Tomorrow night I'll be at the NYPL for the Find the Future Scavenger Hunt/Book Writing challenge. There are 100 items to find and write something about. ie: A draft of the Declaration of Independence. One challenge, sample or not, we don't know, is to write your own declaration and get 37 people to sign it. Tomorrow is also about inspiration and how the objects in the library, the past, can inspire you to create and shape the future. So naturally, my mind is on Inspiration itself.
How do ideas come to us? What is that flash, who turns on the lightbulb? Is it a bunch of random neurons firing? Is it one of 9 Ladies? Tonight I'm taking a look at the Muses since I will be spending the night in a cult site of the Muses, a Museum.
The Muses, their concept and attributes, are a multi-layered mystery. There were three, there were nine, they were collectively in charge of all arts and sciences, they had their own specialties, etc. Some say they began as water nymphs. Their cult centers in Boetia and at Delphi predate its dedication to Apollo.I've been reading various texts about Delphi and what was there before Apollo slayed the python. I have a thing for Dephi <3
Varro writes about Three Muses: Practice, Memory, and Song and how they are, respectively, born of the movement of water, sound on the air, and the human voice.
Who's your Daddy? Zeus? Jupiter? Apollo? Since the Muses were worshiped at Delphi before Apollo was, back when Gaia Herself ruled the area, it seems Apollo is out of the running on this one. There are other stories where Athena is involved, Pegasus, more water nymphs...
Funny how it comes back to water time and again. Today, many neopagan traditions look to the west, and water as the source of emotion and, as a friend just reminded me: The Stream of Consciousness. It's all about the water. We sing in the shower, we soak away our troubles in a hot bath...
Tomorrow night I'm going to try to blog from the library during the event! May all of The Muses be with me!
And on Sunday, I plan to continue to look at Inspiration itself and specifically how it was viewed in pre-Roman Italy. Sometimes we have to start with the popular lore, search for clues, then strip the layers! That's my mission here. Maybe it was inspired by The Muses ;)
- "And so, have them for yourself, whatever kind of book it is,
- and whatever sort, oh patron Muse
- let it last for more than one generation, eternally." -Catullus
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