To Be Like Pegasus

[cedar_grove]

The goddess draped reself in clouds adn flew
across her many islands to the great mountain
where the Muses lived, renowned Parnassus,
and spoke to them directly: "I have heard," she said,
"that water rises here, a new spring kicked to life
by that strange offspring of Medusa, the horse
with wings and lightning hooves." Urania nodded.
"We rejoice you found a reason for this visit," she said,
"for you are ever present with us, in our hearts."
And then she took the goddess to a dark wood
filled with caverns and dappled with meadows
where spring blossoms flourished. And the goddess
stayed awhile there, happy in the company
of memory's sweet daughters, marvelling
at sweet water rising from hard rock like
inspiration that comes after a long drought, like
the heart that loves again after brutal loss.

-Ovid, Metamorphoses

There she sees the miraculous spring called Castalia, the source of all genius, which the great winged horse Pegausu opened in the rock with one strike of his flinty hooves.

And is this not the miracle we each perform every time we create something new and original...?

The reality of creativity, at least for me, is that it is very linked with the element of water... so it is very tied in with the emotional side of me. This isn't necessarily very good for a writer in some respects.

As an amateur, I suppose it's not so problematic that 'not being in the mood' to write, or being 'too upset' to write well, or of course the reverse, (though few writers seem to complain about being too happy to write), sometimes gets in the way of the process of writing, but if I'm to do so in any professional, or even semi-professional way, I need to push past that and write because that's what I want to do.

The current reality has been though that I have allowed my emotions to come between me and the writing that I want to do. (And you can tell when you're missing Stargate: Atlantis when... *no prizes for thinking of the quote that came floating into my head when I was typing the above confession*). So now I need to act like Pegasus and strike with my fliny hoof to crack the shell that's hardened around my creativity and allow the waters of the wellspring to bubble through.

It's a beautiful image for meditating upon... to feel myself transformed, even momentarily, into the magnificent winged horse, free from earthly constraints, taking flight only to return to ground and strike with a hoof, to crack the dark shell that shrouds the waters of my creativity, to feel the cool waters of it to bubble through and bathe the burning of my desires to write, to slake my thirst for words upon the page; upon the screen - within my heart.

But the analytical side of my brain also demands the question why? Why is it that I cannot write when agitated, upset, lonely, depressed... that I cannot write when overly excited, too happy to settle to it - surely these would be the best times to harness the energies of the water rushing just beneath the surface of my worlds.