Creativity's Muse is Dancing with Me

The muse of creativity here. An old friend has walked back into my life, and my whole body is lit up. I feel like a Christmas tree with all my lights on. Completely alive and cherishing every second of this dance. I don't want to take it for granted, because, as Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic, the muse doesn't stay forever. We can't capture her and bottle her up. She comes, and she goes, in her own way and on her own timing.

A few things I’m noticing about this dance:

1.     A Daily Practice: She's here with me right now, and one thing that keeps her pulse alive is heeding her call every single day, even if it's just ten minutes. Honor her, not once a week, but daily, and she stays.

2.     Ugly Poetry: Writing poetry works for me. My inner perfectionist likes to white-knuckle the controls, forever sculpting the words so they come out perfect, and that grip strangles the channel. So if I do one thing a day that messes up my perfectionist's hair, and slips the controls out from under her, like poetry, she has no choice but to step aside. For me, poetry is words splattered on the page: ugly sometimes, beautiful sometimes, enchanted sometimes, and lame sometimes. And it doesn't f-ing matter. Poetry is my permission slip to create for the sake of creating.

3.     Not Burning Out & Not Getting Sick: Every time this muse has danced with me, and I've pushed until I got sick or burned out, the flow stops. And she's gone in a flash. So the recipe is: get enough sleep, eat well, drink water, and stay off sugar, which always tanks my immune system. Not to hold her. To honor and exercise her presence while she's here.

4.     Gratitude: Cultivate appreciation that I get to experience this at all. Cherish these moments of real connection with my essence, and what it is to be human. I envy the people who seem to live in this state full-time, but for me it comes in seasons: a season of flow, then a season of hibernation. Gratitude is how I say, Thank you. Please stay as long as you like. I'm here for all your magic.

5.     Evolving My Relationship with Fear: Here's the vulnerable one. I carry a big fat fear of being judged. A fear that my creativity is lame. When that fear grabs me, I feel a tightening in my throat and my chest, which narrows the channel of my flow. Fear puts a fat ole’ cork in me. For years I thought the goal was to get rid of my fear. But fear doesn't work like that. It shows up every time the work matters. So I'm learning something different: not to evict fear, but to let it ride along without letting it drive. I feel the cork, I breathe underneath it, and I keep coming back to the page.

** Thank you to Gilbert's book, Big Magic, for all the inspiration. This is the second time reading it, and it is such a gift. If you haven't read it, do it now.