Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.
Helen Keller
In this week’s Tarot Message from the Muse, the Focus card for the week is the 3 of Cups. 
The Focus card asks a question. In this instance, the questions are, are you experiencing joy in your creative work; are you celebrating your work with others?
Three is the number of the Goddess (Maiden, Mother, Crone), the source of all life and creative energies. The 3 of Cups is linked in the Major Arcana to the Empress, whose number is also 3.
Creativity is often a solitary act, requiring a lot of sweat, worry, work and commitment. But one of the attractions of creativity is its inherent potential for joy and celebration.
Too often, creatives take themselves and their work too seriously. Yes, there is work. Yes, you can feel like the man beneath the burden of the 10 of Wands who just wants to get home and drop his burden.
But don’t let your creative become drudgery. Don’t let joy in the work be left behind in the dust.
The 3 of Cups affirms that joy is an important—necessary—element in creativity.
In your creativity.
So how stay connected to it?
First of all, stay open to discovery and possibility. Remove the shoulds and shouldn’ts from your creative vocabulary. Joy is to be found in new discoveries, new accomplishments, new understandings. So coloring within the lines won’t work here. Neither will playing small. Respond to impulse and whimsy and intuition. Turn the work—or yourself—on its head.
Secondly, pace yourself. Joy is lost when you become a taskmaster of your creativity instead of the committed channel or partner. Take breaks for naps, for walks, for a long hot bath, for a cup of tea on the patio.
Finally, play with others. Another aspect of that 3 of Cups is celebration with friends. I have a writer friend who is working on a project in collaboration with others. The collaborative energy feeds and nourishes her and brings joy back to her writing. So try collaborating. Or working separately together. Or just plain take a break and go have lunch with someone who loves to play, who lifts your spirit and makes you laugh. You don’t always have to go it alone.
Because without the joy, what’s the point?