Is it the same for you as it is for me, does the music hold the key to all your memories?

I surround myself with green and growing things here in the desert to remind me of the dedication it sometimes takes to survive.

I crave the darkness and the solitude and the candlelight and sad, sad songs.

Why, when the words tumble inside my head all day long, is it still so hard to write?

There isn’t an ocean for miles and miles but I can always hear the sea.

I keep a bit of creosote in my shower, because even for an ocean girl like me, there is nothing that reminds me of joy like rain in the desert.

Sleep often eludes, but I’ve built my life so that respite exists along the edges and in the quiet corners and right there in your eyes.

I carry guilt etched hard in my bones. Those bones would read like stories if you laid them out in the sun.

I have an affinity for the wolf and the wild moon that I cannot quite explain but that I trust more than anything.

My heart pulses something that sounds much like redemption.

There is a grace inside the ache, and she is one of my greatest teachers.

Love. There’s not much else, really.

My neck and shoulders and left elbow ache and pulse with pain.  I crave strong hands on them to work out all that is held in those muscles. I crave yoga, and the continuous opening found inside my breath.  I crave the mountain and the way it is prayer.

I could listen to your stories for hours.

My want is holy, holy, holy.

I write with a fountain pen whenever I can. The way the pen glides on paper and the ink spills effortlessly into beautiful lines and curves reminds me of what it is to choose the ease and flow.

I like it when my hands are stained with ink. It is proof that the life and the stories are one and the same.

I carry my pain in the right side of my throat. When it hurts there, I know that there are words waiting to be spoken. When I cry, I raise my hand there and it feels like holding my pain in my palm. It is one of the many ways my body speaks to me.

Humanity, in all its messiness, is a glory and a wonder to me.

Sometimes it is the disappearance of a thing, finally, that bring you to peace. Even when you held on to whatever sliver remained with every desperate breath – when it finally goes, you find that you are free.

But still, some nights the ghosts, they are relentless.

She’ll come home in an hour and a half, at a time when most of the city is tucked in bed. She’ll come home and she’ll shower after 12 long hours of doing good and true work. And she’ll slip into bed and wrap me in her arms and it will all be worth it in that moment. Every last bit.

Sometimes, when I light the candles and find the music and pour the whiskey and feel it burn down and the words still don’t come – I force myself to sit and just write what I know.

The older I get, the less I know.

The less I know – the more the world opens up, wide and waiting.

This is how I have come to understand the taste of freedom.

I am filled with resistance. But still, I am here.

One letter on this screen at a time, I am here. Neck aching and back bent and eyes burning, I am here.

This is what it means to show up.

This is what it means to trust the calling.

This is what It means to write.

And the candles burn and the whiskey goes down smooth and there is a song playing that stirs something wild and deep. And my fingers are clicking on the keyboard.

I am writing.

And it’s the farthest thing from a masterpiece that I can fathom. But I’m here. I am here. Alive. Heart beating and blood pulsing with memory and relentless hope.

Show up. Start with what you know. It’s as simple and raw and messy and hard and as impossible and as necessary as that.

Because we have stories to tell.

The post Start with what you know. appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

You feel her come in on a breath through the open window and settle deep in this space. Like she owns it. It’s strange how she can be inside and outside and all around. All at once.

A shiver rises from the base of spine until skin tingles. Everywhere. You know what this means.

It is time.

No matter you are tired. No matter today and this week and this month have worn you down. No matter your bones ache. No matter your weary heart. No matter the undone chores or the unfinished work. No matter the cool white sheets calling you to slumber.

That has all changed, she says, now that I am here.

Sit down and write, she says.

And she says it in that way she’s always had. The way that lets you know nothing will be happening but whatever she decrees. Not tonight. This is how she works.

So you do as she says. Nothing good ever came of doing anything but this.

Her lips graze the back of your neck. She’s closer than you realized. Her voice, all honey and gravel and midnight summer rainstorms and the slightest hint of lonely, right by your ear.

Stop wasting time. Stop making excuses. Set the stage if you feel it’s necessary. Light the candles. Pour the whiskey. Your ritual matters because you believe it matters. So do whatever the hell you think you have to do to loosen the eternal hold you place on your magic.

Just don’t ignore me now.

Put on the music that brings to mind the blade slice and the rising smoke and the way bodies turn liquid when the desire gets that sharp and close. That music that feels like burgundy velvet and tastes like black market moonshine in a smoky underground jazz club from another era.  

Get up. She wants to dance. You knew she would. This was decided long ago, between you and her. Because flowing words demand fluid muscles in a body often locked tight. Hips loose enough for goddess spiral. There can be no tension tonight. This is about melting resistance. About spinning it down just so you can rise. This is all about the release of all things.

You’ll know you’re there when you can’t tell your pulse from the downbeat of the music. When you are one with all that there is. The music and the words and the want of it all.

Because you’ve got to want it. More than you have. You’ve got to want it like everything that just might happen if you lost all your inhibitions. You’ve got to need it like the sweet hit at the root of all your yearning. Like the way you crave the sound of her voice, raspy and low right next to your ear promising what comes next.

You’ve got to move with it, until the words become a dance of seduction. Until there is no more stillness and everything is desire.

Until you do not know any longer if you are doing the seducing or being seduced. Do not worry. It has never really mattered and you couldn’t change it anyway. Just give yourself over to the pull of it. The wanton desire. The holy unholy need. The sweet dance of dominance and submission and the way they live best so tangled you can’t figure where one ends and the other begins. The heat of creation-destruction-and-what-will-be-born-now-that-all-the-rest-is-destroyed.

Have you done as she instructed?

Good. You can begin.

Now. All you need is those fingers. That blank page. Your beating heart. The energy pulse that travels lightening current across your skin.

It’s all right there for the taking in and giving over.

Bow your respect to the one who brings you here.

She nods back, in her own particular way.

You have done the work, she says, the words will come hot and clear now.

Now get the hell out of your own way.

AND WRITE.

Listen with me: {music for dancing with the muse} on spotify.

The post get the hell out of your own way {and write} appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

my muse
she is
awake
and she is calling
me

coaxing
tempting
in a seductress
voice dripping sweet
with honey
and sharp with desire
there is a

tug

and my words
they have been gathering
in the dusky light
and they have been swirling
liquid whirlpools
forming and reforming
and coming part and undone

-so much of creation is coming
undone.-

and I am coming undone

my muse
demands
I come undone

and words are
tripping out of me
spilling out of me
pouring out of
me
like they have been too long on
lockdown
too long rising behind a patched up seawall
of too much comfort
too much complacency
too much
not enough

And then
with a rough nudge
into more than
enough
I burst forth
with the power of
creation
too fast to be contained
too much passion
for control

But I will control
I will subdue
because when my muse
is awake
she bequeaths me that
sacred power
she requires that I hold
that power
she knows I have
that power

My muse she is impatient
she requires
complete
possession
a lusty dominatrix
with a dagger gaze
and requirements sharp
as nails

she has plans
for me
she whispers
I must comply
she directs
her bidding
is my purpose
her needs
my foundation
her satisfaction
my only pleasure

when my muse is
awake
my energy builds
knows no
limits
my mind is
blazing
trails
cutting swaths
through thick undergrowth
clearing away the dead
the unnecessary
the unwanted
I am relentless in my
quest
for the totality of experience
and vicious in my requirement
for all
or nothing

and I am free.
I claim freedom in the
captivity
of creation
the fierce
consuming
need to do her
bidding

and I will do her bidding

sleep is nothing
my body is nothing
my brain is nothing
I am nothing in the wake of this
consumed by this
phoenix fire
burning down
red-orange-white

and I am born
again
under her spell
burning from inside out
and outside in
fanning flames to keep
this fire going

my fingers cannot move fast enough
my breath cannot come hard enough
my heart cannot pound hard enough
I cannot create fast enough to
appease her

and I must appease her
she is mistress
and captor
and she could go away
at any time
so I must woo her
and please her
and go down on my knees for her
because I need her

I need her

my muse is awake
now
and so I am a prophet
seeing truth
seeing life
down to the bones and ash
down to the death and destruction

if you are not ready to be seen
do not come to me now
because I will lay you bare
I will crack you open
I will slip inside your soul
and take what I need
to
create

I welcome
the violence of
this knowing
because my muse
is not turned on
by safety

she is hot for risk
and the place outside
of comfort zones
and the sliver
of space between
pleasure and pain

my muse,
she wants a fucking
orgy
of creation
she wants me to sweat
she makes her home there
stirs up unrest there
waits to grow there.
she hold me there
and holds me there
and holds me there

until she is done.

fuck comfort zones
my muse says

Do you want to be
comfortable
or do you want to
create?

Photo by Rhett Wesley on Unsplash

The post my muse appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.