she demanding or congenial? Is she impatient or slow and steady? It takes time and patience to learn how to feed your inspiration. It may require of you some solitude, midnight hours, comfort food, a walk in the woods, or providing ambiance like baroque chamber music or acid rock. Each creator needs a different type of diet to awaken inspiration. But the important beginning step is to take yourself seriously and give your process the jump start it deserves.
You may want to experiment with setting up an appointment with your muse. Personify your muse. You can even write up an invitation! Invite the muse for a drink at candle light or a starlit walk around the block. Notice the temperature of the breeze. The details of the tree bark. The words and sounds and flavors that emerge as you are present. These are all food for your muse and you may be amazed by how quickly inspiration follows. If you can, keep a notebook or tablet or phone in your bag and jot down the words, feeling, thoughts that flutter through your consciousness. Don’t edit or correct or erase just yet. The free flow is the portal to your muse.
It’s a good idea to create a folder of these fresh impressions. No sunset returns twice, and your initial impressions are gold. Hold on to your inspirations, whether melodies, words, or visions in a tangible way so that you can revisit them. Beethoven had short motifs scrawled in his notebooks for years before they became great symphonies. Three short notes followed by one long note. That little kernel that floated through his imagination for four years later became the genetic material for Beethoven’s fifth symphony, one of the most renowned works in human history.
Great art is sometimes born whole but more often it needs to simmer. The flavors need to meld and settle. When you taste a stir fry immediately after cooking it tastes different than the flavor hours later. Part of the creative process is being open to the needs of each unique creation and your mode of operation may shift accordingly. There is no exact formula or recipe but sensitizing yourself to this awareness is a good beginning step.
So set the date with your goddess and let me know how it goes!
