RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Winter 2004 

CFIDS and the Muse
By Steve Sorensen

The Muse is medicine.

I learned this early in my journey towards recovery from CFIDS. Over these years I’ve come to understand that sustaining our creative spirit is as important as proper diet, rest and exercise. Developing ways to maintain our artistic activities is a crucial part of keeping in touch with our humanity and a vital aspect of any healing process.

Despite the fact that our physical and emotional energy is diminished, we can still lead creative lives if we match activities to our situation. We don’t have to feel trapped by our illness. In fact, we can use it as an opportunity to explore new creative outlets we may not have tried otherwise.

Keeping my own Muse alive despite CFIDS has become a crucial part of my recovery over these past 11 years. Prior to CFIDS, I enjoyed climbing high into Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to explore its amazing backcountry and bring back photographs of my travels to share with others. Although an engineer by trade, it’s my photography that defines a large part of who I am.

Of course you can imagine how CFIDS impacted me. Not only was I unable to hike, it left me with little energy or will to take photographs at all. Almost overnight I lost a large part of who I was. After that initial period of self-pity we all go through, I realized my situation wasn’t going to change soon. I was just going to have to deal with it.

Because art and creativity played such a major role in my life prior to CFIDS, I knew I had to figure out a way to incorporate them into my healing. Over time I developed an approach to keeping my Muse alive that I call the Artistic Pyramid. Each level of this pyramid’s three layers describes a different way of participating in the creative process and the amount of energy required. Thinking about it this way allows me to match my activities to the amount of energy I have at any particular time.

My Artistic Pyramid’s layers are (bottom to top): Enjoying Art, Creating Art and Sharing Art.

Enjoying Art
Enjoying others’ artwork is the easiest way to sustain your creative spirit. As the base of the Artistic Pyramid, it forms the majority of the activities we do. Examples include listening to music, reading a book or watching a movie. Exposure to others’ works keeps our creative side active without draining away too much energy.

For the first several years of CFIDS, I didn’t have the physical or emotional energy to create my own artwork, so I immersed myself in other artists’ work. I used it as a time to explore new reading topics, listen to my increasingly diverse music collection and watch old movie classics. Now I have more energy for artistic activities, but I still take time to seek inspiration from the artwork of others.

Some Enjoying Art ideas you might try include:

• List a half-dozen books you’ve always meant to read and use this time to read them.
• Explore new music genres. Browse local or online music stores or the library and pick out some CDs that catch your eye. Try out radio stations you’ve never listened to before.
• Pick an actor or director and watch five to 10 of his or her films in chronological order to see how his or her artistic styles have evolved.

Enjoying others’ artwork will inspire you to create your own, which leads to the next layer of the pyramid.

Creating Art
Creating art is the act of making something for the sheer joy of it. You don’t have to worry about showing it to anyone; you’re simply making art for its own sake. Although it takes more energy to create art yourself, the pleasure of the act is worth it. This is especially true if you’re expanding your creative skills or learning a new art form.

After about five years of CFIDS I’d recovered enough to begin photography again. Spending time in a local rental darkroom was out, but I discovered I could assemble a digital darkroom on my home computer. This allows me to work on photographs at my own pace.  I even began experimenting with new digital imaging techniques that combine painterly effects with photos, something I never could have done in the traditional darkroom.

Creating Art examples you might try:

• Make a "Day in the Life" book by taking photos over the course of a day and describing them in your own words.
• Learn a new instrument. The recorder or penny whistle are fun, simple ones to pick up.
• If your energy permits, take a short art class at a local community center or college.

Over time, once you’re creating art freely, you may find yourself with the interest and energy for the top layer of the pyramid.

Sharing Art
This is the most energy-consuming level of the Artistic Pyramid, but also the most rewarding. Sharing your art allows others to enjoy the results of your creative activities. It doesn’t matter whether this takes place among family and friends, or in a more public forum. The key is you’re able to share your creative expressions with other people, and maybe even inspire them to create works of their own!

With my new digital darkroom, I began sharing my photographs again with family and friends by incorporating the images into handmade greeting cards. I expanded into making larger prints and eventually worked up the nerve to apply for (and win) a one-man show at a local bookstore. This success inspired me to begin selling my photos through nearby stores, art fairs and online. The importance to me is not the sales themselves, but the opportunity to share my favorite images with those who enjoy them.

Sharing Art ideas you can try:

• Create and mail out a family newsletter.
• Put some of your artwork (stories, photos, drawings, etc.) up on a Web page.
• Make someone a handmade gift.

I find the only danger with the Sharing Art layer of the pyramid is that it can be extremely addictive, so remember to pace yourself.

The point of all this is that we don’t have to let CFIDS kill our creative spirit. Keeping art in our lives reminds us of our connection with the rest of humanity, no matter how crummy we might feel at times. There are easy ways for us to match our artistic activities to our energy levels if we approach it properly. The Artistic Pyramid is my way of thinking about this, but you can devise other methods that work in your own situation. You may even discover, as I did, that you’re heading down new artistic paths you never would have imagined!

Just remember, the Muse is medicine.

Steve Sorensen is an engineer and photographer living in Boulder, Colo. You can see his images at www.bannertree.com. He is now starting on a book titled Creative Sanity: 101 Ways to Keep Your Muse from Going Stir-Crazy!