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The muse
What is it
The muse
and sexuality
The historic
muse - the origin of the concept
Origins of
the muse
What does the muse look like
Using the muse
The muse as an
alternative path of enlightenment
Fear and the
muse
Summary
The muse is something or someone
that has the ability to excite our
creative passion and
call forth our
creative spirit to create. It in an interesting character. At
one level it is a figment of our imagination and doesn’t exist. At
another level it is very real and vital to our creative endeavor and
without them we are robbed of our
creative power.
What is it
(Top)
The muse is the manifestation in
the physical world of what we need to experience to manifest what we
desires to create. The muse is the physical manifestation that
supplies, or rather is the occasion for, the
passion to act in the world. In this regard, the muse acts as
the external sources of our
creative life energy. Although the sources lies within, the
inner is reflected in the outer and the muse is the reflection
externally. In seeking and obtaining the muse we find the Source
within our self.
The muse is something external to us on which we can focus and seek.
The muse is that external focus that stimulates us and excites us
and keeps us motivated to push into the world. It is what
call forth our energy or which causes our energy to flow.
Although the
inner marriage allows us to operate and find a source of energy
that never runs dry to move into the world from within our own
being, we need an external focus. The muse is that coupling point or
grounding point were the
offspring of the inner marriage is more or less exactly matched
with a point in the external world. It is what allows us to
simultaneously both to hold a
single point focus and ground the flow of our
creative life energy externally. The external focus helps to
continually pull us past
mind to step out of mind and to confront the limiting beliefs of
mind
The phenomenon of the muse to
call forth our
creative spirit and
creative passion is what lies behind using mantras, objects of
focus, individuals of focus, and the like in meditation. Seeking
that soul mate or the
beloved/Beloved are things that catalyze our actions. The muse
is an identifiable or identified “beloved.,” That is, where as the
beloved/Beloved are something we seek but don’t really know what
they look like, the muse is a real person or issue that we desire to
obtain in our lives or we seek to address. Creating the
seed condition is to realize what it is that will
ground our energy.
The journey we take to find and obtain this muse is only a
reflection of the inner journey of finding the Source of our own
being. The object for which we long to release this energy from
within our being that arises from the separation we feel is the
basis of the muse. The muse becomes both the inspiration for the
creative passion to keep the source of the energy flowing and it
is also the relief and release of that energy to allow the
energy to dissipate. Hence the muse become both the source and
grounding for the creativity and completes the flow path of the
energy in an unencumbered fashion.
The muse also functions in another way. By focusing our attention
and awareness on it, whether the muse is in our life or not, we keep
before our
mind a focus which is reflective of what is
symbolized
by our heart desires to create - our
heart’s desire. Hence whenever they think of the muse or have
them in their life, our focus is on what the heart desires to
create. On this note, sometimes we will never get the muse for if we
did get it, we would not complete the
creation process carrying it out to the end because we have what
you seek. It is only in tension of “not having” that then energy
flows.
The muse and sexuality
(Top)
A true muse can exist for any deep
creative effort and will be different for each creation for the
energy needed for the creation will be different. It needs to be
noted here the muse does not necessarily have anything to do with
sexuality although traditionally it has links to sexuality. The
sexual aspect tends to appear when we creates from the
passion of what is
symbolized in
our heartto recreate our life.
Many find the
passion to create arises in their life as a result of an
individual with whom they find somewhat sexually attractive. It is
as though one needs a muse to
call forth the
creative passion. Yet if one looks carefully, many will find
that as they become more creative about what they feel is close to
their heart, they feel more sexual. In this regard, many have a
passion to create that does not depend on any other particular
individual in their life yet the sexuality is there. This then
brings up the issues of how to freely express the
creative passion that is arising within our being but not become
trapped by the sexuality it causes to arise.
Often someone is needed to
call forth the
creative spirit and there will be and
passion to create as that creative spirit finds itself free to
play. Frequently that passion to create includes sexuality. More
often than not, the sexuality which arises from the passion to
create and freely express onself becomes confused with the
individual who
calls forth our creative spirit to create. That individual may
or may not be someone with whom one can be sexual yet still remain
creative free. It is not uncommon that the individual who calls
forth the creative spirit is also the one who kills or deeply wounds
the creative spirit they called forth. That in turn, requires the
individual’s creative spirit to literally be resurrected and/or go
through a long period of deep healing. Sexuality is one of those
areas where this frequently if not routinely is seen to occur.
The
historic muse - the origin of the concept
(Top)
The original concept of the muse
come from the Greek Mythology. The Muses where seen to bestow
artistic gifts and talents in the creative arts. It has long been
recognized that creative inspiration is accompanied by something
that seems to come from outside the individual, such as a divine
inspiration to enthuse the creator’s being and something to cause
the creator’s
passion to arise.
The Myth of the Muse was any of the nine daughter of Mnemosyne
(memory) and Zeus who presided over the arts and sciences. They
included Calliope (eloquence and epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato
(lyric and love poetry), Euterpe (lyric song and music), Melpomene
(tragedy), Polyhymnia (sacred song), Terpsichore (dancing), Thalia
(comedy and pastoral poetry), and Urania (astronomy). The more
modern definition of the muse sees the muse as that a spirit or
power regarded as inspiring poets and artists. However this concept
of the muse, whether it be the Greek Myth or some other definition,
embodies the muse as a female providing inspiration in an artist’s
life, or as a spirit or power regarded as inspiring poets and
artist. From a
creativity perspective,
it is the
feminine nurturing energy which enthuses our entire being,
including our organs of sexuality, and gives rise to our
creative passion to create. Hence the association of the muse
with a female.
It is interesting to note that in the Greek understanding, Zeus is
the supreme deity. He is the ruler of the celestial realm and it is
the offspring of Zeus and Mnemosyne the goddess of memory which
gives us the muse. Symbolically what is being represented is that we
need to go into our memory to find the muse which brings forth our
passion. We already possess the key to our enlightenment and
passion. It lies within. We only need to go within to find it, to
remember it. Going into memory can be done two ways. One way is to
recall and look at all those activities that have given one passion
in the past. What activities have you done that has given you a
passion for life and for living. The second way is to look at what
encoded on our heart. That is, “For what does our heart long to
create or experience in life?” These question are outlined as
experiences under the topic, “Calibrating
Your Internal Compass” and further discussion on these questions
if found below.
Origins of the muse (Top)
In understanding the
creation process and how energy manifests physically, we know
there is an
ebb and flow into a created form and out of form. The
discreation of an existing form allows for a release of energy which
is the Source Itself and the
raw material for a new creation. We also know our inner world
and this
annihilation process will be accompanied by an outer reflection.
There will be an inner desire rising from the dissatisfaction with
what is and a tension between that desire and the world as it is,
that existing form, which must be annihilated to provide the energy
for the manifestation of the desire into a physical experience. That
is, we experience what it we desire. The annihilation of the
existing form returns one to the Source of Being and the object of
focus externally that will allow this transformation process to
occur is the muse.
Normally the muse arises from, or is related to, the
intention for our life, the dream we carry in our heart and
other intentions that have great “heart” feelings. The reason for
this is the muse is what give a
passion for life and for living and these types and kinds of
feeling center around the heart. Intentions held in the
mind do not readily produce a muse because there is less
feelings associated with the mind. In actually, mind has no feeling.
In the realization there is a dream that we hold, an
intention for our life, a beloved in our heart, or something
similar that causes
passion to arise within our life, we are faced with a either
consciously or subconscious choice that we want what we dream to
manifest. That is, we choose at some level of our being to energize
or put emotional energy into that dream. If we can’t do it
consciously for whatever reason, we do it subconsciously.
The desire and choice to act to want what we dream starts a process
of manifestation. One subconscious aspect to manifesting such a
dream is that we continually places ourselves in a set of
experiences that will cause the dream to manifest. In this process,
there is no conscious realization as to why we keep exposing
ourselves to the particular set of life experiences. In the
subconscious process, the muse will not be recognized for what it
is. For such a dream of the heart to be held subconsciously, there
will be an outer reflection of the longing in the heart in a set of
experience where we are continually and seemingly attracted to the
same type and kind of experience. We may not consciously recognize
it as such until we stand back and look at our life as a
detached witness For example, such as when we draw a life map
and review the events of our life with another.
It needs to be realized that the creative tension can be such that
the pull to the object, person, or attribute we seek to manifest a
new creation can be experienced as though we are seeking a
beloved/Beloved. Yet, it is not really a person we seek. Rather,
we seek to experience the dream or intention within our heart that
may need another to help fulfill that experience.
In remembering that our inner world is reflected externally, the
beloved/Beloved can be, and most probably will be, manifested in
some physical object or person that represents this beloved for that
is how our
mind is characterize what we feel. The physical manifestation of
this beloved is the muse. To characterize the muse as a beloved is
the mind’s best interpretation of what the energy looks like that
needs to be experienced to manifest the desired creation. Hence, the
beloved is the interpretation provided by the mind. The true muse
will not necessarily look like the beloved/Beloved and often
individual end up seeking a beloved/Beloved at the expense of their
own heart.
The muse is what is as it is for the given world we inhabits. In a
different environment, the muse can, and most probably will, be
different. The muse is really the manifestation in the physical
world of what we need to experience to manifest what one desires to
create. The muse is what draws one forward into the external world.
When we are able to become the
detached witness we will then be able to see how the muse as the
beloved only provides the experiences one needs manifest their
intention. The answer is not the
beloved/Beloved but what the beloved/Beloved allows us to
create.
The object for which we long to release this energy that arises from
within our being as a result of the separation we feel from the
source/Source of our being is the basis of the muse. The muse
becomes both the inspiration for the
creative passion to keep the source of the energy flowing and it
is also the relief and release of that energy to allow the
energy to dissipate. Hence the muse become both the source and
grounding for the creativity and complete the flow path of the
energy in an unencumbered fashion.
The source of energy and the
grounding of the energy are two interconnected phenomenon. As
discussed in the topic entitled, “Implications
and Observations from Pair Annihilation,” the annihilation of a
particle and its antiparticle will result in the release of energy.
The muse is a very special entity. It is analogous to the
antiparticle for the inner beloved that is calling us to annihilate
our inner and outer world. It allows for both the generation of the
energy. It is a sorcerer. That is, one who allows contact with the
Source of the
creative life energy itself.
However it needs to be remembered you are a
multidimensional and
infinite creative being. For any creation we manifest on the
physical plane only a portion of our energy will become involved in
any transformation. The muse and its environment only reflect that
portion of
the sacrifice necessary for us to create that for which we long
for in our heart. Since the
creation process reflected in annihilation is to move towards
the muse, it also acts as the
grounding of that energy. That is, it establishes the flow path
for the energy. On this note, sometimes we will never get the muse
for if we did we would not complete the
creation process carrying it out to the end because you have
what you seek. In this case the energy flow stops.
A true muse can exist for any deep creative effort and will be
different for each creation for the energy needed for the creation
will be different. The muse will change depending on that creation
we are trying to manifest. If we change our intention in the process
the focus as reflected in the muse changes. This is true because the
internal world is reflected externally and this is true for every
level of our being. Whenever we set an intention or desire from the
heart to create a physical experience or a particular physical
creation we will probably encounter a muse of some type.
Alternatively said, the more our creative efforts come from a deep
feeling and deep longing typically characterized by the heart, the
more the muse will take the from of something that will give us a
great feelings such as a person of the opposite or our preferred
sex. The more our intention is cold, dispassionate and calculating
of the
mind, the muse will become rather cold, impersonal and innocuous
like “the system.”
What does the muse look like
(Top)
A muse is no more than an external
reflection of that internal intention and desire being made
manifest. As such, muse can exist on every level of being or a
different one can represent every level of our being. However, it is
the physical muse that is most interesting. The muse can be seen
manifested both in synchronicity and synchronous event and would
include what many indigenous traditions would call
familiars - objects, entities or life forms of nature that
manifest as signs or indicators of one’s path.
The muse may be of either sex or an object and it may be a teacher,
lover, an adversary or some other object of focus, animate or
inanimate, that allows us to manifest the intention that we have.
The muse causes us to focus our attention and awareness in a
passionate way and hence accelerates and fuels the
creation process. The muse also functions in another way. By
focusing our attention and awareness on it, whether the muse is in
our life or not, we keep our
mind focused on what our heart desire to create. Hence whenever
we think of the muse or have them in their our, our focus is on what
the heart desires to create.
Ideally the muse is someone or some object who would give themselves
to us totally as that beloved. A human muse is very difficult to
find for as a human, the person who is seen as the muse will have
their own interests and desires and few individuals are freely able
and willing to set their personal interests aside to
surrender to the needs of another. Although this is the ultimate
feminine act, to give oneself to nurture and sustain a creation,
that fear of being used and abused prevents most individuals from
stepping into the creative feminine role and surrendering.
The closest place where the
feminine surrenders and gives freely to a creation is probably
the way many mothers surrender their lives to their children
although it is not always done in a way that is best for the
children or the mother. Most mothers, as fathers, never leave and/or
transcend their
ego to give their child what it truly needs as opposed to what
they think it needs. Nevertheless, it is possible for an individual
who happens to function as a muse to have their own interests and
desires fully expressed yet fully and freely function as a muse.
This is possible if they are both the muse and the one for whom they
are the muse. Both can then surrender to the same objective of focus
and that objective is much larger than themselves. In this case both
individuals allow their individual creative efforts to merge
together to create a larger objective. That is, the larger goal is
the offspring of their individual goals and the both
surrender to the offspring of their energy that transcends both
their egos.
This muse will most probably change as our intention manifest though
its different stages of its life. Yet we may only find the muse
itself seems to evolve where as it is our intention and internal
life that is growing and evolving.
One of the difficulties in manifesting a creation, if not the most
difficult piece, is becoming attached in either a positive or
negative way to a particular form the muse takes. That, in turn,
causes us impeded our own journey frequently resulting in
pain and suffering. When we begin to understand what the muse
actually is and that there will always be a muse of some type we
will being to decouple from the muse and be able to use it as the
tool that it is.
However, if the muse is a person, they may take offense at “being
used.” One of the most difficult things for us to accept is that
both our bodies and our consciousness are only tool the Universe is
using to manifest Creation and recreate Creation from within
Creation. We have a role to be played and it may very well be to be
the muse for one or more individuals. The
creation process for a particular creation is not something
mind will fully comprehend and we must be willing to
surrender to the process itself. That of course takes us to the
feminine aspect of our being which we all have and the fear of
being used and abused arises for how much the feminine gives in any
creation Although
there are things the feminine does it is a risk we all must take
and each of us must choose our own creation path.
Using
the muse (Top)
To use the muse we need to look at
what the heart is trying to express in our life or be willing to
access the
intention for our life When we look carefully, we will find
activities that actually make us feel alive, and the desire of the
heart, what gives us as
passion for life and for living are one and the same for they
arise from the same Source. It is just that we have no tradition or
understanding to relate the early memories associated with passion
as the heart expressing its essence and the intention for our life.
The muse is that reflection of
heart’s desire and makes us feel alive with life. We only need
to follow it to find enlightenment and unconditional love. But, to
do so, we need to get the
mind completely out of the way. We need to
step out of mind
of what we think and believe and what our journey will look like. We
need to rid ourselves of any judgements and prior conditioning as to
who and what we think we are, how we can or can’t be, or how we
should or shouldn’t express ourselves. Pursuing the muse will bring
us into a conscious awareness of the flow of the
creative life energy within ourselves. It can be called the
path of indulgence but not as simple as indulging. There is the
need for a very fine discernment as to what direction is actually
coming from the heart as opposed to the
mind.
What needs to be understood is that the entire concept of the muse
has been too narrowly defined and this narrow definition has
permeated our society about creativity. If you look at the Greek
myth it describes only a very limited portion of the diverse ways
creativity can be expressed. They are essentially, poetry, dance,
music and astronomy. However, there are innumerable ways that our
creativity can be expressed and give a
passion for life. Needle work, gardening, sailing, baseball,
understanding nature, going to the moon, understanding the human
psyche, card collecting and myriad of other ways that we express
ourselves can be our muse. The understanding needed here is that the
muse is that person, object of focus, activity, or way of being in
the world that causes such an intense passion for that activity to
arise within the individual that there is no other activity in the
person’s life such that the activity and the person become one,
fully focused, fully absorbed. The muse is the reflection of an
internal energy and an internal desire.
The muse can take as may forms as there are individuals on the
planet for the muse is unique to each and every individual. What
this means is that individuals can be, and will be, a muse for
another. Or, at other times, the muse is that immoveable obstacle
that one is driven to conquer. It all depends on how our energy
needs to express itself. As such, the path of the muse is a very
individual path and requires to individual to look very carefully
within themselves to find it. Since the muse arises from an internal
energy, it is embracement of desire. As such the path of the muse is
a
path of indulgence and is quite different than many of today’s
spiritual disciplines which teach denial of desire and suppression
of desire.
The
muse as an alternative path of enlightenment
(Top)
Although the sources lies within,
there is reflection externally. That external reflection is the muse
and in seeking and obtaining it we find the Source within our self.
The journey we take to find and obtain this muse is only a
reflection of the inner journey of finding the Source of our own
being. A journey one takes to find the Source of Being is a journey
of enlightenment
The muse is a different kind of teacher and master, and is probably
the most effective way at revealing the life path encoded within our
heart and the
intention for our life. Unfortunately in today’s world, the
concept of the muse is generally unknown and fallen into serious
disuse. In many ways it has become distorted, and even judged as
somehow evil by some. We have our many stories of artist and
painters who could only produce great artistic works when in the
presence or stimulation of what people would call their muse. In
this context, the muse most often seen as being that female who
somehow inspires or brings out the artistic passion out of the
individual to be manifest in the individual’s artist art, music or
poetry.
The muse is the physical manifestation that supplies the
passion and/or acts as the sources of our
creative life energy. The muse has been seen as a female but in
actuality it is that
feminine side that
calls forth and excites the
masculine
within. In many ways the muse is the reflection of the beloved where
the beloved steps into its masculine aspect of being and causes a
creation to occur. It is that holding presence, that womb within
ourselves that births that gift we incarnated to bring. It holds our
creative life energy allowing it to form and to grow. The muse is
that which allows us to have an experiential knowing of
unconditional love for the muse, the reflection of our internal. can
give us exactly what we need the way we need it. The muse is the
kind of love that the feminine gives that child that grows within
their womb.
Seeking the muse is the alternative
path to enlightenment and unconditional love for it awakens us
to our own true and internal creative abilities. It is a path of joy
and embracement of life and to some, it will be seen as a
path of indulgence. The muse probably is the quickest way to get
one into the experience of being one with the task at hand where the
doer and the action are one.
For us to dance with our muse is a dance of oneness. It needs to be
noted here the muse does not necessarily have anything to do with
sexuality and will only appear when one creates from the
passion of the heart with all their being. The guru, the
spiritual teacher who is seen as the embodiment of God, and the love
the disciple has for the guru in their search for God would be one
such example of a nonsexual muse. The spiritual teacher is the muse
who the disciple seeks to obtain and become. However, the gurus is
only the muse. It is the individual’s heart who brought them to the
guru. If their
mind was involved in the selection of a guru, then the guru
cannot be the muse. The mind has no say in who the muse will be and
what the muse will look like. In many ways the path of the must is
to
use the feminine aspect of being at access the Source of Creation
but is seen different because of the perspective that is held.
Fear
and the muse (Top)
Normally we do not consider
indulging a desires that arise from within our being as facing our
fears. However, the path of the muse takes us directly into our
fears. There are two level of fear we faces when we uses the muse as
a teacher or guide for our life.
The first are our internal fears. When we follow the energy that
flows from within we must first become very aware and very
discerning that we have not over laid our
mind and its expectation in interpreting the energy or judging
the energy. If we truly desire to honor our
creative spirit, there will always be the fear we may be
misreading the energy and are simply indulging wants and desires of
our mind, our
ego and/or our enculturation. However, we really do not have to
worry about this issue.
The energy that flow from our
creative passion will most probably take us directly into
experiences which in the past we somehow judged as non-pleasurable.
They were judged non pleasurable not necessarily because of physical
discomfort we experienced. Rather, they tended to take us into our
belief structure and reveals beliefs that we would rather not
know we carry and/or makes us aware of things we believe which we
will need to change. In particular, we will have to face taking
responsibility for what we experience in life. The muse has to take
us into our belief structure for this is what discovering and
exploring our unique
truth is all about. That is, to discovery and explore the
uniqueness of our own being as an
individuated consciousness which arise as described in the
Creation Story for the Creativity Perspective. You will have to
face beliefs about ourselves and the nature of the reality around us
that our
mind would rather not face.
The second issue that we face is will have to face external fears.
That is, we will need to face the fears of society and the
collective unconscious, both the societal collective and the
human collective. These fears are real and will come screaming at us
(sometimes literally in the form of individuals in our life) from
directions we never expect.
When we seek to discovery and explore our own uniqueness we will
find ourselves on the
left hand path. We will find ourselves being lead other than way
individuals in our life and/or society desires. The issue, however,
is not these individuals. Rather to truly unfold our uniqueness is
to go against what the
collective holds true about the nature of what it means to be
human. There is the fear that anarchy will regain if each lives
their own
truth. However, nothing is father from the truth. When one
accesses the truth of their own being all they can do is share that
opportunity with others. All that is desired is to create that space
of freedom for another for we know not to live in that free
unfoldment of our own
creative spirit feels like.
Facing a fear of the
collective is much like trying to escape the pull of gravity to
send a space ship to the moon or to explore the solar system.
Society wants individuals within society to follow the rules of that
society whether it be the family, the church or the state. To live
our uniqueness that the muse pulls out of our being will always
cause us to live differently in some way. How much different depends
on our own individual uniqueness.
The path of the muse, although it fills us with tremendous and
undescribable bliss, requires a courage, strength of will, trust in
oneself and the Universe, and discernment much beyond what any of
normal human paths require including the most rigorous spiritual
paths to enlightenment or salvation. Its practice has generate just
too much opposition in the past because of the fears at all levels.
Yet, in many ways today the world is desperate and it seeks solution
to problems that only our creativity can provide. The world has too
long denied and too long failed to balance the path in life where
the
mind is exalted and we deny our
body wisdom and
our reason for incarnating with the
path of indulgence and we indulge our own
truth. As such, we are tremendously unbalanced as both a culture
and as humanity to the point that we continually threaten the
existence of the planet by continually denying the energy that needs
to be manifested to restore the balance. In spite of the fear the
muse will cause to arise, the muse is probably the quickest and
gentlest way to enlightenment and unconditional love.
Summary
(Top)
There is a path of enlightenment
that is of great
creative passion and enthusiasm and it lies within our own
heart. If we can allow ourselves to feel and be true to our feelings
and the
truth of our being we will find a beloved in our heart that is
reflected in an external muse. If we follow that muse while keeping
true to the beloved we feel in our heart we will find that we can be
lead to the Source of Being that lies within our being in a most
pleasurable way, one suited exactly to and for our uniqueness. It
only needs to be remembered that the
beloved and the muse will not necessarily exactly look like each
other for the beloved and what it looks like is the best
characterization of what is felt by the
mind. The muse is reality as it is. It is what will guide you to
the Source of our being. All we need to do to ensure we have
manifested the correct muse is remain true to the feelings about the
beloved and see what appears in our life
calling us forth to live deeper in our own
truth and to discover and explore the truth of our own being in
spontaneity and innocence of
creative play.
Related topics
Implications of Pair Production in Our Creative Endeavors
Path of indulgence
Path of the muse
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