Catching The Creative Muse
22nd August 2022
YOUR MUSE IS A CAT: she’ll never come when you call her.
Has this happened to you too? Scenario: I’m in good company and animatedly recounting an anecdote…and suddenly I cant remember the punch line. Annoyed, I faff about and just have to let it go, laughing about symptoms of dementia. Then 5 minutes later while distracted, probably mulling over the wine menu, I’ll blurt out the forgotten punch line.
Something similar often happens to me with artistic creativity. I’m all set to launch into painting an idea that’s been fizzing about in my head.. I’m looking at my blank, glaringly white, canvas. And then I go blank.
The more I concentrate, trying to remember the idea, the more that idea gets kicked down the road, like a tin can. So I down tools and head out for a coffee break. Then guess what…
I know now NEVER to go to a cafe without a notepad!
One of the most delightful accounts I’ve ever read describing the peculiarly unpredictable nature of the muse is from a encounter that writer Elizabeth Gilbert had with the American poet Ruth Stone (see link below).
The poet Ruth Stone (1915-2011) from rural Virginia is one day working in the fields. She suddenly hears in the distance the poem coming at her like a runaway train. She rushes home to grab paper and pencil. Sometimes she is prepared and as the poem rushes through her, she absorbs it and writes it down. Sometimes she’d be late. The poem would sweep past her looking for another poet, but she would just manage to catch its tail and hold it. She would feverishly write the poem down, intact and perfect. But it would be backwards. Because she caught it by its tail.
Isn’t that story simply divine? It may sound like the wild imaginings of a fertile imagination, but I think Ruth Stone perfectly encapsulated those sudden impromptu moments when inspiration strikes us. Those “bolt out of the blue” sensations. One may argue that it simply happens when we get ourselves out of the way and let our subconscious mind (the nesting ground of the muse?) get on with sorting out our jumbled thoughts. It happens to me often. Fortunately, I’ve never had an Archimedean moment and had to leap out of the bath and run down the street naked shouting EUREKA! Can you imagine the #TikTok virals?
Fact or Fiction? (link to analysis below ) Either way, it aptly illustrates the method of our feline muse. Keep chasing her (the idea) and and she’ll give you the cold shoulder. Ignore her, and next thing she’ll be curling around your ankle, tripping you up. Or leaping onto your desk and lazily plodding all over your keyboard.
Often before going to sleep, when a creative block or loss of direction has been troubling me, I’ll ask my other self, my subconscious, to help me sort it out. Next morning as I groggily check the time (not a morning person)…… PLING! Notification from my DPPS -Dedicated Personal Problem Solver!
Notice the connection between Archimedes in his bath and being fast asleep. They are both states of deep relaxation. Therein lies the key.
Listen to Elizabeth Gilbert’s telling of Ruth Stone’s story here.
FACT or FICTION? Analysis of Archimedes’ EUREKA story
Thanks Caroline, I really enjoyed reading the above and can relate to it easily. It happens to me as well, more often than I care to remember. For some odd reason, I also seem to have some connection with my dreams here. Ideas come while I am asleep and dreaming, Come morning, I try my very best to remember the dream with the ideas involved in it. It is not always possible, but if I manage to come to my senses before I open my eyes, I do have a better chance to remember my dreams.
Hi Christine, thanks for reading and commenting. I’ve often determined to keep a notebook by my bed to instantly record what I remember of my dreams. Those tailends which vaporise so quickly. But more often than not, soon as I wake up my left brain kicks in and reminds me of tasks to do that day. Pfft! Dream dissolves. UNLESS, before going to sleep I have posted a question in my mind’s letterbox and resolved to listen out for it when I awake. Your comment about recall before you open your eyes is so true…that bridge zone between sleep and awake…still fully relaxed…that’s where the portal to our own treasure box of intuition and inspiration is still open.