When the muse strikes you must let her speak

Thoughts on creativity, productivity and the Divine

I am thinking of writing here, but the lesson applies no matter the endeavour.  We lose what we don’t use, and when it comes to creative inspiration, she can come and go in seconds.

Some people keep notepads next to their beds, so that they can write what they were thinking when they wake up, or as they are lollygagging in bed.  I do this.  It happens all the time.  But often I don’t write it down fully enough, or precisely enough, and I can’t always remember what I meant.

The number of scraps of paper I have lying around my house…

If you have ADD, you are probably a scrap of paper around the house person.  Part of my “system”, how I cope with ADD, is that I have note pads of scrap paper throughout my house, in my three offices, the guest room, the master bedroom, on all the hallway landings.

Three offices?  Yes.  I can’t cope with a multi-purpose environment.  Too distracting.  Another facet of ADD, the need to avoid distraction.  We live in a permanent rabbit hole.  Office one is for paying bills.  The drudgery of adult modern life.  And vanilla work.  The second office is where I write about food and cooking.  The third office is where I write this blog, but the room is really my witch’s space.  It is also where I see clients as a somatic therapist or when practicing reiki.  It looks a bit like an apothecary or lab.

It is funny, but my children love to come to my third office and lie on the table.  It is a comfortable table.  But it has something else.  As the centre of witchcraft in my house, there is a seam in there that runs to other worlds.  There is powerful magic in there.

When my wife broke into my home, to mine and the children’s home, she helped herself to many things.  Some of it, she will have been entitled to at some point in an orderly separation—I kind of imagined we would take turns and just work our way room by room in a gentle process of taking what we each wanted.

Instead, she of course just helped herself to whatever.  But she did things also which make no sense.  She took an uneven number of dining chairs, leaving me with 5.  I hate those dining chairs.  She could have had all of them.  What am I going to do with 5 dining chairs?  That I don’t like?

But more significantly than this, she messed with magic.  I keep spells in bowls scattered through the house.  She took several of the bowls.  Apart from these not being “marital assets”, having been given to me before I met her, they carry magic.

I was recently at the centre of British witchcraft, the town of Glastonbury, and a sign in a shop window caught my eye.  Hilarious.  It read:

A Little Reminder

Due to the increasing number of thefts, we thought we would remind those entering with the intention of doing so, that we are a witchcraft shop…

It isn’t the police, or karma, that you need to be worried about.

You have been warned.

Unsurprisingly, my house is and was filled with protective spells.  Protective rituals are a frequent practice.  You might say, “well, those didn’t work so well now did they?” 

As a white witch I would only harm myself, degrade my craft, dishonour myself, if I sought to harm someone.  At times I am angry or upset like anyone, and think negative thoughts, but these are emotions which pass.  To cast a spell against someone is against my principles.

But protective spells are not the same.  They rebound against someone who does things against me.  Sometimes quite powerfully.  I don’t know what form they will take, when it will happen, how it will happen, and sometimes wonder even whether it will happen.  But it does.  And the less I do to bring it on, the more powerful it works.  The less I watch and wait, the more powerful it works.

I think that in a way, this is a form of letting go.  Letting go of anger, letting go of the feeling of a being a victim.  In that sense, for me, it is already powerful magic.  But also, as magic works in the ethereal realm, it takes this letting go, for a spell to be released.  Sometimes that process is easy.  Others it is not.

And what of the creative muse? 

In writing, if we don’t write it down, we may lose it.  Or what often happens to me, is that the purity of thought, the singular idea is lost.  I might get a second inspiration, and they sort of mish-mash their way together.  Both the worse for it.

The creative muse is a tease.  She arouses us.  The parallels to arousal are real.  A little spark works its way into our conscious-unconscious and suddenly we are aroused.  If we don’t lean into it in that moment, let the flow take us, it is soon lost.

On a practical level, this is how I ended up writing erotica.  Something would turn me on, a little idea, and then I would write a story.  Later, that story could get me off for years.  But if I didn’t write it down, I would lose it.

I’ve been writing much less erotica over the past year.  Unsurprising I suppose, what with all else that is going on.  But the other day, I had a story idea come to me in a flash. And it was a doozy.  I was instantly aroused.

But as I was on set filming porn, I didn’t have a note pad with me, and by the time the scene was over, the idea had passed.  And it has become a little blind spot in my mental fabric.  I can’t see it.  I can scan from close to far, try to recreate the scene in my mind which led to it, find what might have sparked it, but nothing.  It just won’t come back.

And this is the lesson for me.  These sparks, inspirations, innovations, whatever they are, are gifts.  They are little instances of magic.  And with a gift, you first give thanks.  There is only one way to thank a gift of this kind.  You lean into it and let it take you away.

Imagine all the places you would go!

What is nice is that the more often you let this happen, the more it will happen, the more often the muse will strike.  Sooner or later the muse will become a bedfellow, a constant companion.  Your one true love.

And who is she?  Your mind.  The mind is not just some physical blob in your head that conducts a series of chemical processes that result in thought, feelings, motion.  She is a complex and divine machine that not just runs our bodies (Office 1), nourishes us (Office 2), but is a portal to the divine, the great beyond, the realm of the spirit (Office 3).

When the muse strikes, honour her, follow her, and let her express herself through you, as what she is doing is revealing your purpose to you.  She connects your practical reality with your divine self.  The act of listening to the muse, following her, letting her take you, is what is going to improve your life, enrich you, fulfil you.