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The topic for this edition of the newsletter is the quest for inspiration. Some people say you need to go out and search for inspiration, while others say to just wait for it.  Which approach is correct? 

I wanted to begin by giving an introduction of how I became interested in inspiration and started searching for it. Lucia Zambrini contributed articles to the last 2 editions of the newsletter..  After I interviewed her, she turned the tables and asked me...

Lucia;  "Why did you choose to begin your humanity quest with the inspiration theme?"

Taking a spiritual theme and exploring it in depth seemed to me like a good way to learn and grow. I was looking for a theme that had some personal meaning to me and inspiration came up. I don’t recall the actual moment that it came up. I had been working previously on the theme of trust, but that did not interest me any longer. Then I thought of self-trust, since I'd like to trust my feelings and inner self more, but it's not an easy theme to work with. It's not a common enough term to be easily understood. Finding art and other material on the topic is also quite difficult.

I felt uninspired. What could I explore? I really needed some inspiration. That's it! explore inspiration and I may find what inspires me. I'd sure love to feel inspired every day. I've done small projects where I felt inspired and it sure was fun. That's the feeling I wanted to experience.

So now, I am basically looking for what inspires me. I am still looking.. Every day I find a few more clues.


 

I did some research and found that the source of the notion of Questing can be traced back to Celtic times.  I came across an old myth that tied into the ideas of inspiration and the quest.

In this old Celtic myth, a priestess named Cerridwen, had a son that was not very bright. She wanted to make him smarter so she got out her Cauldron of Inspiration. Special herbs are added and the mixture is cooked for one year and a day, then the final few drops are consumed to become inspired.		The Magic Circle John Waterhouse
The Gundestrup Cauldron ca. 200 BC, Comes from a bog in Denmark.	After a year, a servant  placed in charge of tending the fire and stirring the cauldron, accidentally splashed a few drops onto his hands and quickly licked off the burning hot drops.  He became inspired and eventually became one of the most famous of the Celtic poets and Bards named Taliesin.  It's not clear what happened to Cerridwen's son, but Taliesin got his inspiration by accident, without searching  for it.
It is said that the Christian story of the Holy Grail originates out of this myth of the cauldron of inspiration.  The Holy Grail was the cup used by Christ at the last supper. It was said that drinking from the grail would renew or inspire the holder.	Sir Galahad -  Quest of the Holy Grail Arthur Hughes
The Holy Grail Dante Gabriel Rossetti	I wondered what the ingredients could  have been that were placed into the cauldron? I'd sure like to get my hands on it. Some say  is was mead (honey wine) which was the primary source of alcoholic beverage of the Celts. I checked and mead is available at your local Beverages and More for around $9.99 a bottle. Others say the drink was a mixture of poisonous herbs that would induce hallucinations through a near death experience.

Here are some movies I recently watched that have a theme of questing or seeking for inspiration. 

	Excalibur
		The movie, Excalibur, tells the story of King Arthur and Excalibur, the magical sword. Life in the kingdom is going well when King Arthur's wife has an affair with his favorite knight, Sir Lancelot. The King finds out about it, which causes him to fall into a deep despair and the entire kingdom starts to go downhill due to his neglect. He gathers his knights and tells them to search for the holy grail which will restore his inspiration. The mood  becomes darker and more depressed as the knights search for the grail but die off, one by one.
	The good hearted Knight Perceval searches for the grail.  He has a couple of near death experiences in his quest. Within the final near death experience, he finds the grail and brings it back to Arthur. He says to Arthur, "the Grail has always been in you." Arthur becomes rejuvenated and he goes on to fight the evil forces that threaten the kingdom. More reviews  @netflix   @Imbd
	Razor's Edge
	The American, Laurence Darrell, volunteers to be an ambulance driver in World War I. After the devastation of war he rejects the life of wealth and instead searches for meaning. He eventually goes to a monastery in Tibet where the head monk tells him to go up in the higher snow covered mountains to mediate.  Laurence climbs through the snow to a simple lean-to hut. He sits reading his books, but then the firewood runs out and the fire eventually dies. While containing to read, it gets colder and colder, his lips are turning blue. Suddenly inspiration strikes and Laurence realizes the answers are not in books, but in real experiences. After throwing the books on the fire to get warm, he gets up and looks out over the mountain tops. It's time to go back to society in the West with his new awareness.  More reviews   @netflix, @imdb
	Siddhartha
		This movie based on a novel by Herman Hesse, tells the story of Siddhartha, who comes from a wealthy family in India. The young Siddhartha and his friend leave their boyhood homes, where Siddhartha says, "everyday is the same". Together they search for some sort of greater fulfillment.  After years of living with other religious seekers and Sadhus (religious holy men), Siddhartha still hasn't found the inspiration he's looking for. He meets Buddha and is impressed, but not enough to become a disciple like his friend.
	Siddhartha continues on by himself and meets a beautiful courtesan and asks her to be his teacher in Love. The cover of the movie box shows him knelling in a worshipful position in front of the courtesan.  After becoming rich and having a child with the courtesan, his life of wealth becomes unfulfilling and he eventually leaves and goes back on the road. Crossing a river, he meets a ferry man who talks about living a simple life and learning lessons from the river. Siddhartha lives a simple life with him and works as a ferryman. In the end he meets his old friend, who is still searching, They stay together on the river and find fulfillment in this simple life.   More reviews  @netflix    @imbd

Wait

... inspiration never arrived when you were searching for it.  Lisa Alther

You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. Franz Kafka

Search

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.  Frank Tibolt

In the power and splendor of the universe, inspiration waits for the millions to come. Man has only to strive for it. Poems greater than the Iliad, plays greater than Macbeth, stories more engaging than Don Quixote await their seeker and finder. John Masefield

Find your inspiration and hone in on it. Susan Longacre

As I grow older, part of my emotional survival plan must be to actively seek inspiration instead of passively waiting for it to find me. Bebe Moore Campbell

 You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.  Jack London

Glen Mazis Here is my poem about inspiration (not a light and airy inspiration, but a tough and grungy one that takes a lot of soul work).		Dark Poetic Magic Writing a poem is an occult apothecary that replenishes veins slowed to a trickle in being depleted by the heart's adventures. Loving and suffering sluices so much blood into shared capillaries, the push back to the heart slackens. The poet scrapes the flecks of soul from its knobby surface by carving tools lovers had brandished to reshape us, before they slipped in the misdirection of desire and cut us. The poet sweeps them into a nicked bowl of recollection as metaphors burn under simmering lines and the pestle of will determinedly grinds down the hot peppers of pain into a fine powder of spiced remembrance. Later, fresh loves are added or the mixture dries out. The poet knows this language cookery, the fussing with words in cauldrons and invocations to syntactical powers, is a sorcery transforming the hard past into a new fluid path to the heart
Bhakti, known as the "Zen Chihuahua"  co-worker on Glen's essays, poems, and books.

	Charlotte Mazis (Joan's mother),  It’s just something that happens, without thought… you know, spontaneously.  You say jee, I’m going to do this, because I feel like I have to do this!  Inspiration is a compulsion, you get inspired to do something, you do it!  Not because you want to or because you're thinking about the future.  It’s something you just have to do in the moment. That’s my idea of inspiration. It’s something that lifts you out of yourself, you don’t even think about what you're going to do.....  It hasn't been in my practical world, I have yet to see something that says to me, "go do it". I won't argue that it happens to somebody else.
	Jin Park (novelist and scholar), You need to do this research and all the other things for academic writing. But there is the moment, after I've been thinking and thinking about all that I've read, I make a communication with whatever is out there. To be a writer or a scholar, you have to be humble to create this moment when inspiration takes place.
	Glen Mazis (Joan's Brother),  Actually, I've been not feeling as inspired lately.  I guess I would agree with Jin Park, that you have to work hard, seeking inspiration and then  it does come in a way that's not under your control, but it's really about searching for it. I  went to a poetry group this week and that was inspiring. So part of it is just getting input from other people.  Getting feedback gets you thinking in new ways.

Follow the link from the thumbnail to see the full cartoon located at Cartoonbank.com,
http://www.cartoonbank.com/cartoon_closeup.asp?pf_id=20380

A man on a quest, goes to the guru in the mountain cave. The guru says, he will trade enlightenment if the seeker programs the guru's VCR. by Charles Barsotti

I'd love to hear and see your thoughts,  writings, poetry, artwork and etc. about the experience of inspiration. Be sure to send them to the Discussion List.  The Spirit of Inspiration Newsletter and email list is for the creative exploration and research into the experience of inspiration. The Newsletter is sent out every couple of weeks.  

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All the Best

Edwin Rutsch
Editor
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