Let's start by looking at a couple definitions of what the noun Muse means... 1."It means a person — especially a woman — who is a source of artistic inspiration."(http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/muse) 2."The original muses were goddesses to whom poets prayed for the gift of divine inspiration. Modern muses don't have to be beautiful deities, but they still have an ethereal, uninhibited quality that ignites creativity and draws out an artist’s most original work. If you want to be a muse, someone else’s or your own, make creative openness and freedom your values to live by."(http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Muse)
You know how it's important to cultivate peace within? Well, to me, a muse is a symbol of heightened creative inspiration. And it's important to cultivate that type of creative inspiration within, as well. Your inner muse is your well of creative inspiration. It drives you to create beauty in your life. It's that desire and that pulling, towards your own creative expression.
It's great to be someone else's muse, but it's even more important to cultivate your own. The more inspiration you cultivate within, the more life reflects that back to you by opening your eyes to more creative inspiration everywhere. You are the creator and the creation. We can't be inspired every second of every day, of course. But it's nice to know we have the ability to tap into that inspiration with ease and grace, most anytime.
A muse is more of a lifestyle to me, but I don't see being a muse to be a one size fits all way of being. Just as there are many types of people, there are as many types of Muses to fit who we are authentically.
Who are you, what are you passionate about, what do you want to share, what is your life calling, and how can you enhance those qualities in every area of your life? It's as much about creating something as it is being something. They go hand and hand. For example, my passion is "Beauty Alchemy" as I call it. That is, simply put, the path of inspired living from the heart. I don't think you can have an inner Muse without beauty alchemy. Soul beauty is true beauty and that is where I believe the most potent beauty and joy comes from.
For me, being a Muse is living a heartfelt, authentic, and self-expressed life, that is in alignment with the spirit of love, which happens on the path of Beauty Alchemy. I will talk more about what beauty alchemy is later. I will be using the terms “muse” and “beauty alchemist” interchangeably. When you practice beauty alchemy, you will awaken the muse within you and cultivate that heightened creative state within.
The beauty alchemist creates consciously (yet naturally) from the soul. She creates heartfelt things, honest things, things that you love and believe in, and things to add beauty and light to the world. The Muse will inspire you to see beauty and feel beauty, to be gentle, yet strong and grounded in true power. She will inspire you to create that which you are.
When you are in the Muse energy, you will feel open to share and show love, unencumbered by fear of another's reaction or response. You will feel vulnerable to show yourself so raw, yet strong in that vulnerability. She is the bridge between vulnerability and strength. You will feel a sense of peace in your expression of that love. It feels satisfying to be honest and free. The Muse wants to serve and inspire and bring out your passion and feeling of being alive.
Our creative expression isn't about being perfect, feeling good, or optimistic all the time. It is about being humble in our openness and honesty with ourselves. When we have walls up or we deny what we are truly feeling, we are not in the flow of the uninhibited muse energy. The Muse wants you to feel bliss.
To me, bliss is not the same as joy. Bliss arises from many emotions. Anything can start off as something else and turn into bliss if we allow it to process and then be released organically. Giving yourself permission to feel hurt, anger, pleasure or any other feeling can be the starting place that ends up in bliss. To me that is all necessary and relevant in order for cultivating heightened creative inspiration within. It frees you from the heaviness of denial, shame, and perfection that might otherwise block the muse energy.
We are all creators. We can either create from love or fear and if we create with the inspired heart, we create from love. Our ecstatic heart is the breath of the Muse. She reminds us of the sacredness and sensuality in everything, the ordinary and divine, the dark and the light.