My friend, Barb Kobe, urged me to make a healing doll a year and a half ago. I gave up before I began by convincing myself that anything I could make wouldn’t come close to the magnificence of her art. A Minneapolis-based artist and healer, Barb creates beautiful and moving figures.
This week the urge to try it welled up and I spent all day dyeing, stitching, stuffing and beading. I even sewed a little pair of wings. The result of all this work was an interesting character I named Blue Muse. I thought I was finished. I’d perch her atop my computer monitor and that would be that. A middle of the night revelation dictated otherwise. Her wings were the wrong color, not what I’d intended at all.
At three in the morning I fumbled my way toward the light switch, grabbed a pair of scissors to cut the stitches and removed them.
I emailed Barb to explain why I couldn’t send her a picture yet. I’d ripped the wings off my muse, I said. The muses work in mysterious ways. Only in the writing did the meaning of my act reveal itself. This wasn’t the first time I’d ripped off my muse’s wings, not by a long shot.
Raised to be responsible, I learned to ground my inspiration at an early age. Those flights of fancy, as they were called in my family, only got me into trouble. Labeled as a child with having an overactive imagination and being too sensitive, too eccentric and too prone to foolishness, I quickly discovered that it hurt when people tore into my creative ideas. I also learned could control the emotional pain if I picked the wings off my muses myself, shred by tattered shred, before anyone else had a chance to do it.
Even though today I earn my living by my creative wits, I still find myself occasionally sliding into my old muse-bashing habits.
Many of us have learned that life is safer if we keep below the radar, so we discount the inspirations that keep our muses aloft by telling ourselves:
In time the litany sinks below the level of our awareness. We abuse the muse in subtle, non-verbal ways such as trying to write while sitting in the world’s most uncomfortable chair or spending hours in front of the television.
And our lives really do become safer in a monochromatic, underachieving and unfulfilling sort of way. Their wings clipped, our muses meanwhile snarl and nip at our ankles, occasionally tasting blood. They’re just as frustrated as we are.
Fortunately, these angels of inspiration are resilient. If we listen to them and nurture them, their wings will slowly grow back. After all, it is the nature of muses to fly. What is demanded of us is to resist the urge to pick at their wings or to pull them off.
Be an impartial observer for two days – a visiting anthropologist so to speak. During this time pay attention to the muse-abusing messages coming at you from the outside world. Listen to your self-talk as well. Record your observations in a list.
Write about the ways you might help your muse gain the strength to grow its wings back. What will you feed your muse during this time of healing? What activities will help it recuperate? Does your muse need a change of scenery?
Now write your muse a letter of apology and put it in a hollow tree. Nurse your muse back to health, so it can help you with your next writing project.