Communing with the Muse by Alison Hurst

This is a short non fiction piece on how I experience my muse, a creative energy that has been with me for many decades and recently has been ‘sharing’ her story of interdimensional lifetimes. She is called Gem and I’m on my 2nd draft of her amazing tales of a spiritual quest through thousands of years to bring unity to the sacred feminine and masculine in this planetary dimension.

Communing with the Muse.

                                                                By Alison Hurst, 1st June 2021

Here we are, our consummation drawing closer at this precipice of our appointed time and I am frightened, as this bus takes me to our secluded cabin to bring our dalliance to fruition. Exhilaration pulsing a quick second to each fearful tremor.

You made yourself known to me only a few months ago and now my whole world feels driven to be all about you. You are wonderful, you are forbidding and maybe you are conspiring to have your moment with me. But I cannot lay this entirely at your feet, for as soon as our first true conversation was had, I was yours. I gave myself to you. At the time I had no conscious awareness of this, however as I look upon that moment where you unveiled your intentions to me I opened my door wide.

Even after the initial communications  I felt extremely intrepid every time you spoke and speak now. Like a nervous teenager wondering what to do with her hands as a handsome man speaks to her.  I guess I did not know what to do with you, where to put you. And here lay my own faults, ultimately I tried to control you, yet how does one control something immaterial?

I must stop here and acknowledge you were not entirely a stranger to me, we had given time to each other two decades ago.  You appeared through the words of my favourite song at the time. Your green eyes and flaming red hair, captivated me immediately, begging questions of ‘what now? and Who are you?’

Yet my immaturity and the juvenile chaos erupting throughout my life never gave you the grace you deserved. Astoundingly you seem to have waited for me to catch-up.

So here we are today in a pregnant moment of possibility and I am desperately unsure of myself. Can I live up to all that has been said?

On the way to this place, where time will be all ours and discovery of each other is our great opportunity, you reach out and hold my hand, like a teacher assuring the novice they have faith the novice has what it takes; and when it all becomes too intense and our magic seems uncontrollable, you will be there to take the reins. All I need to do is relax.

I trust this impeccably, for these past two months you have proven that. When we have dallied over words or plot you comfort me by reminding me we did not agreed to an equal partnership but one of submission. I had given myself to your story and I would literally be used. In any other mutual arrangement,  I never agree to such terms, yet for you, for you an agreement was the only option. It is as if I have been primed over these two decades to do just that, give myself wholly to you no matter the cost.

And there lays my deepest fear, what of the cost? What if this story of yours penetrates into the big wide world, what if it offends others’ sensibilities and I get hounded by the ‘crazies’ of this world, calling me names that cut me down and I don’t survive; what if my mother hears of it??

As I say this out loud, I realise why you have chosen me for such a battle (if there ever was one). I have battled the silencers before, I have had my blood boil from their denials of the shadows and wonders of this world. At this time, I know as I give my full unhindered permission to listen openly and write this tale word for word, image for excruciating sensory image, this story is your story and I want you to have the freedom to give it to who you choose. I know to some degree when something as painful and as beautiful as this comes into one’s life that each step is taken with honour and diligence. To have faith that each step, each moment will have its own grace to assure its completion, as long as I relax and stay out of its way.

So those nerves I had coming here, to a place where it will be entirely us, have subsided to a point. I can feel how much love there is between us, how much unformed magic is here with the seeds you have been planting inside me. I sense this will not be a conventional- structure, even though my mind still is vying for some semblance of the familiar but unstructured format was the point of coming here to this cabin, without other demands or time constraints. This is the place to feel free with you and allow you to explore me, as I explore you in my clumsily, virginal ways.

Last week you gave me faith in your power to guide me. As I sat poised, no one  home, computer at the ready for your full unbridled transmission. We were midway through a scene, a mountainous trek with our girl just about to enter into her initiation, a scene that felt partly you and partly me describing how this was to form. It felt foreign, awkward, like we were learning to kiss in a way that flowed, exploring delicately with our tongues and lips to find a harmony and we faltered, with me staring at the blinking cursor as if I had bitten your lip by mistake. I waited, somehow sensing it was time to allow breathing space to ferment our learnings. I heard you say, “let’s leave it here” or  “I am not ready” or maybe less information was given, but I got the idea.

Like a young foolish lover I wondered if you had discovered I was ‘not up to task’, as the sportspeople say, that our creative dalliance was over and you were out looking for a more proficient conduit. What little confidence I have in you.

As I sat in my other life, the one with my spouse driving us to the city, chatting about his study plans, cars whizzing past, my mind wandered back to you, briefly for it would be rude or maybe slightly unfaithful to ponder one love while the material one sat lovingly next you. I wondered if I would hear from you again.

So with my darling boyfriend off to class I took myself to a café, an eclectic fun place of coffee, books and colourful writing journals with inspirational quotes in them, a place I hoped you might like. With a hot creamy cuppa and my shabby journal on the table I invited you back to me, hoping quietly inside you’d return. A game? Yes that may be fun, I thought, maybe we needed fun not structured pressure! I pulled out the only one I knew, from the writers’ group last week, use a random object and go from there. A lynx pops effortlessly into mind and I write, Lynx at the top of the page, and wait.

One sentence delicately arrived, then the next and then something miraculous happened, you took the pen and ran into the deep mountainous forest with danger and glory at your heels, all so tantalisingly  present in this urbane café with cups clinking in the background. I was living in two worlds with yours captivating every part of me.  I could just about hold on to my pen moving so fast, my mind filled with smells of forest earth and fresh rain, the sound of snarling lynx teeth and then the most hypnotic moment I ever had, you were taking the character (and me) through different dimensions, one with the lynx about to devour our girl and the next dimension  the Goddess holding her spirit in full loving embrace.

By the end of the scene I was not only spent by the velocity of your magic but stunned by it too. It was truly a moment where I felt giving myself to you was possibly the most loving act I had ever done for myself. So, thankyou. Even though we have barely started, I have been opened to a new world by you and I want it. I want you to take me there, I say Yes!

With this glorious ‘Yes’ being shouted from the rooftops your rewards keep coming. As I stand with the cool night air on my cheeks in the small regional town with only the pub open, I realise how heavy my brick of technology, my computer and those books you got me to pack are. A book of Goddess myths and the new sorcery craft book you somehow got me to buy whilst my inner accountant was not watching. All this tells me it is going to be a wild 10 days!

My first task is getting the bags to our spot, a 100-meter walk will take me over an hour by the looks. And like an angel from the heavens the bus driver sees me persevering with each heavy-laden step and comes to save the damsel, dropping me straight at the door of our secret spot. The next day, as I hesitate in being alone with you, I distract us by walking around town. You see my ruse and drag me into the community bookshop where sits your affirmation gift, the one that says, “I know what you are doing but don’t be afraid, I’ll guide you”. There among the discarded murder mystery stories and cookbooks is a pristine Thesaurus with green and golden binding. Showing me how attentive a lover you are, you have listened to my anxieties and gifted me the exquisite present we can use as we lay around pondering the perfect words together, as you impatiently nudge me to pick one already, there is a story to write. Your patience with me may not be unending, yet I do hope your twenty year wait gifts you all you hoped it will. I promise I will do my very best.