The Mysterious Muse Turns Up and Writes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

credit: iamajamaican Hope Gardens Kingston

This week’s blog post is from Sonia Henry. Sonia is a former local government manager, life coach, mentor and personal development trainer. She left the UK in 2012 to live in Jamaica. She is enjoying her transition by connecting with nature through her love of writing and gardening. She spend’ her spare time connecting with the local community of Falmouth Trelawny, doing charitable work through Kiwanis International. She is currently working on her first book, The Inner Garden, Life Lessons in Personal Development. In today’s post she pauses to reflect on her writing and her relationship with the *Muse.

* The Eight Muses are the eight Greek Goddesses devoted to the arts: Goddesses of music, song, dance, poetry, knowledge, astronomy and comedy.

One of my last encounters just before I left the UK to fulfill my dream of living in sunny Jamaica was a coaching and mentoring sessions at The British Library in central London with Jackee Holder.  It’s hard to believe but in that coaching session we discussed my desire to live and work in Jamaica now, here I am all the way in Jamaica still being inspired by her through the various forms of new technology.  In this blog post I want to talk about the mysterious muse?

I was first introduced to the concept of the ‘Muse’ as a writing exercise many years ago when I regularly attended Jackee Holders’ Moon wRites creative writing group which she held on a weekday closest to the full moon each month.  Those early days of writing were foundation years in terms of developing my writing practice. The concept of the muse was welcoming to my soul and I have worked with the idea of the Muse since then.

My ambition is to become a published author. I remained quietly excited despite having received an episode of negative feedback from one person who did not realize that they had just shattered my dream by their flippantly negative response to an early but prized piece of work I had asked her advice on.  Writer’s block showed up on many occasions when I recalled this incident and the page was left blank.

Since my baptism into the metaphorical world of the muse, I’ve created many books in the pages of my mind; exceptional, creative and powerful words trying desperately to reach the page. This is my own definition of the Muse according to my own personal experience of her presence. The definition came to me as part of an early morning writing exercise:

A mystical form of unconscious trance state that manifests in a split second of time. The muse meets me quietly and seductively bringing my internal battle between my long time friends’ resistance and discipline to a peaceful resolution.  My writing angels appear in many forms, signs, and wonders.  It amazes me to be an observer of myself as the first word appears on the page and I sink mercifully into the arms of my mysterious muse. As the symbols of language start to appear, I slumber into free writing. Even more powerful for me are the moments when I write morning pages from a newly awakened state of dream awareness. My thoughts then float onto the page like ghosts of the night manifested as words onto the page. They are now a reality that the Muse wants me to share.

As a life coach and trainer, I know the importance of looking back at our childhood passions to realize what we truly enjoy in life. Writing has always been an important part of my life. My journals sit patiently in my yet to be unpacked moving boxes constantly reminding me that there is a writer also waiting to be unpacked.