My current method of corresponding with The Muse — letters to Vincent.

This is an on-going series inspired by reader’s comments to this initial post. To read all the posts on Standing in Your Own Power, click here.

To me, the Muse is that internal voice that guides and inspires me. She is not an external guest who comes to visit, but an internal source of wisdom dwelling within. Because the language of the Trinity is meaningful to me and because the world of creativity and art are so intrinsic to whom I am – I have come to think of The Muse and The Spirit synonymously.  She turns my head, shows me where to go, and as we travel she holds my hand (or gives me a shove!)  

Standing in your own power requires that you stop listening to external sources of authority, and learn to tune into your internal voice of authority – your instinct, your intuition, your Muse. Corresponding with The Muse turns down the volume on the external static, and turns up the dial on your intuitive voice.

Embracing Whimsy is one of the main ways I have come to correspond with The Muse. To me the language of whimsy is The Muse’s native tongue—my native tongue, long forgotten.  I have been well-trained by the Institutions (external authority). Their voice is familiar to me. It is the language I have spoke then longest. Their instructions about “how it is done” ring loud in my ears. I tend to blindly obey the institutional voice.

Whimsy is the antidote to blind obedience.  Whimsy is my native tongue, though I barely remember a time when I spoke it so easily. Now, whenever I have the impulse to do something “they” would think is ridiculous, I recognize it as Whimsy, the voice of the Muse, and I try to leap. This helps me stretch my “listening-to-my-intuition” muscles, and lets me practices saying “yes” to intuition. Here are some things that I’ve done which seem Whimsical to me (and therefore inspired by The Muse):

-I moved to Denmark just to do something different.
-I have regularly have breakfast with Vincent Van Gogh (his books and art) and write him letters.
-I joined a Danish gospel choir, though I can’t understand a thing the director is saying.
-I bought a vintage scrapbook of Danish theatre performances with hand drawn illustrations.

None of these things makes much sense. Certainly “they” would not suggest such a course of action. Yet each of them has shaped my life in a significant way. Each of them is transforming me, helping me become. The Muse and her voice of Whimsy led me here. Without her I would not have found my way.

What does the Muse sound like in your heart, in your ear? How might you correspond with her? Literally– though writing her letters (and penning her answers back)? Verbally–through talking aloud in an empty room, through singing in the shower? Physically — through the sign language of yoga, or running, or swimming? Where can you hear the voice of your inspiration? How can you camp out there and practice your native tongue?

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this turn of  phrase I use with the girls and with clients – “standing in your own power.” I’m not even completely sure what I mean by it, but I know it is key.

I know it means not letting your internal authority be overruled by outside sources of authority (religious institutions, schools, “experts”).

I know it has to do with tapping into your intuition.

And I know it is the most essential thing I can teach my girls.

Someday I’d like to do a series of guest posts on this, asking wise souls to guide us. In the meantime here are *8Things I know about Standing in Your Own Power.

1. Defy institutions.
2. Correspond with The Muse.
3. Practice whimsy.
4. Breathe into your Manipura (solar plexus) chakra.
5. Write lists of things you know to be true.
6. Forget conventional wisdom.
7. Muscle test your decisions.
8. Live my this dictum: “What would you do today, if you knew you could not fail?” – Robert Schuller

What is your list for *8Things that help you stand in your own power? Let us know in the comments, or grab a button and play along. If you post on your list on your blog, please give us the permalinkin the Mr. Linky below so we can come say hi! Thanks for being here.

In September of 2008 the team at This American Life produced an excellent radio piece about the national mortgage crisis, calling it the Giant Pool of Money. That title got stuck in my mouth. I loved the way it felt on my tongue.

Up to this point I’d also been enamoured with the concept of “teaching-learning” that Dr. Thena Ayres introduced me to in graduate school.  In this model instructors don’t just disseminate information from the top-down. Rather they create an environment in which the teachers and the students inform each other; thus creating a bigger pool of knowledge and experience than what the instructor alone could bring. The practice of teaching-learning and the phrase “Giant Pool of Money” came together for me when I began writing the learn-along Soultribe series at Magpie Girl. In my imagination every post and ever comment were like a hundred drops of water gathering together to form first a puddle, and then a pool. Thus was born the phrase: “The Giant Pool of Wisdom…forming now!”

Now I use this as a metaphor to describe the teaching-learning process that happens at Magpie Girl. So there you have it—the story of how a piece of MagpieSpeak was born!

What other Rachelle-specific phrases do I use that make you wonder? What do I need to define? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for being here!