jmcgready’s misc universe

I’ve been listening to an audio version of The War of Art.
by Steven Pressfield.

Aside from a small and slightly annoying
“Fundamentalists (rather broadly defined) can’t be creative” tear
within the first third of the book, there’s much to be learned about
resistance and the aid that comes when we actually sit down to do the work.

So what has this got to do with invoking the Muse?

Part of his ritual to begin work is praying Homer’s
invocation of the Muse that starts The Odyssey
as translated by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia).

I’d like to work something like that into a creative ritual,
I’m uneasy invoking the aid of daughters of Zeus,
much like Thomas Hobbes’ “Answer to Davenant’s Preface to Gondibert”:

But why a Christian should think it an ornament to his poem,
either to profane the true God or invoke a false one,
I can imagine no cause but a reasonless imitation of custom, of a foolish custom,
by which a man, enabled to speak wisely from the principals of nature
and his own meditation, loves rather to be thought to speak by inspiration, like a bagpipe.

hoosgot an invocation that could be better suited to a Judeo-Christian sensibility?

Technorati: creative ritual, daughters of zeus, fundamentalists, homer, invocation of the muse, invoking the muse, lawrence of arabia, odyssey, resistance, steven pressfield, t e lawrence, thomas hobbes, true god

invoke, Muse, work, Lawrence, aid

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 2:35 am
and is filed under art, life.

Tags: creative ritual, daughters of zeus, fundamentalists, homer, invocation of the muse, invoking the muse, lawrence of arabia, odyssey, resistance, steven pressfield, t e lawrence, thomas hobbes, true god