ARTISTS AS ANCESTORS AND MUSES

I'll never forget reading Jane Eyre when I was 22, when I was going through my first real can't eat, can't sleep kind, want-to-die kind of breakup. When Jane leaves Rochester in the most devastating of ways, I closed the book, curled into fetal position and wept, and wept, and wept, in a way I had needed to for months. Years. I felt so seen in the pages (it was, in fact me she was addressing, as "Dear Reader," from the grave, I believed) that my heart cracked right open.

I think about all the energy and emotion she put into writing that book. How all that power lives in those pages over a century after she was alive. And is still transforming people, especially women who were sad, misunderstood, wise, and unearthly little children. Especially women who had allowed themselves to be broken by a man. To be loved by a man.

I consider Charlotte Bronte an ancestor. A big sister. A ghost who speaks to me.

I am asserting here that to be an ancestor, beyond just the biological sense, is to exist in someone's memory. To create an experience for someone else that moves, shapes, and changes them. Lives inside of them. We know from epigenetics that a part of what we inherit from our biological ancestors is memory, as it is stored in the body. It is what connects us. If as artists, we can create new memories, new grooves, new patterns, opening, release, expression, like Charlotte did for me -

especially where there was once blocked emotions, trauma, stagnation, dis-ease -

aren't we ancestors, too?

Isn't it all about what connects us?

_______________________

We've all had a moment where a symbol or sign appears to us that connects us to someone we have lost, at a particularly significant moment, and we catch our breath. And laugh, and cry. At the same time. And suddenly everything makes sense. Or nonsense. The life, the death, the impermanence. The dream. It's like that.

That's what we are creating for people when we make art.

A cosmic wink. A mirror. A moment of new associations. A visitation from something bigger, and beyond us. The face of God.

Now stay with me here -

Is this not how we also experience the muse, the inspiration, the breath of life, the spirit of fire, that enters our bodies, and moves us towards expression ?

Isn’t it all about what moves us?

The Muses are real. That's all I'm going to say about that for now. It can be nice to look them up and learn about them, but also, try to feel into what The Muse is, to you.

How do you know her/him/it/them? Where do they come from? Who are they? What is their gift? What is their curse? Where have you seen them before?

Make up, imagine, remember how it felt

the moment you were moved by, touched, opened

by an ancestor, a spirit, a painting, the mountains, a song, a river --

How does it feel in your body? A crack in the heart?
A bloom in the hips? A lump in the throat?

See the faces of the muses

who have moved you

say their names

out loud.

_______________________

Your muses, your ancestors, live inside of you. Like memories, they leave pieces, parts of themselves behind when they change you. New grooves, new riverbeds. Forget about being original. Forget about being "you." Or "I." You are made of many parts.

Be Charlotte. Be Carrie. Be Regina. Be James. Be Alanis. Be Edgar. Be Carlos. Be Octavia. Be Vladimir. Be Sylvia (not literally). Be Stevie. Be John. Be Paul. Be George. And definitely be Ringo.

These are some of my artist/ancestor/muses. Defining who shaped you as an artist/ancestor/muse - whose soul moved/changed yours, and still lives inside of you - is an important part of realizing the The Artist within.

Speak in their voice. Copy their mannerisms. Imagine you're them for a day. Listen to their music. Save their art on your lock screen. Watch their movies. Get on a first name basis with them. Feed them your attention. Remember them. Notice where they live in your body.

Let them move you.

Let them make love to you.

Let them make a new memory.

A new pattern.

And eventually, a creation.

New life.


. . .


This is how you become your own ancestor. Your own muse. Your own God.