According to mythology, the muses were a sisterhood of goddesses or spirits, their number set at nine in the Classical Age, who embodied the arts and inspired the creative process in mankind with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance. Every author from Dante to Chaucer to Shakespeare and Milton wrote of them and sought their favor. Even today, authors may write that they have "lost their muse" when writing seems particularly hard and doesn’t flow as it normally when one is in the good graces of the goddesses. I, sadly, seem to suffer from their fate.

For nearly 20 months, I was cranking out word after word (the value and clarity of which we will not venture to assess or examine at this point) and could count on somewhere around six thousand words per week. The "juices flowed" (strange phrase, that), my thoughts raced, my passions were aflame and my indignity with state of world and national affairs brought forth torrents of rancor and protestations. And, then, as if by gust of wind in the night, the flame was extinguished and the passion was quashed. The Muse had, apparently, abandoned me, as many writers before me have observed to their great consternation and, not infrequently, their relegation to the indignant category of a "one hit wonder". [Quick! Name another novel written by Harper Lee after To Kill A Mockingbird! Answer: there was no such book.] Some were never enticed to return to their art. Their pens lay silent and their papers lay fallow. One never knows whether they will be favored again by the fickle goddesses and all the incantations, heartfelt prayer and tantrums appear to carry little weight with their gift giving. We, those who are writers and those of us who claim to be so are subject to the whims of those who bring us inspiration.

Previously, and since there are many Muses in the ancient texts, I was driven by the Muse one might call "Outrage", for lack of any better name. She brought me clear visions of political skulduggery, the loss of basic and once-sacrosanct American liberties and the greatest evil of all, "government creep" - those insidious tentacles from the City by the Potomac which seek out and intrude into every aspect of our lives. She brought me a unquenchable thirst to understand what the Founding Fathers intended, the marvelous and still worthy debates of the Federalists Papers when men of great wisdom and prudence examined what a central government should and should not be able to do impose on its citizens. She inflamed my very soul to cry out in the wilderness that we, the heirs of great men and great thinkers, were squandering what they had established for us to flourish within. Benjamin Franklin’s words haunted me: when asked what the new Constitution was to establish in America by a pedestrian in 1787, he replied: "A Republic, if you can keep it." We have failed old Ben’s admonition and miserably so.

I was, for some 18 months alight with indignation, frustration and disgust. How had we, once so strong and once so proud, been so quickly and easily led stray? Then, I began to see the roots of the creeping rot that had infected our very nature and priorities: apathy, distraction by silliness and hedonism, and simple disfranchisement from our sense of nationhood. I am not paranoid enough to think it was an organized plot or some conspiracy theory. It was simply a matter of a people revisiting the selfish mentality of the "Roaring Twenties": the good times rolled, the flow of liquor and drugs became a tsunami and fancy cars and fast times became more fashionable than common economic sense. While some of us, self-evidently too few to make a difference at this point, remember all too well how the Roaring Twenties ended and began to spread the alarm, it was far too late.

And, I suppose, as clarity set in, my Muse grew bored. She took flight to set afire some other fortunate scribe (hopefully, more influential and articulate than I) and left me only my own meager words and idle ponderings. And, tragically, they are mere shadows of the passion and anger that once drove me. Currently, I am a literary beggar, cup in hand, seeking inspiration and a purpose. If lightening strikes twice, perhaps I can dream, at least some nights, of a homecoming for my prodigal Muse.

Perhaps, I could just attribute it to "burn out" - we blame so many things on that trite phrase these days - but it cannot be just that. I am still outraged and angry to my marrow at my fellow citizens and the direction they have chosen to proceed. Then again, it might be simply the fact that I have had a number of life changing experiences of late and, adding in the Holidays just pasted, I am simply distracted. But, explain it away as I might, the fact of the matter is my Muse abandoned me long before these hollow excuses came to bear.

I miss her. I still know, in my heart and soul, there is much more to say - shout, actually - even if it sounds a great deal of the time like Chicken Little. Judging from the responses I received from what I wrote (and while favored by my mistress, I churned out well over a quarter-million words), I seemed to have made no dramatic impact on any particular readers and certainly not on anything of any importance within the political machines that grind us all into dust. Yes, we have a new President and a new Administration but I withhold optimism if for no other reason than almost 60 years of experience, witnessing the same hoopla repeated every 4 to 8 years. In my view, the same games are being played out, the same malfeasance is perpetrated daily and the government just keeps intruding and expanding.

Perhaps, the time has passed for any one person to make a difference. I hope not but I think so.