Succumb to the Numb

I am going to die with my music still in me.  I'm going to die with my music still in me if I don't start making some radical changes in my life.  Yes, this is a rather intense and introspective, personal statement. It's not easy to admit that I'm lacking color and energy, and have, by default "succumbed to the numb".  I recently read a quote by Anais Nin that seemed to shake me to my core because is resonated so deeply with my soul.

"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken." 

~Anais Nin~

When I first started making jewelry, I felt like a giddy child that had just been given the keys to a magical kingdom.  I spent hours exploring and playing and making things.  I was spellbound by this mystical place.  My muses  constantly surrounded me, and urged me to try new things.  And I felt this way about it for years. But lately, my muses are elusive.  I missed them at first, but then I got used to them not being around.  Deep exhaustion set in.  A kind of "bone deep" tired.  And then...numbness. A surrender to the gray, grind of life. Existing but not really living.  I've slowly allowed the demands of life to extract the life force of creativity and exploration from me.  My soul is sad right now.  But I view it as a wake up call to take heed and notice. To acknowledge and embrace, once again, the things that make my heart happy and the activities that cause my soul to sing.  I have to create and dream.  I love writing and art and poetry and music.  I must surround myself with these pleasures to feel alive and justified. 

I realize that these feelings are cyclical, and they will pass.  One of my favorite authors, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, says, “The psyches and souls of women also have their own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place.” 

I'm in a season of solitude and incubation.  The important thing is that I recognize it, acknowledge it and move forward with integrating the things I love so dearly back into my life.  Only then, will I be complete and whole. I refuse to die with my music in me.  I'd rather share it with the world.