Musing on muses …

... which are also known in scrapbook circles as mojo or creative energy.
I often read laments, or write my own sob stories about how my mojo has taken off, leaving me with no creativity.
We discuss how we can lure our muses back, we wonder why they wander. What, we wonder, are we without mojo?
I had an epiphany of sorts, the other day while I was driving. Most of my epiphanies come while I am driving, in the shower, just dozing off to sleep or otherwise unable to capture my thoughts on paper.
But this particular epiphany was about the mojo. My mojo does not dwell in a cluttered environment.
Maybe the clutter is external. If my house, my family or other duties are screaming for attention I can muffle them for a little while, but eventually the chaos seeps into my mind and sends mojo on a vacation.
However, I could work through the physical clutter. What I can’t overlook is mental clutter.
Mojo will not dwell where there is a lack of focus.
When I watch the Winter Olympics I am fascinated by what people are capable of doing with their bodies. Tonight I saw a few moments of the skeleton and listened to a commentator talk about perfect form and getting extra speed in the straight away. I had no idea how or what the skeleton athlete was doing to get the extra speed. I just new it was beautiful and exciting.
Skaters whirl and jump and glide, I don’t know how they do it. Snowboarders perform acrobatics beyond anything humanly possible, or so it would seem. It is all so dangerous, beautiful and flawless. I can’t image how any of them ever mustered up the courage or the self confidence to take that first leap.
Yet I do know. It is all mental.
Sure, it looks physical, it takes a physical form. But being able to slide down a mountain over a ski jump then have the presence of mind to twist bodies and skis in spectacular forms ~ that’s just not normal. An athlete has to be in control of his or her mind as well as body. After a while the muscle memory takes over, but the fact remains when you get in a high pressure situation like the Olympics, you have to have the mental strength to find the calm place inside yourself.
You have to know how to focus.
When I have the mojo, the concentration, the focus, when I go into my right brain and rummage around that illusive place where dreams and creativity and focus live, the rest of the world simply disappears.
I have heard other artists explain this as channeling, of gaining the power from someplace outside of themselves. I can’t fully explain it, but I enjoy it, and I want to harness this power. Mojo is symptomatic of being in harmony with your true self.
With the mojo I can view the world with peace, with creativity, with joy.
I read one writer who called this creative energy the Holy Ghost. While I don’t believe she is entirely true, there is truth to the statement.
When I am in the midst of creative energy I have the sense that God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.