January 1–The Muses: Waking UP

Today, this first day of 2016, we not only celebrate the beginning of a new year, but we initiate a new theme: The Muses.

The question for today is simply this: what is it that wakes you up to something new in your life?  You may know the answer to that question before you’ve even finished reading the sentence, and you may be equally inclined to dismiss the notion of “waking up to something new” before you’ve finished the sentence.

Never mind which way that question goes for you.  The question remains.  Today, you may find experiences and people who do or say something that wakes you up.   To what?  To whatever it was in your life that you were asleep to, that you were dead to, that you were ignorant of, that you were not able to acknowledge.

Today, you may also find yourself completely incapable of thinking about anything new. That’s okay, too, because despite your own sense of inability, someone or something may just open a door that you were not expecting to open, to a possibility, an idea, a plan, an opportunity, a relationship, or a feeling that you had not allowed the moment before.

These are our Muses.  The things.  The people.  The experiences.  The feelings.  The out-of-nowhere events that . . . well, wake us up to something we had been sleeping on.  It would be nice if these things we are waked up to were all nice.  They are not.  They are, sometimes, abrupt, sudden, frightening, and fearful, but after we begin to walk with them and into them, we begin to see that they are taking us places that we could not imagine. They change us.

The Muses inspire.  They awaken.  They change.  They provoke.  They call.  They incite. They confuse.  They infuse.  They defuse.  And sometimes they refuse–to let us flee away from the best moments life unfolds for us.

Who, what and where are your Muses today?  What do they say?  How do they call?  To what do they awaken you?

Bob Patrick