Muses--Calliope:"beautiful voiced"

Muse of epic poetry, she bore two sons with Apollo, named Orpheus and Linus. She was also the oldest and wisest muse, which probably accounts for her position as the judge over the dispute between Persephone and Aphrodite over Adonis (she solved the issue by allowing each to have equal time with him). She is always portrayed holding a writing tablet or a scroll of parchment, and sometimes wearing a gold crown

Muses--The First Generation

Yesterday I mentioned that there were altogether twelve Muses, three of them from a lesser known first generation born of Uranus and Gaia. I was unfortunately unable to dig up much information on them besides their names and basic properties, but nevertheless, I will present you with the first generation, if in somewhat less than their entirety.

Aoide: The muse of Song.

Melete: The muse of practice and meditation, her name literally translates to "practice" or "exercise."

Mneme: I think this one is pretty easily guessed: the muse of Memory.

So for an activity today, if you are drawn to any of these muses, take some time out to meditate. Call upon one of them and introduce yourself. It is generally believed that the muse is the one who chooses when to show herself and initiate a relationship, so it's very likely you shall not see her. But it never hurts to leave a calling card with the maid, right?

Muses--The Greek Muses

"I lost my muse," has long been synonymous with writer's block or stage-fright. It means that inspiration has left us. We can also attribute the term "muse" to someone whose beauty or amiable qualities inspires us to do our best at whatever it is we do. And I'm sure we all know that the term is derived from nine demi-goddesses of Greek mythology.

Most people are familiar the the more popular Nine Muses born of the Titaness Mnemosyne (personification of memory) and Zeus, born from nine consecutive nights of laying together. Some sources also speculate that they were the daughters of Harmonia. But! According to mythological evidence, there was a lesser known first generation of muses, born of Urania and Gaia. The two-generational theory probably stems from a discrepancy in regional mythology, as most inconsistencies do.

So I will use the next ten days or so to summarize all twelve muses. I do not have all the information on all of them, but hopefully I can provide enough to get both of us started.

Random Quote

"The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness."
- Andre Malraux

Letting the World In

You're sitting in your room. The windows and doors are shut, the air conditioner is humming softly, you're plugged into your headphones perusing through the wide web of the internet with a rabid disinterest. You're not exactly depressed; instead you feel a sort of void of emotion, aware of nothing besides the voices which are no longer singing and seem instead to be shrieking unintelligible nonsense and the glaring screen before you.

It's habits like these which make me seem to fall slowly but inevitably into a pit of only secular concerns, neglecting my spiritual life to the point where I seem toforget it completely unless someone should think to ask me what faith I follow. Does this sound like you at all?

We sometimes get to a point where we dive neither into ourselves or into the world, but rather into a deep abyss between the worlds which we never know existed until we climb back out. At this point you have left the world. You have disappeared from your own world and the world of others. At this point the only way to escape your prison is to lok for the world. Pay attention to yourself. Pay attention to others. Possibly the best advice I can give you is to have a conversation with a tree. They are the best listeners and the most likely to know exactly the thing to say.