Weaving The Dream

The Sirens and the Muses are duking it out in my studio again. 

You know the Sirens—those luscious, lovely, hypnotic singers said to lure unwitting sailors to their destruction on the rocks—and artists from their studios.

Supposedly, the Sirens once had wings but were stripped of them when they challenged their sisters, the Muses, to a singing contest and lost.  But they just don’t know when to give up.

I’m sure you’ve heard them in your creative space as I have in mine—singing of fun and pleasure, of abundance and reward.  Saying, “C’mon!  Let’s party!”

What’s confusing, for me at least, is that the Muses sing about all those tempting things too.  Well, okay, they sing about hard work, commitment, discipline, and solitude as well.  But those other things…I swear I can hear them sing about fun and pleasure and reward…Right?

After all, when we are in the flow of our creativity, doesn’t it feel like play, like fun, like whooping up and down in the roller coaster, with our hair blown back in our faces, and our breath caught in our lungs?  And when we move out of that place, when we come to the end of that ride, don’t we feel a sense of accomplishment and reward?  A “Whew! I made it!” feeling that is so powerful that when you get out of the coaster you feel like your feet barely touch the earth?

And we all want to feel that again—over and over.  The problem, the challenge, of course, is that sometimes it is hard to hear the Muse’s voice over the Siren’s.

One of the Siren’s, the one who keeps batting her eyelashes, will start in her loveliest voice, lilting and soft, “Oh why don’t you read that new book you just bought.  That guy’s chest on the cover is enough to make even a Si-i-ren droo-ool.”

Or another Siren, the one who dresses and sings like a deep-voiced mezzosoprano, “The garden is growing, the temperature warming.  Summer will soon be gone…”

Then that sad looking Siren with her hair hanging in her face, “Woe, oh woe!  What kind of friend are you who hasn’t called Marsha (sob) in more than a month?”

Painfully, they aren’t even singing in harmony–and then they try to outdo each other, getting louder and louder like some awful nightmare of American Idol!  How is a person to hear the Muse’s voice in all that?

Well, I find that creating a ritual to silence the Sirens and to invite the Muse into my creative space is one good way to win the battle.  Putting on special music, lighting incense, and saying a special prayer or blessing are ways I signal to myself that it is time to listen to the Muse and ignore the Sirens.

Too, it helps if I promise the Sirens beforehand that they will have their turn, that I will come out and play periodically—you know, have a piece of chocolate, call that friend, read the next chapter in that new book—then they are more likely to stay silent or least sing softly while my Muse and I go for that wild roller coaster ride together again.

But that is just one way.  There are others.  What is yours?

Well, I just wrote this piece, so right now the score here in my studio is: Muse 1, Sirens 0.  But the day is young yet…