I is for Inspiration

Inspiration is a fiddly thing.

Sometimes it gets talked about as a divine gift, a state of ecstasy that can only be courted, not created deliberately, a magical blessing.  (And many artists of various sorts - I first encountered this as a writer, but I've seen it in other fields - have commented that depending on inspiration to get any art done is a good way to guarantee that no art gets done.)

It's treated as a will'o'wisp, a thing over the horizon that will lead one to the promised land.  Perhaps it's pursued like any other form of ecstatic experience, carefully, within its own time and place, circumscribed by rituals.

There is this idea that one can give oneself over to it and be transformed, that it will lead to great art, or at least something better than the usual Pagan Rhymed Couplet Sing-Song To A Dirge Tune.

Inspiration, if you break it down ...

... is a drawn-in breath.

What you say with that is unspecified.