There’s an ancient Greek myth that it was the Muses who discovered the letters in the cosmos ~ the consonants among the fixed stars and the vowels among the wandering planets ~ and that the Titan Prometheus was also involved. Poets were regarded as those of highest rank in those ancient ages, followed by the prophets and the priests, because the faculty for memory and the combining of letters into words to recite what was called the Sacred All-Embracing True Tale was a gift of the gods.
The Muses were the daughters of Mnemosyne, goddess of Memory, and Prometheus was the god that gave fire to humanity, against the will of Zeus, which makes this god’s role in relation to letters and their poetic combination all the more interesting. In the early 20th century, speech artist and actress Marie Steiner wrote: When the word desires to turn toward human beings, it speaks, of choice, through the flame. The element of fire is identical to its own being. And this, as the ancients believed, was a condition which must be given by the gods.
This week Thursday, May 15, marks the anniversary of the death of the great poet Emily Dickinson, in 1886. The Moon comes Full on Monday, as it approaches the stars of Scorpio, on Tuesday it will sweep over Antares (looking southeast about two hours after sunset) and by Thursday, on the anniversary of Emily Dickinson’s death, it will be a waning gibbous, visible throughout the night as it crosses over the great Milky Way, where we look toward the center of our galaxy.
She wrote:
The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and you—beside—
The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As sponges—Buckets—do—
The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—
When you go out stargazing this week, or cloud watching or to catch the Moon, take Emily with you, a muse whose words are fit for reciting to the sky.
~Mary
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