“I love you, Lucien, but I am a muse, you are an artist, I am not here to make you comfortable.”
― Christopher Moore
In Greek Mythology, the muses were the daughters of Zeus and the titan Mnemosyne(Memory). They governed over various arts and were said to inspire artists to create. They were alluring and graceful and many an artist tried to woo the muses when they undertook a new endeavour. From a kaballistic standpoint, Zeus would be Chesed (expansion into form). In other words, art’s inspiration comes from the expansion of memory into form. This would include but not be exclusive to the artist’s personal memory. It would also include to my mind both the archetypal memories that live in our collective unconscious and atavistic memories that are buried even deeper thus giving us a bottomless well of inspiration would that we could tap into it.
How can we call on the muses? How can we find the inspiration we need to create? Here is an exercise that you may find useful. Imagine if you will swimming below the surface in a clear beautiful river. You sense that you are not alone in your swim that there are other forms swimming around you. You come out of the water into a beautiful clear moonlit night. As you leave the water you sense that you are not alone. There is a woman there, attractive and somewhat shy. Ask her her name and what she may have for you in the way of ideas and inspiration. Listen to what she has to tell you.
Understand tho that many of the memories that lie below the surface may not be pleasant comforting ones. Then again, we seldom create from comfort. Usually we write or draw or create based on themes and ideas that we are trying to work out within ourselves. Quite often the work of creating art is the purest form of shadow work and in interacting with our creation, we gain awareness of parts of ourselves we would otherwise be unaware of.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Finding a New Labyrinth by G A Rosenberg
Rainbow Propagation by G A Rosenberg
