Kissing the Muse: A Messy, Magical, Art-Making Adventure // with Robbyn Layne McGill

Do you hear a faint but familiar call to create, whispering in your heart? A quiet, unmet yearning to explore, tickling your soul? Whether it's painting, poetry, true love, travel, or adventure, your muse is calling you to create your most spectacular life. Are you willing to leap into love with your muse? Or will you resist, jilting her for your daily to-do-list instead?

The muse is a mirror of your inner artist. She reflects your innate creative potential. It doesn't matter whether you dabble with watercolor, or cake frosting, write poetry or prose, or can't draw a stick figure to save your sister. Kissing your muse will rekindle a spark of mystery, magic, and a touch of the divine in your life, illuminating your way to happiness through your unique creative practice.  

Using a series of collage-making "muse dates," expressive art actions, and playful writing prompts, this course casts you in the starring role of your own life's creative adventure story. What's working for or against your soul’s purpose? What makes your muse want to sing?

We make meaning of our lives through our stories, living them out as dramas and comedies, tragedies, and thrillers, interacting with a cast of characters that we adore, deplore, or don't even know. But we can experience alternative storylines and learn to reframe and rewrite them, with themes and plot twists that are more satisfying, empowering, and hope-filled.

Week by Week

In the same way that the muse was called upon in the classical poetic tradition, we can invoke her archetypal energy today to inspire our own creative transformations and infuse our otherwise humble and too human attempts at the art of living with the spark and genius of the divine. Each week you will receive a unique “kissing practice” and writing prompt correlating to one phase of your creative adventure—and a particular muse.  You will also receive additional writing prompts and expressive art actions to fan your creative flame. (You can also use these to develop the narrative arc and rough draft of a memoir, like I did!)

Week One: The Daily Dance—Kiss Your Home-at-Heart Muse

Engage in muse-kissing practices (expressive art actions and creative writing prompts) to “Fill your daily dance with more joy.”

• OPENING ZOOM session: Oct.17 (10:00 am-12:30 pm, Pacific Time Zone)
  
• Course introduction & core kissing practice: invocation meditation, muse mirror collage, kiss & tell writing prompt for Home-at-Heart Muse.
  
• Plus additional kissing practices, prompts, reading & poetry to inspire and support you during the Daily Dance phase of your creative adventure.
  

Week Two: Creative Call—Kiss Your Seducing Siren Muse

Engage in muse-kissing practices (expressive art actions and creative writing prompts) to “Rekindle your passion through change.” 

• Core kissing practice: invocation meditation, muse mirror collage, kiss & tell writing prompt for Seducing Sire Muse.
  
• Plus additional kissing practices, prompts, reading & poetry to inspire you during the Creative Call phase of your creative adventure.
  

Week Three: Critical Resistance—Kiss Your Reluctant Rebel Muse

Engage in muse-kissing practices (expressive art actions and creative writing prompts) to “Resist critics and take a stand.” 

• Core kissing practice for Reluctant Rebel Muse.

• Plus additional kissing practices, prompts, reading & poetry to inspire and support you during the Critical Resistance phase of your creative adventure.

Week Four: Open to Learning—Kiss Your Magical Guru Muse

Engage in muse-kissing practices (expressive art actions and creative writing prompts) to “Receive what you need to act next.”

• Schedule your 1/2 hour, one-to-one personal coaching session with the instructor.
  
• Core kissing practice for Magical Guru Muse.
  

Week Five: Bridge to Commitment—Kiss Your Bold Bride Muse

Engage in muse-kissing practices (expressive art actions and creative writing prompts) to “Commit to your own path and Self.” 

• Core kissing practice for Bold Bride Muse.

• Plus additional kissing practices, prompts, reading & poetry to inspire and support you during the Bridge to Commitment phase of your creative adventure.

Week Six: Wild Unknown—Kiss Your Daring Adventurous Muse

Engage in muse-kissing practices (expressive art actions and creative writing prompts) to “Venture into the unknown for new insight.”  

• ZOOM session: Nov.21 (10:00 am-12:30 pm, Pacific Time Zone):

• Commitment ritual/closing send-off into the Wild Unknown.
  

• Core kissing practice for Daring Adventurous Muse.

• Plus additional kissing practices, prompts, reading & poetry to inspire and support you during the Wild Unknown phase of your creative adventure.

• **Course discussion board remains open until December 1. 

Who Should Take This Class

Kissing the Muse: A Messy, Magical, Art-Making Adventure is a fun, fresh approach to the craft of creative writing and self-improvement. Designed for creatives from all walks of life, this course is an inspiring, safe space to explore and express your artistic voice through a variety of mediums. Through an inventive method of self-inquiry, participants embark on a personal journey of transformation and integrate insights into their own creative practice and projects. Open to all arts disciplines, writing skill levels and genres.

Format

This is an online class, hosted on the online teaching platform, Wet Ink. Students should expect to spend 3 hours per week perusing resources and readings, engaging in several writing/creation prompts, and briefly responding to peers’ work. From our interactions, we sustain a welcoming and inspiring community together.

About the Facilitator

Robbyn Layne McGill forged her multifarious career path by chasing her passions, wandering wildly, and kissing her muse. By her mid-20s, she had realized that living spiritually and personally connected to whatever “turned her on” creatively, was far more important than proving herself professionally. So, she quit her job as a corporate video producer in Kansas City and followed her heart to San Francisco. There, she met a wild band of creative bohemians who epitomized her idea of what it meant to be artists. She soon began crafting her own personal, poetic film “collages” using found 16mm footage, eventually earning a spot in an MFA program. 

Upon graduation, she stumbled upon her dream job—associate professor of transformative art for a university’s “Arts & Consciousness” department. So, like any aspiring, naive academic, she decided to write a self-help book based on everything she “knew.” But her muse had a better idea—not to write a book, but to live one.

Robbyn holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree in New Practices (painting and cinema) from San Francisco State University (2006), and Master of Arts degree in Transpersonal Psychology from John F. Kennedy University (2013), and a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Kansas (1993)—but the story of how she came to live in Amsterdam (with a man she truly loves, and a cat named Leonard Cohen), and host collage-making “Muse Dates” is far, far more interesting. www.kissingthemuse.com.