Who Are Your Muses?

In Greek mythology, the Muses are nine divine sisters who preside over the arts and sciences. Born from the union of Zeus (King of the Gods) and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, they delight mortals and gods alike with their poetry, music, dances, and storytelling, and inspire humans to strive for artistic and creative achievement. (They have also generously leant their name to the modern word "museum" - a place meant to inspire its visitors with the fine arts and natural sciences.)

"The Dance of the Muses" by Joseph Paelinck. Source: Wikimedia Commons

​The nine sisters were, in no particular order: Calliope (muse of epic poetry, music, song, dance, and eloquence; she is also the eldest of the nine sisters and the mother of Orpheus, the famous bard); Clio (history); Euterpe (lyric song); Melpomene (the Greek chorus and tragedy); Terpsichore (dance); Erato (erotica, love poetry, and mime); Polyhymnia (sacred song; her name is the origin of the word "hymn"); Urania (astronomy); and Thalia (comedy and bucolic poetry).

​As the New (and hopefully better) Year approaches -- and per the spirit of the longest night of the year -- I've been reflecting on what went well for me in 2020 (on a personal level, that is), what didn't, and how I can continue to intentionally craft the me I want to be as I wade into 2021. I've discovered that a part of that process involves looking to artists who I admire for inspiration; not so that I can emmulate them exactly, but to have a compass -- you could even call it a pantheon -- to guide me towards the person that I want to become on an artistic and even spiritual level.

The members of my personal muse-pantheon will likely expand as the New Year unfolds, but for the moment, here are the muses that are carrying me forward into 2021.

Freddie Mercury

Queen is my all-time favorite band. I would need to write a separate blog post to explain all of the reasons why, but the nutshell version is this: they were bold. Bold with their vision, bold with their musicianship, bold in the way they stood apart from the rest of the rock world of the 70s and 80s. Oh, and did I mention their bold as eff frontman, Freddie ****ing Mercury?

We all know Freddie as the show-stopper who wrote Bohemian Rhapsody and gave one of, if not the, greatest live performances of all time when Queen performed at the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium. But here are some things that you may not have heard about the God of Rock:
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• If you've seen the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (yes, as a devoted Freddie fan, I have opinions on it; no, I will not get into them here) you know that Freddie was born Farrokh Bulsara to Indian Parsi parents in Zanzibar in 1946. What you may not know -- and sadly, this bit didn't make the movie -- was that his family immigrated to the United Kingdom when he was 17 to escape the Zanzibar Revolution, when people of Near Eastern ancestry were targeted with violence after the overthrow of the Arab-minority governement. (The Parsis are an ethnic group that originated in modern day Iran.) In other words, Freddie Mercury was a refugee. Although he was a British citizen from birth on account of his father being an employee of the British colonial government, he did face prejudice in his adopted country due to his ethnic heritage, as well as his family's Zoroastrian religious affiliation.
  
  
• He earned a degree in graphic design, but told his parents after graduation that he would never work an office job. Instead, he worked as a baggage handler at Heathrow airport and sold second-hand clothes out of a stall at Kingsington market to make ends meet as he worked to launch his music career.
  
  
• Freddie was openly bisexual. To put that in context, Queen's debut album was released in 1973; Britain repealed its "anti-sodomy" law that criminalized same-sex relationships in 1970 -- just three years before. While Queer folks still face oppression and stigma in almost every corner of the globe (since it is 2020, could we maybe stop with this already?) I think it's fair to say that, at least in the Western world, Queerness is more socially acceptable than it was in the late 20th century. The fact that Freddie was "out" during this time -- and, later, during the AIDS crisis of the 80s -- is pretty remarkable. As a Queer woman myself, his example gives me a lot of courage to be "out" publically in my own life, even though I have faced repurcussions for it at times. (Although, truthfully, it is a privilege to be able to be publically "out" at all -- there are many Queer folks for whom being "out" is too dangerous.) Freddie is quoted as saying, "I'm not afraid to speak out and say the things that I want to, or do the things I want to do. So I think in the end being natural and being actually genuine is what wins, and I hope it comes out in my songs." It's for this reason -- among others -- that I consider Freddie to be a Queer ancestor.
  
  
• Freddie tested positive for HIV in 1987. Innuendo -- Queen's final album together -- was released in May 1991, six months before his death from AIDS-related pneumonia. During the recording session for "The Show Must Go On" (the aptly named final track on the record), Freddie was so ill that he had to prop himself against the recording table in order to stand. Brian May told him that it was okay if he wanted to pass on recording for the day, to which Freddie promptly downed a shot of vodka, looked him in the eye, and said "I'll fucking do it, darling!" And he recorded the song in one take. Though bittersweet, "The Show Must Go On" is one of my favorite Queen songs, so much so that I actually got a tattoo with my favorite lyric from the song: "Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die." (With one small liberty taken: I spelled "faerie" in the traditional way that I prefer.) This is one of my go-to songs to listen to when I'm going through depression. I think about how Freddie was slowly dying from a wicked disease that was so unfairly stigmatized and misunderstood, and how he just.kept.going, giving everything he had to his music and to his fans until the very end. He didn't publically disclose his status until two days before he died, not because he wanted to deceive anyone, but because he didn't want to be remembered as an "AIDS victim" -- he was determined to be remembered as Freddie Mercury. That takes a tremendous amount of strength and courage, and I hope that I can be that strong when my time comes around, too.

I could go on about all of the other reasons why I so deeply admire Freddie Mercury and why I love Queen's music, but we would be here all day. Suffice it to say that Freddie's story -- that of a young Queer immigrant with four extra teeth who refused to let anything hold him back, who rose up from humble beginnings on a tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean to become one of the greatest and most beloved entertainers who ever lived -- reminds me that I can make my own dreams a reality, too.

​If Freddie were a muse in my pantheon, he would be the Muse of Determination, Self-Expression, and Revelry. (And Epic Poetry, because "Bohemian Rhapsody.")

Tori Amos

I may very well be among Tori Amos' few Millennial fans -- Tori herself is a late Boomer, and her primary listener base are Gen Xers who came of age in the 80s and 90s as her career was taking off -- but I discovered her music when I was in high school in the late 2000s and have been in love with her work ever since. I even got to see her in concert during her Night of Hunters Tour back in 2011, and am hoping I get the chance to see her again whenever it is safe to attend live shows post-pandemic.

I love the magical worlds and characters that Tori conjures with her surreal lyrics. As a misfit kid who didn't quite fit in and was always dipping in and out of the world of Fae, it was an incredible comfort for Fourteen Year Old Me to learn that there were other wyrd people in the world who were able to make a living not in spite of their wyrdness, but because of it; Tori herself has spoken on her appeal to a niche audience, and how it doesn't bother her that she's never been a Top 40 or Grammy-award winning artist (although she has received eight Grammy nominations). In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1998, she is quoted as saying: "I know I'm an acquired taste. I'm anchovies, and not everybody wants those hairy little things. If I was potato chips, I could go a lot more places, but I'm not." Seeing (or rather, hearing) that sort of defiant creativity at such a young age had a profound effect on me, especially since I came from a family where creativity wasn't actively encouraged and spent my high school years in a small town where there were not many outlets or opportunities for artists. I remember lying in bed with my eyes closed, listening to Tori's music on repeat and allowing her voice to carry me away to Faerie for a few hours, and feeling so free because I knew that there was room in the world for my wyrd creative visions, too.

But what really punches me in the gut is Tori's remarkable story, which resembles my own coming-of-age in some ways. She was born Myra Ellen Amos and later adopted the name Tori after the Torrey pine trees that grow in her home state of North Carolina. (I had my first and middle name legally changed at age 17.) She was the daughter of a Methodist minister and later broke free of the stifiling religious environment of her upbringing. (My grandfather was a Church of Christ pastor, and I also experienced a profound loss of faith in my teen years that evolved into a beautiful and soul-fulfilling adult spirituality I created for myself.) At age five, she became the youngest person ever admitted to the Peabody Institute at John Hopkins University for her musical aptitude, but was expelled at age 11 for her dislike of classical sheet music and her interest in rock n' roll and pop music. (Though I wasn't exactly a child prodigy, growing up I butted heads with plenty of my English teachers for turning in assignments that were too "out there.") She spent her teen years and early twenties performing in dive bars in DC and LA, and was sexually assaulted at knifepoint at age 21, an experience described in her song "Me and a Gun." (I myself experienced sexual abuse from an intimate partner as a teenager.) And her first professional foray into the music world as the frontwoman of the short-lived 80s syncho-pop group Y Kant Tori Read was a bitter flop (although personally, I think Y Kant Tori Read was a fabulous album).

Tori suffered so many setbacks, traumas and disappointments in her young adulthood as she struggled to pursue her creative dreams, but her perseverence paid off: when Little Earthquakes was released in 1992 (the year yours truly was born), it was a critical and commercial success, and thus a very bright if peculiar star was born. Despite what some might call her "niche appeal," her brilliant songwriting career has been going strong for almost three decades. She has used her platforms to participate in activism as well; she served as the first national spokesperson for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), and continues to be closely involved with the organization to this day.

Being a young woman in my late twenties struggling to launch my creative career off the ground, Tori's unique vision and her incredible coming-of-age tale fuel me with inspiration and hope. Every time I listen to her music, I'm reminded that I don't need to hide my wyrd and wild self from the world in order to prosper. In fact, that wyrdness and wildness is what will ultimately lead me to where I'm meant to be, so long as I heed the call and am willing to take what comes with it.

In my pantheon, Tori would be the Muse of Dreams, Magical Realism, and Witchcraft.

Emilie Autumn

I first discovered Emilie Autumn's 2003 album Enchant back in 2013 via my Gothic literature class at ACC (which remains my all-time favorite class that I took in undergrad). If you've read this far, it should come as no surprise that my heart fairly exploded with joy when I discovered that there is an artist in the world who describes her musical style as "fairy pop." I loved Enchant and Fight Like a Girl, but I confess that I remained a more or less casual listener for a long time. That is, until I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in May 2019.

Emilie Autumn also has bipolar disorder, and has been very forthcoming about her illness on her public platform and in interviews. After my diagnosis, I immediately gravitated back towards her music, particularly her album Opheliac. When I listened to "Swallow" -- a song about Emilie's experience realizing that she needed psychiatric medication in order to survive -- I cried, because the only thought I had was Oh my effing gods...someone out there GETS it.

I love how Emilie Autumn isn't afraid to confront the topic of mental illness and the stigma that has followed it through the ages head-on in her music and her writing. Her novel The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls and its companion musical album Fight Like a Girl are loosely based off of her own experience of spending time in a psychiatric hospital as a teenager. (There is also a musical based on the book in the works, which I'm quite excited for.) She spoke about her experience living with bipolar quite frankly in Metal Discovery: "I'd prefer not to have it, and then not be artistic, and would probably be a lot happier...I'd still trade it in for anything else but, while it's here, I'm going to use it for all it's worth so that I'm not a victim of it." 

I also love how she is completely uninhibited in her stylistic choices; similar to Tori Amos' experience as a young girl, Emilie Autumn left the conservatory at Indiana University because her aesthetic clashed with the expectations of the classical music teachers there, and she's been doing her own thing ever since. She draws inspiration from classical literature, history (particularly the Victorian era), and burlesque -- which, coincidentally, happen to be three of my favorite things. And I admire how fiercely dedicated she is to her fans, whom she affectionately calls "Plague Rats," and how she has created an entire fictional world of the Asylum for fans to gather and bond over shared experiences. That's the kind of relationship that I hope to build with my reader base as I continue to publish and grow my platform as an author.

As part of my pantheon, Emilie would be the Muse of Psychiatry, Healing, Literature, and Fashion.

There is an expression you may have heard that goes "great artists steal." This doesn't mean that we should plagarize or copycat other artists (seriously, don't do that, it ain't cool). I interpret it to mean that art feeds off of art, and that creativity does not exist in a vacuum. You can think of creativity as an aquifer -- the artists who came before us tended a deep, rich well for all of us up-and-coming little saplings to nourish our roots so that we can grow into the most glorious versions of ourselves. And just as trees convert water and sunlight into an energy all of their own, so do we take inspiration from our muses -- whoever they might be -- to create a vision for our lives and legacies that are unique to us.

​So tell me, who are your muses? Who are the people -- be they artists, historical figures, ancestors, or beloveds in your personal life -- who fill you with courage, inspiration, and hope? What lessons do you feel like they have to teach you as we (praise be) leave 2020 behind and take our first steps into the New Year? And how can you (yes, you - I'm talking to you) potentially serve as a muse for someone else? (Trust me, there's someone out there looking up to you. Are you showing them the you that you want to be, in all its perfections, imperfections and vulnerabilities?)

​Tend to your roots. Then tend to others. Let your muses show you the way.