The muse as shadow: A Jungian perspective on the creative spark

“Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869)[1]

You’re only half awake and suddenly an idea brushes past, which, if you wake up slowly, you can catch gently, but only if you don’t try to rationalise it, as ideas are born in the realm of intuitive abandon, not control. You get to work and look up from what you were doing thinking you’ve been working for an hour, perhaps two. Instead, when you look at the clock, you realise six hours have passed and you’ve forgotten to eat or drink. You step back from your work and notice that it now contains certain lines that mirror each other nicely, or subtly references other works you love. You didn’t plan on doing any of these things, yet somehow there they are. I like to think of this kind of magic that temporarily erases the significance and boundaries of time and the conscious self as the influence of the muse.

The elusive muse has been a topic of thought and debate throughout history. According to Greek mythology, the muses were nine goddesses, each dedicated to a particular discipline of the arts, who whispered into the ears of their artists and brought about divine inspiration. Though I like to think deeply about things, I always find that when it comes to true understanding, the intellect is always a few steps behind intuition. Usually, it is only much later, when you’ve made more work, when the pieces begin to slot together, that you begin to rationally understand why you did what you did, if at all.

Speaking about the muse, I think it is important to distinguish between a muse as a psychological concept and a muse as a real person, though the two can be connected. This split between the psychological or inner muse and real-life worldly muse is beautifully symbolised in the parentage of the mythological muses. The muses are born from the Titan Mnemosyne, or memory, and Zeus, the highest god in the Olympian pantheon, which represents order (cosmos) created from chaos. Therefore, the mythical muses are the result and an amalgamation of a deep, internal, private knowledge and intuition on the one hand, and external, collective sophistication on the other hand. This means that one part of the “anatomy” of the muse is rooted in the inner, private world of the self, and another part in the outer, public world of civilisation. I believe this translates to the aforementioned split between the “inner muse” as a part of the self and the “worldly muse” as another person.

My personal interpretation of the inner muse is rooted in Jungian psychology, particularly the concept of the “shadow.” Carl Jung (1875-1961) defined the shadow as the repressed, and therefore unknown, part of the psyche. The shadow consists of those emotions or abilities that the ego rejects as beyond the scope of the ideal or useful. For example, if we like to think of ourselves as confident and successful, things like insecurity, self-doubt, and fear of rejection may be in our shadow, or, if we consider ourselves generous and kind, we are perhaps blind to our own anger or envy. The emotional shadow is not necessarily comprised of only negative emotions. For example, the desire to be creative can be in our shadow if we fear being judged or have convinced ourselves it is not a secure way to make a living. Kindness and patience can be in our shadow if we have become overly assertive and protective of our personal boundaries, etc.

I believe that when someone feels they are truly connecting with the work they are doing, they are intuitively connecting with the parts of themselves they weren’t aware of or have been neglected, i.e. the shadow. To me, the inner muse represents these hidden, i.e. innermost, authentic parts of the self, through which we can understand ourselves as a complete being, and through this understanding of the self, connect with, and communicate with the world and beyond. The process of revealing the shadow can however be a painful one: uncovering those repressed parts of ourselves can come with laying bare emotional wounds we never healed but covered up instead.

The realisation of the importance of this inner journey of discovery is why I believe to many artists the need for solitude is so essential, the need to drown out the noise of the world for a while and spend time with our inner muse in order to align all parts of ourselves, to emerge with a greater sense of connection and harmony. John O’Donohue perfectly captures the nature of this kind of solitude: “It is different from loneliness. When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation. Solitude can be a homecoming to your own deepest belonging. (…) It means that we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for things we need from within. (…) They are at home at the hearth of your soul.”[2] Separation from others is a primal source of pain, the feeling of being unseen, misunderstood, or alone. By contrast, this solitude, instead of separating, reconnects us with ourselves and the world.

Regarding the idea of separation as a primal source of pain, I have always loved the metaphor of the split-up lovers as discussed in Plato’s Symposium (385 – 370 BC). According to one of the narrators, as a punishment for the hybris of two human beings attempting to climb into the realm of the gods and usurp them, Zeus split every human being into two halves, cursing man to be “always looking for his other half” and originating “the desire of one another which is implanted in us,” the desire of “reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.”[3] The two, now incomplete, human beings, once endowed with “one head with two faces, looking opposite ways”, are now cursed with a single, rather than double, vision.[4] This I believe is a wonderful metaphor of the blindness for the shadow self: It is only when we “find” the other half, that we can restore our full, “double” vision. To me the inner muse symbolises this other half and represents connection, first to the (shadow) self, then to the world and the universe. He (or she, in my case he) represents the lost other half for which we yearn, and when we find him/her, we emerge with a greater understanding and often, as a result, a greater sense of compassion and love for others. I suppose this is why the trope of the lovers is a beautiful metaphor of wholeness and connection and artists often depict their muse as a lover, or regard their lover as a muse.

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This desire to connect can extend ad infinitum beyond the visible and the known world into the realm of the unknown and invisible. The poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019) speaks of a third self that exists besides the inner child and the manager of everyday activities and obligations: “Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. It is a third self, occasional in some of us, tyrant in others. This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has a hunger for eternity.”[5] This desire to connect with, and be in harmony with, first the self, then the world and beyond, is shared by many artists. It seems to me an almost Faustian curiosity to want to know what lies beyond the visible, where ideas and inspiration come from, and, ultimately, where we belong. In a conversation with Russell Brand, author Elizabeth Gilbert defines creativity as something “we understand (…) instinctively to be something that’s coming to you from someplace else and that you are not the commander of, but you are in a relationship with.”[6] What or where this “someplace else” is, are existential questions religion and philosophy have long concerned themselves with, even pivot on.

A literary description of this birth place of ideas as a realm outside of a specific place or time, or perhaps where all time and space amalgamate, that resonates deeply is from Auguste Villiers de l’Isle Adam in the 1886 novel L’Ève Future (Tomorrow’s Eve). Ironically, the explanation is given by a mechanical android, named Hadaly, who is imbued with a disembodied spirit, who (because of this disembodiment) remembers the “Infinite”:

“At these moments when the spirit is still half-veiled in mists of sleep, and has not yet been fully caught up in the weary toils of Reason and Sense, it is particularly susceptible to (…) rare and visionary experiences (…) This living ether is a region without limits or restrictions within which the privileged traveler, as long as he remains there, feels able to project within the intimacy of his temporal being the shadowy harbingers and dark anticipations of the creature he will someday become. The path joining these two kingdoms (of intuition versus Reason and the senses) leads through that domain of the Spirit which Reason […] calls, in hollow disdain, MERE IMAGINATION. (…) There (in the Infinite) all periods of time flow together, there space is no more”.[7]

As Hadaly defines it, the Infinite is a supernatural site outside of space, time, and matter, or perhaps the site where all space, time, and matter coincide, i.e. a place of infinite connection, a spiritual home where human souls originate and to which they return. It is a realm inaccessible to reason, that can be accessed only in the intuitive liminal space between wakefulness and sleep.

This idea of a spiritual realm as a place of ultimate connection of all things yet to come into being and therefore of unlimited potential was not invented by Villiers. Hierarchical cosmologies and ideas of predestination and transmigration of souls occur throughout history. They lie for example at the root of Plato’s Theory of Forms, i.e. the notion that everything we experience in our earthly dimension is merely a pale reflection of the ultimate Ideal or essence of that object, form or idea which exists in a supernatural/super-terranean beyond. Plato’s ideas have powerfully influenced western religion and philosophy. For example, in Neoplatonic thought, as defined by Plotinus (204/5-270), this Realm of Ideas equates to what he called the “Nous”, an existential state emanating from the divine, creative principle (the “One”), which is unknowable to man. The Nous is both being and thought, idea and ideal, i.e. the blueprint or archetype of all things. According to Plotinus, a few emanations below the realm of the Nous exists our earthly, phenomenal world of matter, which is cut off from the higher realms as it can only be known through the senses.[8]

In early Christian cosmologies the Infinite is defined as the “Empyrean”, or the residence of the divine and the source of light and creation. Rooted in the Greek “empyros” meaning “set in or on fire”, it symbolises the divine, creative spark. In an 1850 illustration to Dante Alighieri’s 1321 La Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), Gustave Doré depicts the Empyrean as consisting of hierarchies of angels backlit by divine light.[9] In its descent from this Empyrean the soul must travel through various strata while slowly “forgetting” more and more of its divine origins. In the eighteenth century the philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677) was in turn influenced by these ideas when he formed his theories on pantheism, or the unity of all substance. Finally, this “Infinite” (keeping with Villiers’ terminology) is the realm of what Jung in 1919 coined as “archetypes”: forms or ideas as meta-truths from which all other truths emerge and that we as human beings have a proclivity to connect with in the form of symbols and stories.

All these definitions and ideas are essentially philosophical ways to describe a spiritual “home” that cannot be grasped or known, but that we are trying to recollect and desire to get glimpses of. The Welsh concept of “Hiraeth”, meaning an undefined homesickness for a place to which we cannot return, the echo of the lost places of our soul’s past, perfectly captures the desire to connect with this perceived place of origin. Of course, artists are limited in the means at our disposal to express that "homesickness", but working with paint, stone, wood, words, and our voice is all we can do. This paradox of the artist forever trying to devise a material language to escape the material world is what Eric Wilson calls “ironic transcendence: an escape from (…) matter based on the laws of matter.”[10] The 2020 Disney/Pixar animated film Soul beautifully captures the flow state that occurs when people lose themselves doing something they love and that temporarily transports them to “The Zone”, a space existing between the physical and spiritual.[11] It is a part of “The Great Before”, an Infinite realm of possibility where unborn souls must figure out what makes them “spark”.[12] The Zone is a home where time and space do not exist that can be reached through creativity and connection. It is a humorous way of visualising William Blake’s famous lines of poetry reflecting on inspiration and the authentic, innocent abandon required to perceive beauty: "To see a World in a Grain of Sand; And a Heaven in a Wild Flower; Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand; And Eternity in an hour”.[13]

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If matter is believed to be devoid of spirit and therefore furthest removed from the Infinite, to reach this “zone” or capture the untouchable Infinite in matter is the paradoxical task the artist sets himself. This is where the transcendent nature of the muse comes in. The divine essence of the mythological muses lies in their power to connect an ordinary mortal with a piece of the Infinite, or “spark”, so he or she can reach beyond the limits of the self and create something extraordinary, i.e. something that appeals to a universal experience, wisdom or emotion and that resonates on a deep intuitive level which provides the viewer or listener with a sense of meaning. Perhaps the dual nature of music and the singing voice being both material and intangible is the reason why this medium has the ability to transport us instantly to this so desired realm, or, as Maria Popova beautifully puts it, “the way it bridges the cosmic and the human, the ephemeral and the eternal. It is at once the most abstract of the arts, made of mathematics, feeling, and time, and the most concrete in its inescapable embodiment — we sing because we have a body, this bittersweet reminder that we are mortal, and we sing to celebrate that we are alive.”[14] I imagine the inner muse to be like music in nature, a travel companion, both here and there, who bridges the gap between the world of matter and that of spirit, between ourselves and the Infinite.

Throughout history, artists have reflected on their elusive muses, most often in a serious fashion, and sometimes with a dose of humour. One of my favourite works referring to the unknown origins of inspiration is by the German painter Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) from 1969. It shows an all-white vertical, rectangular painting of which one corner is painted black. The caption in a typewriter font on the painting itself reads: “Höhere Wesen befahlen: rechte obere Ecke schwarz malen!" (“Higher beings commanded: paint right upper corner black!”) With a dose of irony Polke addresses the feeling of creative control coming from somewhere other than the self and the artist being taken to unexpected places whilst being immersed in his work.

My personal inner muse tends to manifest in my work as an ancient, vampiric-looking figure. Connection with our inner muse, or shadow self, tends to take place through seeing and accepting our full authentic selves, i.e. through introspection. Therefore, the fact that, according to the lore, a vampire cannot be seen in a mirror works well as a personification since the muse manifests an inversion of that invisibility: he (or she) cannot be seen in physical form, but only in the mirror of ourselves if we dare to look deep enough. If we embrace our inner muse, or rather, let him embrace us and allow him to walk freely, allow our vulnerable side to breathe, pure and authentic things will grow.[15] This embrace however needs to be free of judgement or the muse will vanish: the judgmental gaze is the equivalent of the intellect overthinking and redirecting a process that should remain intuitive. I believe that the seductive nature of the symbolic artist-muse interaction lies more in allowing oneself to be seduced, i.e. permitting ourselves to be vulnerable by having the hidden parts of the psyche exposed and accepted, than in doing the “seducing” and having the mind control or manipulate the creative process.

With one foot in the material world and one in the beyond, our inner muse is our compass to ourselves, the world, and the infinite unknown. The demands of the world however often invite us to commodify the soul or ignore our true self altogether, casting a shadow which can make a sustained connection with our inner muse challenging. Often it is through an emotional connection with a real person, a “worldly muse”, that we recognise a part of ourselves that we lost connection with, yet long for. This person in a way is the Yin to our Yang: they wear our shadow in the full light of their being and show us our full potential as a human being. They might for example show patience or confidence where we feel we are lacking in these qualities. Love is perhaps the only force that can permanently transgress the boundaries of time, space, and the self, and a shared bond of acceptance, compassion, and understanding with a worldly muse can help us see ourselves more completely and without judgement and inspire us to be the best version of ourselves by working on the underdeveloped traits we wish to integrate. A worldly muse can bring us in touch with our inner selves, our inner muse, and teach us to fully embrace all aspects of ourselves and the world. Love and creativity pivot on connection, seeing and being seen, authentically and without restraint or judgement.

The worldly muse, with their light, and lightness, dispels some of our shadows (and perhaps vice versa) and instils in us the courage to be ourselves. Should you be so lucky to have people like that in your life, treat them as if they are sacred, because they are. The inner muse interpreted as a psychological symbol embodies the full potential of our human experience. He or she personifies the spark that navigates us through the light and the dark, the seen and unseen, the familiar and the new, and drives us into love, creativity, and growth. Our inner muse is the spark that teaches us and drives us to follow our curiosity, to be brave and venture outside of our comfort zone, which is where life, art and magic happen. Whether we invite our muse in or not depends on our expectations, goals, and dreams: there are people who believe magic is real, and those who don’t, and both tend to be proven right.

[1] “Borné dans sa nature, infini dans ses vœux, L’homme est un dieu tombé qui se souvient des cieux”: Alphonse de Lamartine, Méditations poétiques (Paris 1823) p. 12.

[2] John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: Spititual Wisdom from the Celtic World (London 2022) p. 86-87.

[3] Plato, Symposium, trans. Benjamin Jowett [https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html].

[4] Ibid.

[5] Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays (New York 2016) p. 27.

[6] Russell Brand in conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert, “Is This Some of the Best Advice for Artists & Creatives?”, clip from Under the Skin podcast, 28/04/2020 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0-Us9licvc].

[7] Auguste Villiers de l’Isle Adam and Robert Martin Adams, Tomorrow’s Eve, trans. Robert Martin Adams (Chicago 2001) p. 195, 198. (Original emphasis.)

[8] Wedged in-between the Nous and the phenomenological world, according to Plotinus, is the realm of the “World-soul” where living souls reside. These souls have a choice whether to be guided by the higher Nous or the lower, corporeal world of matter, the former being proposed as the preferred option.

[9] Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: The Vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, trans. Henry Francis Cary (London 1892) Paradise, Canto XXXI. [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8800/8800-h/8800-h.htm#cantoIII.31]

[10] Eric G. Wilson, The Melancholy Android: On the Psychology of Sacred Machines (New York 2006) p. 28.

[11] The flow state as a mental state in which a person loses the perception of time by being passionately immersed in an activity was first defined by the psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihályi in 1970.

[12] Soul, directed by Pete Docter (2020; Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures).

[13] From the poem “Auguries of Innocence”: William Blake, David Erdman (ed.) and Harold Bloom, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (New York 1988) p. 490.

[14] Maria Popova, ‘Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated’, The Marginalian [https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/04/04/marie-howe-hymn/].

[15] The marigolds in my drawing represent passion and creativity, the lilies purity and rebirth.