• Lily Godwin  
• Lily Muse 
• Lily Doll  
• Lily Likes  

HISTORY: While I can't pinpoint her first influence over me, I can say when we made our deal, and that was in 1990 (story at left). Unless she's my Guardian Angel, masquerading as my Muse. Which on second thought could be pretty likely. Never can tell with these spirit types. (Huh, an odd sense of deju-vu!) But ever since I bargained with her I've always felt her presence whether working or not. When we are working I give her complete control over me, and she always delivers. Always with me, always faithful, devoted, Lily-Muse.

Who is... Lily Muse?

Although familiar with the notion of Muses since reading the Greek Mythologies in grade school, I hadn't thought of naming mine until I really needed her. Actually, I'd neglected her since my poetry-writing days ended in the early seventies due to the reality of working-to-survive pretty much killing my idealism. Yet once the story of UNBOUND was planted, she never let go despite the awful days and years we went through together. Even though unable to sit down and write, she still fed me snippets of story, character ideas, dialogue, settings, and I always wrote them down, mainly out of gratitude that Lily's essence still lived, and an obligation to her to help her keep the threads spinning. I felt committed to honor our Deal, just as she devoted herself to our Story. I started to transfer the stickee notes into notebooks, crumpling them up as done, throwing them into baggies. By the time I was finally ready to take her on and start the project in earnest, I had two full notebooks and four or five baggies full of crumpled stickee notes. She kept me well-fed :-)

A Deal With the Creator

At what was probably the lowest point of my life in 1990-91, she finally made herself known, not so much by way of voice, but presence through a vibrational certitude. I just knew she was there; that I was not alone. Naturally it's hard to put in words; describing the ineffable is a fool's game anyway. But the Message I received said that if I mustered the strength to get through the crisis and break free of it, she would keep the story alive and keep feeding me snippets. If I did get through it though, I would have to commit to writing the story, even if needing to sever myself from everything to do it. If I did this, then the Story would pave the way to a better life not only for me, but if I matched the Muse's intent, also make the world a brighter place with Lily's story. She said that all good things would come...

"No Muse-poet grows conscious of the Muse except by experience of a woman in whom the Goddess is to some degree resident; just as no Apollonian poet can perform his proper function unless he lives under a monarchy or a quasi-monarchy. A Muse-poet falls in love, absolutely, and his true love is for him the embodiment of the Muse... But the real, perpetually obsessed Muse-poet distinguishes between the Goddess as manifest in the supreme power, glory, wisdom and love of woman, and the individual woman whom the Goddess may make her instrument... The Goddess abides; and perhaps he will again have knowledge of her through his experience of another woman..." (Robert Graves, The White Goddess)

The story feels as though written while watching a dream, as related by either my Muse, my imagination, my angel, or all three in concert. Ever since seeing my Guardian Angel as a child I've had a strong belief in energy manifesting in different forms of life, spirit, or creatures. By 1993, fully committed to enduring my own torment in order to bring Lily to life, I decided to let her, whether angel, Muse or companion, share Lily Godwin's first name because lily = devotion, and she'd certainly been faithful. But the Muse also adopted Lily Godwin's ways, personality, and persistence, and now I can no longer tell them apart. That's how compelling Lily is, just like our Muse. It could all just be my imagination, or perhaps just be my angel, or maybe my Muse, telling me a story to tell. Whatever it is, it is wondrous.