Recently I have been visited by my muse, or what Carl Jung, James Hillman and others refer to as daimon. Genius is another term, though not in the sense we usually use it. In essence, our ‘genius’ is an ‘attendant spirit present from one’s birth.’ (Therefore, everyone has one.) Others refer to soul, ‘anima’ or animus’ or creative spirit. I’m not sure what to call “it” exactly but what I do know is when it arrives.
I recently told a friend that my muse has “captured me again” and that it “has me in its grip.” This sounds a bit aggressive, I know, and even made me wonder if I am allowing some inner voice to control me in a way I would never if it were human. But I know I am not alone in this experience. Julia Cameron, author of the classic Artist’s Way refers to her inner creative command as her “marching orders.” And recently I read in Mary Antonia Wood’s The Archetypal Artist about “Jung’s haunting insistence upon an “alien will” that seizes the artist in order to press that individual into service. Hillman too could be haunting when he spoke of the angel/image whose yearnings and needs overtake our own.”
She writes that Jung was a “servant of the creative spirit”. In his words, “A creative person has little power over his own life. He is not free. He is captive and driven by his daimon...The daimon of creativity has ruthlessly had its way with me.”
I prefer the term, “collaborator,” to “servant” but I acknowledge this isn’t an equal partnership and I might be, to some extent, exaggerating my power in the situation.
The “alien will” is often experienced as both a curse and a blessing. Many creatives long for that “grip” and are envious when their friends and colleagues are “seized” by the daimon. We desire that sense of intoxication in which we lose our ‘I’ identity as well as sense of time and worldly concerns. We forget to eat. It is common to feel we are scribes or that our painting is painting itself through us. As jazz musician Charlie Parker said, "Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you."
The cursed side of this creative state is that it interferes with our normal life, and it can feel like a burdensome responsibility. We become obsessed, frantically jotting down ideas, images or melodies on napkins or train tickets, knowing that if we don’t, they could disappear for good. Like dreams, they evaporate quickly. This obsession can be part of the swoon of the creative process, but we may feel we are in a different world from our loved ones and they, too, feel they are cut off from us.
Making time for our art can feel impossible. And even when we do have time it can take a huge push to get past our resistance. We clean the corners of our cupboards, iron our pillow cases, and polish shoes we no longer wear. Suddenly our to-do list has grown a mile.
Sometimes, maybe often, it feels like the muse has abandoned us. We find that what we thought was gold is merely dust in our hand. How could we have thought our creation had value?
We feel bereft and lost. Henry Miller said he wrote fifty pages before he heard “the fetal heartbeat.” That’s a lot of typing, faith, and determination to find his way back to the pulse.
It is no wonder we feel conflicted when we are gripped by the daimon. But we aren’t totally at it’s mercy. We can refuse the creative call and most people do. The grip will release us but there are consequences to that as well. As Mary Oliver wrote, “My loyalty is to the inner vision whenever and howsoever it may arrive...the most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
(For now) I am saying yes to this present study (which etymologically means care and cultivation) and exploration of the creative process - yet one more cycling around a phenomenon impossible to fully grasp. I feel overwhelmed by all that I want to say. I am having doubts about whether anyone even cares. But I feel in my bones that this has something to do with my life work and even if this is only between me and the muse, I will show up and work with it. OK, with it and for it..
cited in The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create by Mary Antonia Wood. p. 132
2. cited in The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create by Mary Antonia Wood. p. 38
3 cited in The Archetypal Artist: Reimagining Creativity and the Call to Create by Mary Antonia Wood. p. 48