God, Fates, Muses
God is ironic.
God is ironic. We tend to believe we know what we want, how we want it, and how it should manifest. Yet our limited self awareness and pitiful plans seem to be a joke to God. Reflecting back, we can identify that we rarely get what we want, or we forced what we wanted and have now changed priorities, or we struggled for what we wanted and now have regrets. While decisions we barely were aware of have blossomed into something splendid. When we are open, available to what God has for us, we can be pleasantly surprised. Life can take turns that we never expected to bring us to opportunities and friends we would have never imagined for ourself. Being available, we can end up somewhere unexpected for a lovely adventure counterintuitive to what we thought were our dreams. God laughs at our plans. God knows what he has planned for us if we are open and available.
The Fates have good timing.
The Fates have good timing. We tend to want to force what happens when, or be anxious about what has not yet happened, or be concerned with the possibilities of what could be. Yet when we let go of control and be at peace, we find that things work out the way they were meant to be, for the best, for the challenge, or at least for the interesting. What might lead to regret in one, is recognized by another as the path that naturally led to who they are, without which they would be a wholly different individual. The Fates are born of Nyx, the goddess of the night, not one whom the other gods would want to offend or presume to dictate to (even Zeus), in the dark—not a time when human beings expect to be productive. We can take patience and suspend expectations in order to allow the Fates to weave their thread, only asking them to intervene in selective moments of dire desperation, and even then knowing what we ask may not be ideal or fulfilled. The fates weave above our reasoning.
The Muses want to be seduced.
The Muses want to be seduced. Just a little bit of attention and availability, admiration and adoration, and they will breathe through our ink, guide us in expression of ideas. Inspiration can sometimes hit us in peace and quiet, strike us in bed while we struggle to sleep, come to us in moments when it is inconvenient to put pen to paper. Inspiration may escape us when we sit down in front of white blankness, the emptiness of the page taunting us and our silly titles and accolades and self conception. If the muses were to indulge our capricious whims, our volatile moods, and especially our immediate demands, they would be more appropriately called whores. Yet they are goddesses. They deserve to be treated as divine. The muses take a bit of teasing, of maintenance, of worship. An artist does not expect to vomit out a museum worthy masterpiece between breakfast and a scheduled meeting. We should not expect the same; we should rather be intentional in our pursuit of the Muses’ consideration.
Similar to pleasing a lover which in turn is mutually pleasurable, being attentive to the Muses nurtures a reciprocally beneficial relationship. To be available, to demand of ourself but not of the Muses, granting them time and space and sovereignty to guide the breath, the style, the energy, the next line. To attend routinely, to treat them like a lover who has much devotion to offer but would be shy if the attention felt too one-sided, making a habit of expressing our devotion. To make an effort, to work when the Muses seem distant in order to win back their affection, showing that we are worthy of their patience. To make them a priority, to not have other mistresses who tempt them to jealousy, but expressing our devotion to them with our thoughts and emotions ever yearning back to them and the content of our dialogues with others serving as evidence to our adoration and fodder for our next romantic rendezvous. To rejoice in inspiration, to be joyful in a beautiful session of lovemaking, taking pride in the children the union bore, and remembering that joy when attending to the Muses feels heavy. To make them feel recognized, to acknowledge the Muses as the source of inspiration, literally the breath enabling our work, avoiding being full of ourself and employing our joy as insatiable hunger to join in interest and in primal desire with the Muses even more.
When the Fates come, they had better find you working.