Cancer Journal #75 May 6
Mother Westwind’s Children
Indulgent, passive, Mother Westwind looks on
but does not reprimand as her children,
the Merry Little Breezes, make mischief,
mess up plans of very small creatures,
snatch away tiny things that don’t belong to them,
play keep-away with a kind of frolicking spite.
Mother Westwind should keep better control
but the depleted will of the old is no match
for the determined, vital will of the young.
Perhaps she’s wise to conserve her energy
and watch, smiling at the fun.
Mother Westwind has other children though,
grown-up strong men, with manly names like Gale,
whose days of foolishness and mischief are over.
Now working dynamos, generating power, full of consequence.
In times past, muscling ship across the seas,
full sail, full billow, the rigging singing a high pitched song.
The ship, cutting through the waves, making up for lost time.
The big brothers turn the tops of trees to spirited carriage horses in full gallop,
half controlled, half in control. Full of clatter and toss,
manes in disarray, powerful heads and necks swing east and west.
The big winds prune brittle dead branches that cannot handle this force.
Weak sisters come down too; the game is simply too much for them.
The branches that can play, give way to Gale but then resist,
stand firm and swing back against the force that wants to have its way.
It becomes a dance, full of vigor and graceful in its sway.
I wrote this for my writing group. It still takes some adjustment to think of myself as someone who writes poetry. And maybe there is a little bit of me that is faking it, just taking a stab at trying to do what poets do and not actually doing it, if you follow my meaning. But then, I don't know. I know what people are talking about when they say they get help from a Muse. I am maybe getting that help myself. I rather doubt that Muses help people that are faking it. So, as I say, I don't know.
Mother Westwind is a character, along with the Merry Little Breezes, in books written by Thornton W Burgess, an early 20th Century children's author. My mother read them to me well before I ever went to school and they remain part of what I think about. I don't believe I am exaggerating the trouble caused by the Merry Little Breezes. They really were nasty little jerks. I don't remember the author suggesting that the old mother should have tried to alter the bad behavior but he might have. I am making up the big brothers. In my mind though, they follow. On windy days, I look out the window by my standard reading chair and I think thoughts personifying, as Thornton W Burgess did, what's going on with the trees. In the pleasant land of Anthropomorphia.
Hi Charlie.
ReplyDeleteI like how you use the framework of the stories to then take it further, as a vehicle for your own thoughts. Great last line.
Interesting thoughts about "faking" writing poetry. I'm remembering when I was in high school and on the girls tennis team. The coach told us to visualize ourselves executing a really good backhand or serve or whatever we were having trouble doing well. I did. I believe the visualization helped me then perform the move better. I wonder if it's similar in the writing of poetry. We "fake" doing it, as you say--we first imagine we can and then we try--and gradually maybe we grow into considering ourselves "real" tennis players or "real" writers. I definitely believe in the Muse, and I DO think they help people who are at the "faking" it stage. I have found my Muse to be much wiser than me, and a better poet. :)
Touchy issue, this Muse thing. My sister has a theory that there is just extra creative energy floating around someplace and available for us to draw on if we are doing something creative. In other words, a Muse. John Milton reported that his Muse was the Holy Spirit. Much as I'd like to say, "Yeah, that's it!", I just can't quite do that. May have been Milton's Muse but I don't think it's mine. I know the Holy Spirit and this is a different thing. Like I say, it's touchy.
DeleteHmm, yes, I see what you're saying. I guess for me, it doesn't matter so much exactly what it is, I just know it--to some small degree--experientially, as a source where ideas come from (sometimes words I don't even for sure know the meaning of until I look them up and they are quite apt to the work), and as something I should listen to, take seriously, always jotting down the ideas because I will otherwise usually lose them in a very short time. Then, of course, one has to do one's part, do the work, edit, revise, polish, etc. And, like a jazz musician who's work is largely improvisation but who must have a solid foundation of basic knowledge, skills honed in hours of practice, and an eye (or ear in their case) that takes in and notices images, sounds, phenomena, the complexities of humans, and connects with honest emotion, the poet (or any creative person) is served by doing those same things. It seems to me. So one (and I don't think you were saying this) one can't totally rely on the Muse to do it all.
DeleteI failed to mention that your take on faking it is perhaps akin to visualizing a skill before actually using it is an interesting and generous view of faking it. It put me to thinking. I don't know if it totally gets me off the hook on the issue of faking it but I will allow that it's complicated.
DeleteI've also been thinking about the Muse. You wisely choose not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I, as a charismatic Christian with an expectation that the Holy Spirit will frequently be evident in our daily life, really had better look in that horse's mouth. It's some kind of supernatural phenomenon. If it's not the Holy Spirit, then what the heck is it? And if it is supernatural but not the Holy Spirit, I really should not be messing around with it. What might be permitted for others in some cases should be closed off to me.
Should I give up writing? No. But like John Milton, I need to make a declaration that the only supernatural help I am willing to receive is from the Holy Spirit. Perhaps Milton was making an announcement of personal policy as to the only kind of spiritual help he was willing to receive. J.S. Bach would add a note at the beginning of his compositions that it was "For the Glory of God". We treat this as an expression of piety but that is maybe wrong. It might instead express recognition that he could be getting some help but that the only kind he was willing to accept was from the Holy Spirit.
I don't know that I have to put a subtitle to all that I write that it's "For the Glory of God" but I better make a mental decision that that's what it will be. And heck, maybe I'll stick in some "For the Glory of God"s in there now and then.
Anyway, Jan, thank you for the discussion. What you wrote was an excellent treatment of the whole deal and it did send my own thinking into a tangential but good direction. I am grateful for that.
I can respect that.
ReplyDeleteI certainly do not intend, wish, or believe I am engaging with any negative spiritual entity. My best guess would be the muse is somehow part of the collective unconscious, or probably more accurately, somehow part of each of our individual connections and interactions with our own subconscious. A part of each of us that is different from the straight-forward, rational mind or awareness. We're so used to interacting with life that way that the more subjective ways come across as mysterious, when they're probably just another aspect of everyone's reality (that God probably created too). Just my personal guesses. :)
I knew a man who was a software developer. He'd work hard on solving issues that arose in creating a new project/product. He'd think about it a lot. Oftentimes, at night he'd have a dream that at least gave him a clue to pursue. Was that the Holy Spirit? Maybe. If an elementary teacher is trying to find a better way to teach her class about the water cycle, and one day while shopping for shoes, an idea pops into her head and it's super helpful to the kids, where does that come from? I don't know that the muse is that different from these examples, except I am purposely trying to pay attention to it, to such occurrences, as they pertain to the writing of poetry.
Good chatting with you about this!
Jan
And I don't get the sense of the Muse being some negative spiritual entity either. Just doesn't feel like it. It's more like a fairy. They aren't demons but while they both have wings, I don't see them as angels either. And perhaps I am too quick to label them as supernatural. Very possibly, we draw from some deep wells of intuition combined with whoever knows what else that creates a thing that seems better than what we are in some curious way. In my own thinking, that's a minority view. I see the Muse as supernatural but my confidence level is only moderate. Regardless of all that, I do intend to ask for supernatural help in the form of the Holy Spirit when I write. The materialist will snort derisively. Well, snort however you want to snort. That's what I intend to do.
DeleteAren't humans, and the human experience, fascinating?! So much to contemplate!
DeleteThanks for your thoughts.
Hey, I think it's cool if you ask the Holy Spirit's help when you write. You'll get no argument from me on that. :)
I talked to my friend, Julie Majkowski. about this exchange with Jan Carroll about muses. Julie plays flute like an angel--or maybe it's Pan--anyway, she's really good. Her interest brightened on the subject of muses so I forwarded all of what was in this blog entry. This is what she had to say in response:
DeleteI’ve spent some time thinking about this message, the poem, and your conversation with Jan. I didn’t want to respond until I had a chance to do some creative thinking and see where I think my inspiration comes from.
First of all, your poem is beautiful and strong. I would like to hear it read aloud. Maybe I’ll have Paul read it to me. Funny that the day of Jen’s jam (when you told me about this poem and conversation) I had been looking at the tall trees behind our stage area, thinking that I would like to someday have the personality of a tall tree. Just a weird thought that popped in, but it kind of went with your poem somehow. It felt good to read your poem right after having that thought.
So…inspiration and a muse! I’m wondering if a person has a different sort of muse for different types of creativity? I find that my inspiration when playing flute and creating a pleasing line is a completely different process in my mind, heart, soul, whatever, than creating lyrics for a song, which is different than composing a beautiful looping pad.
Flute: if things are going well I feel as though I’m in a trance, and inspiration comes from way down inside somewhere. No worries about how to fit in, what key I’m playing in, who is doing what. It just boils up and out. Imagine going into that trancelike state as you share a duet with another performer! That’s happened just a handful of times that I can think of on stage.
Song lyrics: what a job! Not my natural state of happiness, more of a duty to get what I want. Like a homework assignment. I usually enjoy the outcome, but not the process. I think my muse is Mrs. Gratz from 7th grade English. I feel her over my shoulder.
I responded:
So interesting to read what happens with you and the muse. Thanks for thinking it through and describing it. Certainly what you describe when you play the flute is consistent with what I hear. Just so marvelous, so beyond what we would expect. The other I'm not so familiar with, of course although I was amused that your lyric writing muse is like Mrs. Gratz.
Hey! I figured out how to identify myself on here.
ReplyDelete