Who’s Your Muse?

Editor’s Note: As the magickal community is likely aware, our dear friend and colleague Donald Michael Kraig is currently undergoing some difficult health challenges. While Don works on his recovery, we will be sharing some guest blog posts from friends, authors, and other noted community figures. Please enjoy this guest blog post by Lon Milo DuQuette, author of Low Magick: It’s All In Your Head … You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is and the forthcoming Homemade Magick: The Musings & Mischief of a Do-It-Yourself Magus (August 2014).

I bet you’ve always felt special, haven’t you? Be honest with yourself. I’d wager that even as a child you you were haunted by the uneasy feeling that you were different from everyone else around you. You probably felt (and still feel) profoundly alone with a host of naughty feelings, secret fears, disturbing dreams, curious passions, and desires that are uniquely yours and yours alone. Compared to everyone else, you might consider yourself quietly odd, different, perhaps even defective or incomplete.

Nevertheless, even though all of us to one degree or another secretly believe ourselves to be profoundly and fundamentally flawed, we simultaneously believe we are the most special, most interesting, most fascinating person in the universe—the super-star of our own movie, the protagonist of our own novel, the most important actor in the great drama of existence.

Am I right? Don’t worry if your answer is “yes.” You’re probably not too crazy. And you’re certainly not alone in your megalomania. Everyone feels that way—and for good reason.

Because it’s true!

Each of us is special; each of us is defective; each of us is supremely unique and important. In truth, each of us is the center of the universe: the perfect reflection and focus of the supreme consciousness that is the source and the expression of existence and being. Each of us is the perfect epicenter of the mind of god. Most of the world’s population doesn’t give this positioning a moment’s thought. But for the writer, this is the best seat in the house.

When a writer sits down to write, he or she seizes their birthright and consciously observes life from this central vantage point of consciousness, and then converts our observations to words. Once on paper, the words become nothing less than a written confession, the voice of our own self-awareness (however flawed and distorted it may be). As an artist the writer speaks because he or she must. But who (or what) is the ear that hears? Who is the audience? If a tree falls the woods and there is no one to hear it does it make a sound?

Theatrically, when we gain supreme enlightenment we will all realize that we are both the voice and the ear, but until that epiphany comes upon us, until the scintillating instant just before we sizzle blissfully into limitless godhead, we will need to think of the writing process as if there is someone actually speaking our words and someone actually listening; someone worshiping and someone being worshiped; someone loving and adoring and someone being loved and adored. For the artist, for the writer, that someone is our Muse.

No one can define the Muse for another person. The idea, at least in my mind, is akin to the concept of the highly personal spiritual being known to students of the Western Mysteries as the “Holy Guardian Angel.” Whatever you might choose to call it, the Muse is the god (goddess) we pray to, the lover we wish to move with our poetry or songs, the beloved who inspires us, and the target we need to inspire. The secret, therefore, to finding our Muse lies in our ability to fall hopelessly in love.

In fact, lovers (past, present, would-be, or fantasy) already are the perfect stand-ins for your Muse! As you sit there writing you next masterpiece, you might think to yourself, “I wonder if [insert old girlfriend or boyfriend’s name here] would think my book is funny … or wise… or inspiring …or irresistibly witty.”

The Muse can be as real or imaginary as you need it to be. Nothing is too corny when it comes to Muses. Don’t be afraid to reach back in time to mushy adolescent moments…re-wooing high school sweethearts, summer loves, or hunky firemen with your writer’s wit and brilliance. Of course this process is blushingly personal and painfully private, and attaches itself uncomfortably to all manner of other sticky psychological issues that make of the complex and colorful uniqueness of you… i.e., “If mom or dad were alive I’d show ’em.”

But, to tell the truth, finding your Muse is not something you need to over-think. Your Muse is with you right now. You need only whisper something truthful from your heart…and notice who listens.

Our thanks to Lon for his guest post! Visit Lon Milo DuQuette’s author page for more information, including his books.

More information on Donald Michael Kraig and how you can help can be found at the Heal Don Kraig Facebook group.