Partnership with the Muse

Laura Basha

I wake up with a gnawing sensation of dissatisfaction. Already I feel fear. … I’m not thinking about the work. I’ve already consigned that to the Muse. What I am aware of is Resistance. I feel it in my guts. I afford it the utmost respect, because I know it can defeat me on any given day as easily as a drink can overcome an alcoholic.

– Steven Pressfield

This year is about the resurgence of the Creative Muse – for me that is. It’s personal now. She has always lain in wait. She was not dormant – only my listening of Her was dormant. She never sleeps, never falters, never skips a beat. She is Source – eternal, ever pulsing, ever birthing, ever available to inspire the catalyzed soul.

So what keeps us from listening to Her melodious effervescence? What has us turn away from Her Sirens’ lull and instead pay attention to the cacophony of distractions ever-present?

What keeps us? Anything will do. Really. Anything.

So I am cultivating the practice of doing my work. Like punching-a-time-clock type of showing up for work: to the studio to write, to do artwork, to prepare a speaking engagement. A just-do-the-deal schedule I have put in my calendar in the face of all the other to-do-list things or the endless invalidating conversations in my head – or the spoken conversations coming from someone else’s head. No drama, no fanfare, just simple sit down and do the work.

Funny how if I have a job I don’t question the “I can’t make it until after work” comment. Carte blanche – do the job first. But if it’s my timetable and the work is to create – somehow it’s not afforded the same unquestioned commitment.

Well, what if I brought the same professional game that I have brought all these years to my jobs that “put food on the table” to my creative process and its resultant material manifestations?

I say to myself: “Let’s find out.” I say to you: “Are you game?”