Memory and the Muses

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, that then when we no longer know which way to go, we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” —- Wendell Berry

The situation that Berry describes is a creative edge, the place where the known meets the unknown, where what is and has been realized and understood fades into the possibilities of what is yet to be.

Two questions arise for me in contemplating this creative edge. Where do we look for guidance? Or rather, what are we in conversation with when we reach the edge of knowing? And what is a good way to court this guiding source, energy, inspiration, or wisdom?

The nine Muses of ancient Greece and their mother, the Titan goddess Mnemosyne, offer some ideas.

Thanks for listening and keep the mystery in your life alive…

Transcript of Memory and the Muses

Hello and welcome to Myth Matters an exploration at the intersection of mythology, creativity and consciousness. I’m your host Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide beautiful crazy world of ours, I’m glad that you decided to join me here today.

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, that then when we no longer know which way to go, we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

These words are a poem titled “Our Real Work” by Wendell Berry, from the essay collection Standing by Words, and they have long been a touchstone of mine. They have served as a reminder to me of what it means to be on the creative edge of something. 

I say “creative edge” when I could just as well have said in a state of uncertainty, struggle, confusion. These are all things we might feel when we are in a place of not knowing what to do. Over the years I’ve learned that these situations in particular, are creative opportunities.

I was thinking of this during the recent Stewarding the Emergent conversation about creativity and imagination, and the role they play in stewarding the emergent, in this time of collective transformation. In helping us recognize and engage with new and possibly unprecedented possibilities. Thank you to everyone who showed up for that conversation. It was really rich and I learned a lot from your insight. (If you’re not familiar with the Stewarding the Emergent conversation project, visit my website, mythicmojo.com for more information).

I left that conversation thinking about creative edges and the experience that Wendell Berry describes. Many of us are feeling uncertain in this moment and wanting ways to be with the experience that inspire rather than generating fear and anxiety. This is important work. I think we can see our bafflement and hesitation as part of the creative problem-solving process.

Two questions arise for me. Where do we look then, for guidance? Or rather, what are we in conversation with when we reach the edge of knowing? And what is a good way to court this source, whether we imagine it as energy, inspiration, or wisdom?

I want to take up these questions by talking about the nine Muses of ancient Greece and their mother, the Titan goddess Mnemosyne. The opening words of the oldest texts that we have from ancient Greece are appeals to the Muse. Homer’s Odyssey, for example, begins with the words “Sing, Muse…”

These figures– a goddess who existed before Zeus and the Olympians and her nine daughters– convey an ancient philosophy about creativity and poetic expression in the world, and they are with us today, still part of the language of creativity, still a catalyzing image and source of the inspiration we seek when we try to make something, whether song or poem or story or mathematical formula or community vision, that lies beyond our current understanding. 

When we stand on a creative edge. These are the moments that we need the Muse.

I have much more to share with you but before I further develop our topic, let me tell you about a couple of opportunities to explore myth with me that might facilitate some insights or inspiration or simply be fun. 

Have you seen Christopher Nolan‘s movie The Odyssey? I went to see it this week and found it very thought-provoking, so I’m hosting an informal conversation about the movie via zoom at 6pm MT on Thursday August 6th.

Nolan follows Homer’s epic in some respects and deviates in others. If you’re interested in learning some of the details, sharing your response to the film with other myth-lovers, and discussing the message (or messages) in Nolan’s film version, please join me.

I’m offering this conversation on The Odyssey movie at no cost, but you must register. I’ll be limiting the size of the group so we can have a meaningful conversation. The discussion will not be recorded. The link to register is with the transcript of this episode.

In the last episode of Myth Matters, I mentioned another new offering, (A) Living Myth. This is an opportunity to consider the role that mythology plays in your life, using the lens of Joseph Campbell’s four functions of myth. There are two online meetings to explore the meaning of living myth or having a living myth, today, and what that can mean. The first online meeting is Wednesday, July 29th and the second is Wednesday August 11th. 

Preparatory materials with background on Campbell’s four functions and reflection questions accompany each of the two sessions. 

Again, the size of the group is limited so we have an opportunity to go deeper together. Right now, there are five spaces left. Registration closes July 27. The link to additional information and registration is in the transcript and at mythicmojo.com.  If you would like to think about your mythology and/or the impact of the mythological tradition you’ve inherited, check it out.

Now, let’s look at the nine Greek Muses, divine forces of creative inspiration and expression, in the form of women. When you hear the word “muse,” you may think of artists, especially artists who work with words like the ancient poets, songwriters, and crafters of story.

We often focus on the product and yet the realm of the Muses is better understood as creative thinking. Creative thinking on the edge of what one understands and feels capable of handling. 

Although the muses are connected to particular forms of expression, poetry, dance, and mathematics, for example, their spirit and/or function is actually concerned with thought and the intention of a given expression. To tell a great truth that moves the audience to tears, for example, or to convey the essence of an experience in a way that reveals the beauty of life or declares one’s existence. To persuade another. To encourage new thinking. To make someone laugh.

Where do the really great ideas come from? Creative thinkers of all types often use the metaphor of “Muse” to describe the experience of being in conversation with something, of receiving a download. Catching a glimpse, hearing a whisper, following a trail of bread crumbs that magically appear one step ahead, or holding the end of a thread that leads into a shadowy place with an unknown destination. 

The really great ideas are in a space beyond our current understanding. And the Muse is the figure of a guide to take us there. Beyond that edge.  Excitement frequently colors this experience. An awareness of being chosen or gifted with something valuable. 

I’m always talking about “keeping the mystery in your life alive.” This is one aspect of that mystery in my mind. There’s an etymological relationship between the words “mystery” and “muse.” Mystery is connected to a secret or hidden thing and “muse” derives from the Greek muein, to initiate somebody into the mysteries.

According to the myths, the nine Muses are divine singers who embodied, ordered, and inspired all forms of thought, from eloquence and persuasion, to poetry and astronomy. They were the daughters of the Titan goddess Mnemosyne and the Olympian God Zeus. Mnemosyne, the daughter of Uranus and Ge, or Heaven and Earth, is the goddess of Memory. She coupled with Zeus for nine nights and they had nine daughters.

What strikes me about this goddess is the notion of memory as foundational, collective, cosmic. A constituent of reality that proceeded all of the ordering and civilizing principles contained in the Olympic pantheon. The Titans were a primeval race of gods, the first generation to be born from the first parents, Heaven and Earth, who themselves emerged from the Void in response to Eros, the energy of attraction, desire, and love.

What does this goddess suggest about the invisible realms? How far does the collective pool of memory and/or the capacity for remembrance, extend? Reflect for a moment on the many ways that the past lives in our present and speaks with the future. The way memory ties us to our ancestors. We tend to think that memory is something that we have, a personal mental capacity but The Titan goddess Mnemosyne represents Memory as an independent field or force that holds everything. We’re in memory, so we have memory.

And how about the possibility of an earth memory, a record accessible to each of us and to the rocks, dolphins, and birds. To life forms like the fern plants who’ve survived every known extinction event. Memory present in the star dust and the atoms we exchange with every breath. My friend and colleague Rohini Walker speaks of the “ecological imagination,” a shared field. I think memory is part of it.

There are no myths about a goddess of this age, of a reality that existed before humankind, beyond the philosophy expressed in her origins and daughter goddesses. Mnemosyne is a presence in some stories just as a named mountain is part of the setting in a myth. We know her parentage. We know that she coupled with Zeus. We know about her daughters. All of these describe her function.

The goddess is sometimes connected to Lethe, the daughter of Discord, also known as Oblivion or Forgetfulness. Lethe is the name of the river in the underworld where the dead drank to forget their earthly life. In some stories, there is also a spring of memory that has the opposite effect. 

In reflecting on the power of memory and the effects it has on us, I sense a link to Eros. Desire, Eros, springs from a sense of lack and memory too is connected to longing and absence. 

So, Memory, as a collective pool or field, a foundational aspect of existence, and Zeus, the great Sky god, ruler of all and protector of the Olympian order, have nine daughters. Who are these daughters, the Muses?

During the classical period, the Greeks named nine muses and gave them specific areas of influence but in earlier times there were different groups of muses. The Mount Helicon muses known to the shepherds there, for example, were closely associated with the Olympians and Apollo, the god of music among other things. There were other groups of Muses as part of other cults like Orpheus and Dionysus, and groups of muses that belonged to other regions. The numbers of muses in these groups varied. On the island of Lesbos for example, home of the poet Sappho, there were seven muses.

Poetry was understood to be the language of the gods, and the early poetry was song. The Muses were divine singers. They sang of great deeds and good things. The beautiful music helped you forget your troubles and eased your heart, which is why the philosophers said that the Muses were the greatest gift the gods gave to humankind. The first song they sang was about Zeus and the Olympian’s victory over the Titans, a song to celebrate the birth of a new order.

Here are the nine Muses of classical Greek myth. 

Calliope is the Muse of eloquence and epic poetry. She is the Muse that Homer prays to when he begins the Odyssey with the words “Sing to me oh Muse,” for example. Polyhymnia is the Muse of oratory, and of sacred hymns and poetry. Erato inspires love poetry, the creative expression of love and desire. 

The Muse Clio inspires history and writing. Euterpe is the Muse of music. Terpsichore is the Muse of dance. Melpomene is the Muse of Tragedy and Thalia is the Muse of Comedy. The ancient Greeks sourced the different types of myths and stories, and the variety in tone, emotional impact, and catharsis that they facilitated, in divine inspiration. And finally, there is Urania, the Muse of astronomy, mathematics, and science. 

Do any of these Muses and their realms of inspiration surprise you? I wonder about the absence of a Muse for painting or sculpture. Maybe these weren’t as widely practiced or were seen as derivative expressions of what first emerged as poetry, song, or drama? I don’t know. 

I recognize Clio, Muse of history and writing. My work involves a great deal of both and I’m thinking about the fictional aspects of history, history as a creative reworking and shaping of verifiable events and supposition as seen by a particular historian, through a subjective lens. History is not a given story. There isn’t one definitive version, something that the current campaigns to both expand and erase history demonstrate. 

History is easily harnessed to ideologies and we need to be alert to the agendas of those crafting histories, and discerning in our acceptance of them. When I say these words, this practice of critical thinking seems obvious and yet it’s possible to forget in the everyday flow of information, when we may unconsciously look for validation of our beliefs and are dealing with the increasingly blurred lines between objective fact, lies, and opinion. I don’t think Clio engages in the creation of hackneyed propaganda but what is the creative nature of history? Something to think about.

Decades ago, I received my undergraduate degrees from the College of Arts and Sciences and I remember wondering about this combination. What did the Arts have to do with the Sciences? Urania reminds me that deep study in astronomy and science is a process of creative thinking and discovery, and can be a contemplative practice that opens a person to wonder and awe. The acquisition of knowledge, whenever we go about it through creative thought, can even be a spiritual pursuit when feeling and imagination are admitted as necessary to the process. 

There are relationships between observation, attention, devotion, love. As Mary Oliver writes in her short poem “Instructions for living a life”:
“Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”

Good advice for both scientist and artist, and for each of us. 

In recent episodes, I’ve told you about Ovid, an ancient Roman poet who was fascinated by love and passion as an agent of transformation. Ovid begins The Metamorphoseswith an invocation of the gods. Did he have Erato, the Muse of love poetry, eros, and creative expressions of love, in mind?

As her name suggests, the Muse Erato is explicitly connected to the god Eros. Poetry can be expression of love and it can also awaken the heart to love, which is an action of this god. In her meditation on the Muse Erato, the anthropologist Angeles Arrienobserves that this goddess mediates between all forms of love, and the human and spiritual experience of expressing love fully. 

Eros was a god or a daimon, a natural force that has the power to take over the whole person. Erato reminds us that love is a divine energy that binds all things and all people together. The inspiring power of relationship goes beyond the attraction between humans. It also motivates inward change and outward healing. It motivates the pursuit of a deeper understanding of anything that we love.

I appreciate the reminder that love is more than a personal feeling and that I can channel a love that is more expansive than what I find in my limited self. The Greeks had four forms of love. These ideas have survived and you may recognize them and yet, I don’t think we’re fully utilizing the added dimension and meaning of love that they offer us.  

One form of love is Eros, the drive to unify, the force of attraction, desire, including the desires for procreation and evolution. Another form of love is libido—physical desire, sensuality, sexuality. The vital passions in the body. Another form is philia, friendship or brotherly or sisterly love. The fourth is agape or caritas, a love devoted to the respect and care of others. The love of the humanitarian. The compassionate heart.

How does it feel, to reflect on a Muse for love and love’s creative expression? If you began listening to this meditation with the belief that Muses were only important to artists or artistic endeavors, do you see something bigger now? 

Engagement with a Muse can open a poetic apprehension of life, a perspective that links us to beauty, self, art, and all of the Others, to the gods and the other realms.

 Which leads me to my second question: what is a good way to court the Muse or Muses, whether we imagine them as energy, inspiration, goddesses, or wisdom?

Broadly speaking, this is one of the functions of myth, to offer us images, metaphors, poetry, and stories that awaken feeling and stir the imagination. Mythic figures like the Muses are personifications of abstract notions. They give us something tangible to hold in the mind and heart, to imagine with and relate to over time. 

Although the classical Greek pantheon of these nine Muses is only one version, I like the finer distinctions between the goddess and their areas of expertise that this formulation offers. Merely having a general notions and the common generalizing tendency flatten the imagination and our creative energy. Inspiration is in the details. At the same time, being aware of nine Muses expands the range of possible creative endeavor. Creative thinking.

What do Calliope or Clio or Thalia look like, for you? What feeling do they engender? You can think of the Muse or Muses that you would like to connect with and make or find a touchstone to help you connect with and invoke her. Take up the practice of poets and thinkers since those distant days and invoke her. Speak the words that rise up in you into the room. Ask for inspiration and guidance. Establish a ritual to honor her and open the door, like lighting a candle or turning your eyes to the sky before you begin. Breathe. Open to a conversation with something that you perceive to be outside of yourself.

Experiment with taking one or all of these goddesses as a teacher by bringing her into your imagination and creative process, when you embark on a project intended to stretch you, intended to bring beauty and love into the world, even if it’s not explicitly “artistic” and see what happens. 

Respect is essential, whether you imagine the Muse as a divine energy  “out there” or an aspect of self or psyche. Honor the Muses and don’t forget her contribution or get greedy. There is a Greek myth about a musician named Thamyris. He wrote his own Theogony and Cosmogony, stories of the creation of the gods and the cosmos, so he was clearly blessed by the Muses. Some say that he was the son of the Muse Erato. Some say he was Homer’s teacher, which is why Homer could tell us the story of what happened to him. 

Thamyris, Homer says, tried to rival the musical talents of the Muses and lost the contest. The hubris of his challenge angered the goddess and they blinded him and took away his musical abilities. One could attribute this to pride and vindictiveness on their part, but I think the story speaks to the sacredness of the mystery of creativity and its availability to anyone who appeals to the Muse. Talents of this sort can’t be claimed and possessed by an individual and any such idea needed to be quashed.

The Muses were the divine force that inspired the art and thought that made ancient Greece a particular and profound culture, one that greatly influences the world today. Plato affirms the transpersonal nature of memory, creativity, and what is made of them. Poetry was the result of a divine madness, he claimed. The inspired poet is out of his senses and the mind is no longer in him. There’s a collaboration between human and divine.

It feels fitting that we end today’s exploration of the Muses with a poem but before we part ways, I want to pause to offer a big welcome to new email subscribers: Oda, J, Vicki, and Ralph. Welcome to Myth Matters!

If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website. You’ll find information about the offerings I mentioned earlier and about the mythic mentorship and creativity coaching that I offer. You can also join the email list if you’d like to receive links to new Myth Matters episodes in your inbox.

A big thank you to CBass who recently became a Patreon patron of Myth Matters— Thank you! The financial and community support that I receive from my amazing Patreon patrons and supporters on Bandcamp is so important.

If you’re finding something of value in this podcast and can afford to send a few dollars a month my way, I hope you will consider doing that. You can also help Myth Matters grow by posting a positive review online or sharing an episode with a friend or family member. Thank you so much for your support of Myth Matters in whatever form makes sense for you. 

Now, here is the poem “Remember” by Joy Harjo from She Had Some Horses

If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and life-centered, life-embracing world. 

And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Take good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.