“Spend time every day listening to what your muse is trying to tell you.”

Saint Bartholomew

Settling into your creative space is an invitation to open the door to your muses. When you feel called to birth something unknown from your creative heart and begin a new project you are ready to springboard into the flowing waters of your sacred imagination. This is a way to enter the flow of life. It is there where you dive into the spring of creativity.  In the waters of the sacred imagination you connect with your heart and soul and the potential to discover your creative passion. Your muses anoint you with water from their spring; this is a sweet initiation into the flow of life. They spark your journey with synchronistic happenings to guide you on your path as you discover your hidden gifts and talents.

In ancient Greece or Rome if you were called upon to write a poem or compose music or share wisdom with others and you needed inspiration you would have known how to call for it. You would have raised your head and beckoned the muses, the personification of inspiration.

The muses were the nine daughters of Zeus, the king of the Gods, and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. They were born after Zeus and his companion gods had won a great battle against the Titans. His friends wanted to celebrate so they asked Zeus to create goddesses to bless them with singing and dancing. The muses were born and their voices combined to sing the most beautiful music the heavens had ever heard.

Each muse was named and assigned a certain area of the arts and science; Clio, the Muse of History; Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry; Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy; Euterpe, the Muse of Lyric Poetry; Erato, The Muse of Love Poetry; Terpsichore, the Muse of Choral Dance and Song; Polyhymnia, the Muse of Sacred Song; Urania, the Muse of Astronomy; and Thalia, the Muse of Comedy.

It has been told that when Perseus severed the snake-infested head of the great gorgon, Medussa, from her body a winged horse flew from her insides. This magical creature was Pegasus, representing the transformation of chaos into creativity.

Pegasus soared into the sky and when he returned to earth on Mount Helicon his hoof plunged into the soil releasing an underground stream, the Hippocrene. The water gushed forth and soon the nine muses appeared as inspiration from a hidden inner source.

The muses are a composite of the strength and power of their father who was known for hurling thunderbolts with his bare hands, and their mother’s more contemplative and reflective ways of remembering. Creativity is born from both reflection and action. The muses shine their light on those parts of ourselves that we may not be conscious of. This is the true source of our inspiration.

There are few stories attached to the muses. For the most part, their lives were centered in patience as they awaited the call to serve the mortals on earth. Each of the nine muses has her own particular area of emphasis pertaining to the arts and sciences. Collectively, they seem to blend together and are often referred to in a singular way as, “The Muse.”

How do we twenty-first century mortals connect with our muse(s)? Before we begin a task or creative endeavor how may we engage in the flow and synchronicities that will lead us to fruition?

Creating ritual before beginning creative activity offers a connection to your inner resources, the sacred imagination, and your muses. Sometimes the ritual is as simple as going for a walk to a favorite place in nature or lighting a candle and offering a prayer for guidance before turning on the computer.

Ritual is a pipeline to the muses. In order to connect to the flow of creative and inventive energy and to be open to the possibility of synchronicity in our lives, we must first make a shift in consciousness. Creativity and flow are not the act of “doing” but rather a state of “being.”

To receive inner guidance from your muses (Higher consciousness) you must be in a receptive mode. In order to receive you must become still. Only then can you become the vessel ready to be filled with the waters of the Hippocrene.

I invite you to begin calling upon your muse(s). Who are the muses in your life? Muses can take many forms; a fourth grade teacher who encouraged you to color outside the lines or your calico cat who gently purrs a tune into your head.

You may want to create an altar to your muse(s)in your workspace. Place a photo or image on your altar to represent the muses you have known. Add a symbol to represent the daughter of Zeus who most reflects your particular creative emphasis; a tablet or pen (Calliope); images of a flute (Euterpe); a scroll (Clio); a tragic mask (Melpomene); a veil (Polyhymnia); a globe (Urania), a lyre (Terpsichore and Erato); a comic mask (Thalia). Write an invocation and record it to memory as your call to your Muses.

The invitation to your muses to co-create with you calls for you to open your eyes to the symbolism of everyday life. Pay close attention to books that seem to fall open to certain pages. Be careful to not throw away what at first glance appears to be junk mail and is actually an announcement for an upcoming workshop that will offer guidance for your project or interest. Working with your muses calls upon your powers of observation and awareness.

As you circumnavigate the spiral of the seasons, let the beginning of each one be a focused time to enter your soul’s deep place of memory and discovery. This is where you will encounter your muses and in the process awaken your soul to new creative possibilities.

 No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation…….Walter Bagehot

Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation.

Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.  Amy Tan

 Make a collage to represent your muse.  Give your muse a name.  Write about the physical and personality characteristics of your muse.  Frame the finished piece and hang it in your workspace.

Invocation to my muse:  Oh, muse of my creative longing I invite you to join me on the earthly plane.  Gather divine wisdom and inspiration and infuse my heart and spirit to co-create through my sacred imagination.  I am grateful for your presence. I am ready to deliver my creative gifts to the world. And so it is.

Sacred Tool for the New Renaissance:  Invoking and welcoming your muse(s) opens the doorway to the realm of the invisible helping hands of the angels, muses, and guardian spirits.  The new Renaissance invites us to co-create with the divine assistance that is available to us.  Creative inspiration is only a prayer away.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit,

and resign yourself to the influences of each.

Henry David Thoreau

Moments ago after completing my morning meditation I went to the kitchen and prepared a cup of tea, then climbed the stairs to my office. Lighting candles on the altar on my desk, I whispered a prayer for guidance before I began to write. This is a ritual I follow whenever I begin a creative project. Rituals like these are the threads that weave the fabric of life and soulful living together.

Rituals are most often associated with sacred spiritual or religious rites. We are all aware of the care and preparation that accompanies the planning of a wedding or funeral or a special observance during Christmas, Passover, or other traditional celebrations.

Childhood introduces family rituals, the special birthday song repeated every year that was created by Aunt Lucy. Summer vacations to the same mountain cabin or the first apple pie of autumn when the apples begin to ripen on the tree in the backyard. These are the times that connect us to one another and to the changing seasons of our lives.

Ritual is also a part of our culture’s daily life. Driving to work on the freeway while listening to the local morning talk show could be called another form of American ritual, also eating popcorn at the movies, picnics and fireworks on the fourth of July, or weekend shopping at the local mall.

Each of us has personal rituals we engage in, like the morning shower followed by a hot cup of coffee and quick read of the newspaper. Feeding the cat, watering plants, paying bills, these facets of our lives all have their own brand of ritual attached. Routine activities we repeat again and again become pathways of familiarity or rituals of life. Exploring how other people and cultures experience their forms of ritual can be a transformational and soulful experience.

Several years ago I made a three-week pilgrimage to France. During my travels my senses and my soul were immersed in the sacred, personal, and cultural rituals of French culture. Especially fascinating to me was how the French experience food as ritual in their day to day lives. My soul was so inspired by there food rituals that since returning home I have discovered new avenues for incorporating what I experienced into my personal daily and weekly rituals.

As we know, food is sacred to the French people and a cornerstone of French life. From field to table, the preparation, cooking and eating of each meal becomes sacred everyday ritual.

Driving through the French countryside I noticed rusted iron crosses standing in the fields and learned that these are placed among the fruits and vegetables to bless the crops. Walking through the open city markets I experienced a feast of sights and smells as I took in the colors and textures of haricots verts, les framboises, and les aubergines. Wheels and wedges of cheeses, camembert and roquefort, brie and chevre tempted the palate. Spices and herbs in open paper sacks, curry, cinnamon, fennel, and star anise spill onto wooden carts arranged in rows. My nose was filled with strange aromas, pungent and peppery. My eyes darted this way and that to take in the colors of saffron, lavender, and garden green. My senses of touch and taste were reactivated by the love, attention, and intention the French give to food.

I relished the Saturday morning ritual of going to market in Revel, a tiny town in the South of France near Toulouse. Everyone arrives early carrying a cloth market bag or basket. They pour into the center of town. Young parents carrying infants and chasing toddlers, cooks from local restaurants and inns, and the elderly for whom this ritual is as ingrained in life as brushing one’s teeth.  The city turns out every Saturday not only to buy food to sustain life, but to experience community, to appreciate God’s bounty, and to embrace life itself. Friends and neighbors greet one another with the traditional kiss to each cheek. Laughter is plentiful and two small children play tag with a dog that looks like a bear.

Saturday morning food shopping in Revel is a celebration. Selections are conscious. Only that which will be used and reinvented until every last morsel is consumed is chosen and purchased. Legumes et fromage are soulful choices. Each shopper makes his/her selections differently according to personal tastes and needs. However there is one choice that is universal, the Baguette, the long crusty traditional loaf of French bread. Bread is truly the staff of life for the French. It is purchased fresh every day from markets and local bakeries.

One morning while sitting on a bench in the center of Soreze, another small and quaint French village, I observed a small boy about the age of six as he walked across the cobblestone square to the Boulangerie. He carried a bright blue mesh shopping bag in one hand while his other hand was clenched in a tight fist, no doubt full of coins.

Minutes later he emerged from the bakery with a long narrow loaf of bread sticking out from the bag and wearing a very big smile. Ritual. . .sacred ritual right there at the Boulangerie. This ritual of baking and/or purchasing the daily bread has been taking place for centuries in France and other countries.

Somewhere in a home, down the street from the scene I just described, the young boy’s mother was surely waiting for her son’s return with the staple of the household. Throughout her day she would transform that long loaf of bread into breakfast toast, sandwiches for lunch, and an accompaniment to the evening meal. Leftovers would finally become croutons for tomorrow’s salad or food for the birds who gather on the windowsill each morning to consume the crumbs from last night’s table. And so on, and so on and so on. Day after day the daily bread feeds the soul of the French family.

Food-shopping in France is ritual enough. The touching, smelling, and selection of fresh fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and spices is more than just a process. It is a sacred soulful practice.

The preparation of these things is both ritual and a very real form of creative expression. While staying for a week in a wonderful artist’s retreat house in Soreze I was privileged to spend many hours reading and journaling on a window-seat in a garden setting next to the kitchen of the house. From this vantage-point I was able to observe the cook and her assistant as they prepared the meals for our group.

Each afternoon around three o’clock the seductive aromas of simmering garlic and onions or rosemary and thyme wafted through the house. The cooks chatted in French while the music of Edith Piaf played in the background. Meanwhile from my comfy spot near the window the sun warmed my back and my appetite began to grow.

I watched Necia select squash and potatoes for her various culinary creations from the large basket of produce on the ochre colored tile counter near the sink. Fruits and vegetables are not refrigerated in France but rather they are displayed in carefully arranged baskets, trays, or bowls. They are offerings, an important aspect of ritual.

Cloves of garlic are crushed. Mushrooms are chopped in time to the Piaf’s music. Necia’s husband drops by with their children and they stand in the kitchen laughing and talking and tasting the soup with a large wooden spoon from the pot that simmers on the back burner of the big black stove. Love and life are stirred into the evening meal.    At last we sit at the beautifully prepared long wooden table. Candles are lit. Crystal goblets glisten. Sunflowers bend over the table from the centerpiece. Necia stands at the head of the table and recites the evening menu to us in English, thick with her lovely French accent, “…rice and potato coquettes with mushroom sauce, beet and butter lettuce salad, and vanilla flan with chocolate sauce.” And of course the eternal baguette.

Each dish is served individually, simply, and time is allowed between the courses to savor the particular flavors of the various dishes. This is real food. It has been grown organically, chosen with intention and purpose, cooked with love and served through ritual. It is both blessed and a blessing. With each bite we not only feed the body but also nourish the soul.

When I returned home from France I knew I must translate what I had learned about eating and preparing food soulfully with ritual. I immediately bought a new French cookbook to attempt to recreate some of my favorite meals. I remembered that the town where we lived at that time had two street markets each week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These soulful expeditions became weekly rituals for me.

I collected my market basket (a final French purchase at the Saturday market in Revel) and carefully made my selections from the carts in my neighborhood. Artichokes, mushrooms, and sometimes even haricots vertes were there for the choosing. I also purchased ripe bing cherries and plums and a bouquet of sunflowers to remind me of the fields and crosses in the French countryside.

After several weeks of return visits I began to recognize the vendors and the people who frequented this ancient way of food shopping, the open air market. There was a special community blended amongst the produce and flowers. I returned home each market day with my senses enlivened and my basket and soul full of blessings. With intention and prayers of gratitude I arranged a bowl of shiny red cherries and golden apricots for my dining room table. The sunflowers were placed in a green china pitcher, another French souvenir.

Years later I still relish late afternoon when my ritual continues. I tie on my apron, put on Edith Piaf music, open the back door to let in the sun and the breeze, and begin to chop onions. . . I think Necia would approve.