Motivation: Day 5 Guiding Light

There have been some beautiful, heart warming and inspirational posts around this week, from my friends Tangled Lou at Periphery and Jewels at Frazzled and Frumpy. As usual with these lovely ladies, and the rest of my blogging friends, they got me to thinking. However unlike normal my thoughts for a blog post this one required some research.

My musing and research led me to the following conclusion:

YOU ARE ALL GODDESSES!

(or Gods, not wanting to be sexist)

Let me take you through my thoughts / research. Hold on tight it could be a bumpy ride!!

Motivation has been on our minds this week, the motivation to start, continue with or complete our current projects or dreams. We are all aiming to help each other with this, the most elusive of emotions...motivation. Why you might ask? Because a friend asked us to, it is as simple as that! Nip over to Kicking Corners to find out how Deb is doing, it's all her fault ;-) 

What is motivation? How can we find it?

The Oxford English Dictionary 1993 Ed. defines 'motivation' as:

'to motivate

The (conscious or unconscious) stimulus, incentive, motives etc... towards a goal esp. as resulting from psychological or social factors; the factors giving purpose or direction to behaviour.

The degree to which a person is motivated; enthusiasm, drive.'

Ok, so what is the definition of 'motivate'?

'Supply or be a motive for....

provide a person with a motive or incentive.

Stimulate the interest of a person in an activity'

Sensing a train of thought yet?? Microsoft Word lists the following synonyms for 'stimulate':

'rouse, arouse, kindle, excite, inspire, motivate, encourage, fuel'

What is it to 'inspire'?

'Arouse in the mind, instil (a feeling, impulse etc...)'

Or even 'inspiration', where does that come from?

'Divine prompting or guidance.

The prompting of the mind to exalted thoughts, to creative activity etc...'

Divine prompting huh? From where? For a writer or artist this divine prompting is often said to come from our 'Muse':

'Daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne regarded as the inspirers of learning and the arts.

The inspiring goddess or adored woman of a particular poet

or a poet's particular genius'

or

'The action of musing; a state or fit of abstraction

Be absorbed in thought'

Ah, so you have to have guessed where this little train is going now, right??

A little bit of history for you; there are said to be 9 daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne:

Calliope - Muse for epic poetry

Clio - Muse for history

Euterpe - Muse for flutes and lyric poetry

Thalia - Muse for comedy and pastoral poetry

Melpomene - Muse for tragedy

Terpsichore - Muse for dance

Erato - Muse for love poetry

Polyhymnia - Muse for sacred poetry

Urania - Muse for astronomy

Although a Roman scholar, Varro, posed that there were only 3 Muses:

Melete - Muse for practise

Mneme - Muse for memory

Aoide - Muse for song

Mythical beings that inspire the best in us, creatively speaking??? I'm not sure about that!

'No Muse-poet grows conscious of the Muse except by experience of a woman in whom the Goddess is in some degree resident'

Robert Graves

Ok, this makes more sense to me, the Goddess can reside within someone. I only have to be around certain people or talk with others and inspiration hits!

A few days / weeks away from this group of friends who inspire me and my writing dried up. There were no new ideas, poems were started and not finished, blog posts were sporadic and hard to piece together. A few days back to regular blogging (writing, reading and commenting!) and the inspiration flows.

'O Muses, O high genius, aid me now!'

Dante Alighieri

I must reiterate the sentiments of Jewels and Tangled Lou, even if I cannot put it so eloquently. I have met some of the kindest, supportive and inspirational people since I started blogging, with the exception of 2 people I have never met any of you! Is that weird? Maybe. Do most of the people I interact with n a daily basis think I am delusional? Probably. I do get looks like I am a child with an imaginary friend when I talk about you all!!

This brings me full circle, and just under the wire too Masked Mum will be proud (11.50pm and counting) ;-)

YOU ARE ALL MY GODDESSES!

(and Gods)

You all inspire me whenever we have cause to meet, you arouse my creativity and for that I cannot thank you enough!

Here is a little light relief  in the form of Muse, Guiding Light. It always makes me think of when I started writing.

I hope your projects are all coming along just fine, let me know how you are doing. For now Love, hugs or a crack of the whip if that is what you need ;-) See you tomorrow.