In times of uncertainty such as now, when so many of us are struggling, when the world spins through upheaval, as we witness greed and hatred become pillars in our society, we tend to forget how creative we are. It is within the fire of our creativity that we forge the necessary tools for moving through crisis and chaos, and making meaning within the intensity. We need to stay inspired as we carve a path through these difficult times. 

Our creativity is a core resource. Our inspiration is a north star. 

Muse does not bypass grief

We may forget that inspiration lives not only in the spaces where beauty is apparent, where magic is on display, where the struggle was already overcome. It is within the turmoil that our Muse tends to spark something. It is within the mess that we can tend to our Muse. 

In times of upheaval, while going through the fires of crisis, we can not only seek inspiration – we can forge it in the heat, we can find it in the rubble, we can see it within the dismantling process, we can feel it even as the heart breaks, we can speak to it through the cracks, we can embody it. 

Muse can be spotted even within the darkness of depression, even in the midst of anxiety, even in places and moments that feel like the end of the world. 

Grief can be a catalyst. Struggle can spark the shift. Creativity requires a process of navigating through the shit, not ignoring it. 

We Don’t Need Clarity, We Need Creativity

Your path right now might not be clear. Many of us feel that our path is obscured. We don’t know what’s coming. We don’t know where we’re going. Some of us feel like we’ve lost our sense of direction. 

The point is not to find clarity. Our culture is obsessed with it. Clarity makes things easier. People want simplicity. But creativity isn’t born within that which has already been figured out. 

Creativity is churned in the cauldron of complexity. 

Art does not come from having already figured out the answers, it comes through the process of wandering in the wild, and collaborating with the feral. 

Creativity is untamed. 

Do we need to cultivate discipline around our creativity? Yes! If we want our inspiration to come through into existence, discipline is necessary. But trying to take control of the Muse suffocates her. And she leaves. 

Muse flows in as a feral creature. She doesn’t come as order, she washes in as a thunderstorm. Creativity is the way that we harness the power of the lightning, and fashion a vessel that can catch the rainwater. Then make something with it. Your creativity has ears for the Muse. 

Your creativity – your outlook, your view, your vision, the way that YOU specifically hear the universe, the way that YOU are able to articulate what you hear – your creativity is necessary. It is what our world needs. 

Turning Heartbreak Into Poetry and Hardships into Art

Some of the most beautiful love songs were written in the midst of the most painful breakups. Volumes of literature were compiled through heartache, disasters, loss, war, and apocalyptic times. Meaningful art is made in the cave of an artist’s madness, in the ruins of a dreamer’s vision, in the collapse of the world, in the midst of identity death. 

That doesn’t mean we can’t write poetry of pleasure, make music expressive of a marvelous moment, sing songs of softness or celebration, paint pictures of pretty places that express a heart bursting with love. It’s just important to remember that Muse doesn’t shy away from the difficulties, the devastation, and the despair. Life’s hardships can also become resources of inspiration. 

We need to stay inspired right now because art helps us process, and nature helps us breathe, beauty fills us with meaning, and meaning helps us deal. We need to stay inspired in the midst of these difficult times, because when we reach the end of the world we need to create a new one. And inspiration is necessary for creativity to rise. 

We can make art that rises from our anger – art of resistance, pushing back against authoritarianism. We can make alchemical art, holding the vision for something we want to birth through the flames. We can write poetry about our pain. We can sculpt forms that give expression to how we feel and what we want to create. We can sing songs with the voice of a Banshee. 

The Muses In Greek Mythology

The Muses in Greek Mythology were the goddesses of inspiration, personifying creativity. They were once known as one being, and also as the primordial triple goddess. They later unfolded into nine expressions or directions of inspirarion, each presiding over different aspects of creativity and learning. They were the spirits of science, history, dance, poetry, and literature. Of the nine Muses, there is even a Muse whose role is to spark the inspiration of tragedy. 

Melpomene; Greek Goddess of Tragedy and the Muse of the Miserable 

While it isn’t fair to take just one of the Muses and place her in the center of attention, Melpomene is a serious woman, a commanding presence, holding a tragic mask, representing the vibration of deep emotion, and the transformative power of a dramatic expression of catastrophe. She is the invitation into catharsis. 

Like all the Muses, Melpomene is the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne; the goddess of memory. She reminds us that life’s most painful stories can become a resource for collective grieving. We all experience loss. We all move through dramatic moments of heartache. 

The name Melpomene implies the meaning; Songstress. Melpo in Greek translates into the verb; “to sing.” 

She is a woman in mourning, a mistress of murder, the spirit of desperation and deep depression, the madness that takes over lovers who are forbidden from one another, the poetic power of a bleeding, broken heart. 

Melpomene invites us to learn to embrace the Muse of the miserable. She teaches us to walk through agony and suffering as opportunities to form structures within which we can cultivate deeper understanding of oneself personally, and of the human heart collectively. She is the spirit of misery as a doorway into soulfullness. Melpomene is a well of wisdom one can only drink from through the cup of anguish. 

When we know what being tormented is like, our hearts can open through its breaking, and into it we can receive one another more generously. 

A Life of Meaning is a Life of Muse

The flavor of tragedy is not the only one Muse offers, of course! We know that there are nine of them. 

There’s Calliope, the Muse of Epic Poetry, Clio, the Muse of History, and Erato, the Muse of love poems and erotic songs. There’s Euterpe, the Muse of Lyric poetry and music, Terpsichore, the Muse of dance and chorus, and Polyhymnia, the Muse of sacred poems. And there’s Urania, the Muse of astronomy and astrology. 

Melpomene is often paired with her sister, Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, whose name means; “flourishing.”

The point is not to wallow in woe. The point is to cultivate an artistic relationship with life, and to receive every experience with the possibility of creativity that’s embedded in it. To learn to engage with grief and with sorrow, with rage and with disappointment, with devastation and despair, and with every human emotion as creative resources. To learn to weave creativity and knowledge, to sip on inspiration from the sacred chalise of stories – real and imaginative. 

To find ways to stay inspired is to live a life of meaning. To live a life with inspired views and creative visions. To live oriented toward Muse is to allow every experience to tell you a secret that holds in it a treasure. Muse guides the soul into the treasure chest within the human heart, and the soulfulness of the more than human world. 

The Archetype of Inspiration

The storyteller, the Muse, the Creator – all live in us as the archetype of inspiration. They weave together the stories that create the world, and they create the world through stories, art, and poetry.

They come to life as music, as paintings in galleries, as a conversation that makes you go read that book. 

The Storyteller lets Muse find her way through the words that she strings together, or the images that she conjures. She knows how to make a story come to life and touch a deep truth that connects us all. Stories open up the door into a wider understanding of self and society. Stories can inspire change in a person and in a community.

Inspiration as an archetype – the mythic presence of creative power. 

It’s Sarasvati from the Hindu tradition; goddess of the arts, of language, of science, inspiration, poetry, and knowledge. She’s the river of creativity, the flow of  the self (Sara in Sanskrit means flow or essence, Sva in Sanskrit means self). It’s Celtic Brigid, goddess of poetry and smithcraft. It’s Celtic goddess, Cerridwen, whose cauldron churns the spark of inspiration; Awen. It’s Prana; the life force energy from the yoga tradition in the form of the breath that animates the world. It’s God in the Hebrew Bible. 

The archetype of inspiration saturates creation stories from every ancient tradition around the world. 

It’s Egyptian Isis who is able to resurrect her beloved, Osiris, as she whirls around his dead body like a bird, chanting secret incantations. It’s Ra; Egyptian sun god, creator of the world, ruler of the sky, the earth, and the underworld. The archetype of inspiration shows up as Mesapotemian goddess, Ishtar, who is goddess of fertility as well as destruction, love as well as war, queen of the heaven, and goddess of the underworld. 

If you want to explore the archetype of inspiration through a mythopoetic lens with specific goddesses, read these two essays:

Celtic goddess of inspiration, Brigid

The rising power of inspiration with Celtic goddess, Cerridwen 

Where is the Muse?

Inspiration as an archetype lives in the musician, breathes as the artist, creates worlds as a writer, expresses feeling as a poet. It lives in you when you have ideas and visions, dreams and beauty flowing through your hands. 

You can find this archetype at the museum (the place where Muse resides), at school, and in nature. It dances on the stage and sings in the shower. It paints at the artist’s studio and cooks at a high-end restaurant in NYC, or a hole in the wall in Bangkok. 

The archetype of inspiration is the power to find Muse in meadows and in graveyards, at the farmers market or in a dark alley in a rough part of the city. Hear her in your child’s story about something that happened to him today. See her in your child’s teacher’s eyes.

How to Stay Inspired

There are many ways to stay inspired. From going out to nature, and connecting with the wild, raw energy of creativity, to going to a museum and looking at art, allowing that which catches you eye and your soul to tell you something about where you are right now. 

Reading poetry, going to a concert, eating food that is prepared in a way that’s different form other foods you’re used to – all contribute to our ability to be a temple of creativity. 

You can invoke creativity and inpiration by crtafting a ritual to call it in and to generate it from within. Grab this free ritual guide  to support your ceremonial magic with Muse. 

Dominant culture is obsessed with productivity, but our creativity needs time when we are not doing much. Muse loves freedom, and she needs spaciousness and free roaming for her to want to show up. 

Staying inspired may require sitting in the dark sometimes, and listening. Not pushing. Not burning out. Not forcing anything. Just allowing whatever the experience is, whatever the feeling is, to move, to breathe. Letting ourselves soften into it. And listen. 

Inspiration needs us to let it come. Inspiration needs us to turn toward it. Both. 

Muse as Guide in Difficult times 

Turn your gaze upon that which inspires you. Let your heart soak in the magic of being lit up. 

Sometimes inspiration finds us in heartbreak. In the midst of grief and loss we can be visited by the poetic power of the soul. Inspiration can find its way into our lives in the form of rage and even in the form of despair. 

You might not find your way immediately. We might be in this time of collapse and chaos for a while. That’s a scary thought. But even if we’re deep in the forest and we feel like we’ve lost our way, inspiration can be our guide.

What inspires you?

What moves you?

What lights you up?

What turns you on? 

What feels nourishing for your soul?

Inspiration is not the goal, it’s our orientation. 

When you feel lost, turn to Muse as your north star. We need your creativity. Stay inspired!

If this is striking a cord and you want to invoke the power of inspiration, create your own ritual to call in your Muse, use this free ritual guide for the secular soul to get ideas and counsel in the art of ritual. 

For more guidance around inspiration, I created a free mini-series with two videos – one is a 20 minute conversation about inspiration as a north star, and the other is a 30 minute yoga practice to embody the Muse. Find it here. 

If you want to stay inspired and connected to your creativity regularly, subscribe to my Muse Medicine substack. This publication is dedicated to inspiration, filled with archetypal alchemy, and is delivered to you directly each Monday. It even comes with prompts to keep your Muse alive. 

Thank you so much for reading! I’m grateful to be in your presence. 

With love,

Hagar