Mnemosyne and Zeus

Well we are expecting the first of our muses, Zeus hasn't changed a bit - still on the road constantly. When he is back at the Olympia we spend time trying to decide on a name looks like it will be Primo. Don't get me wrong every mortal and immortal you know will have a suggestion, it is crazy making. My advice be polite and then forget about them - it is your baby! We have a baby book with names we like high-lighted, at least we know if it is a boy or a girl (but we are not Telling! You, dear reader will have to wait) and have been able to eliminate an entire half of the book. Still no agreement. As you probably have guessed Zeus likes things to go his way, luckily for me, I can be inspiring.

So this Pregnant Women goes into a Coffee shop......

.....and the over-zealous barista says we make a great decaf!
We have all heard the tales of perfect strangers reacting to pregnancy in the most inappropriate manner, to me none is more annoying than the concern over my caffeine intake. As if when you get pregnant all of your ability to be rational goes out the nearest window. Please dear reader note: I readily admit to being extremely emotional from the day I found myself pregnant, however my understanding of what I read and what the doctor says has not diminished. Reading too much can lead to anxiety, do yourself a favor throw out What To Expect When You Are Expecting! I can only relate one tale of belly touching or parenting by the general public, it wasn't upsetting. On one of my last days in NYC I went to the movie with the girl gang. One of our group is an elderly Japanese-American women, Miné Okubo, who spent her life single (actually married to her Art) she put her frail hands on my belly and told me, " your are very fortunate."

Miné is the Author of Citizen 13660, a pictorial chronicle of her experience as, citizen 13660, in an internment camp at Topaz.

Allegorically Speaking

The Muses dancing with Apollo, by Baldassare Peruzzi

Mnemosyne was the personification of memory in Greek mythology This titaness was the daughter of Gaia and Uranus and the mother of the Muses by Zeus. In Hesiod's Theogony, kings and poets receive their powers of authoritative speech from their possession of Mnemosyne and their special relationship with the Muses. Zeus and Mnemosyne slept together for nine consecutive nights and thereby created the nine muses:

• Calliope (Chief of the muses and muse of epic poetry)
• Clio (muse of history)
• Erato (muse of erotic poetry)
• Euterpe (muse of lyric song)
• Melpomene (muse of tragedy)
• Polyhymnia (muse of sacred song)
• Terpsichore (muse of dance)
• Thalia (muse of comedy and bucolic poetry)
• Urania (muse of astronomy)

Mnemosyne was also the name for a river in Hades, counterpart to the river Lethe, according to a series of 4th century BC Greek funerary inscriptions in dactylic hexameter. Dead souls drank from Lethe so they would not remember their past lives when reincarnated. Initiates were encouraged to drink from the river Mnemosyne when they died, instead of Lethe. These inscriptions may have been connected with a private mystery religion, or with Orphic poetry (see Zuntz, 1971). Similarly, those who wished to consult the oracle of Trophonius in Boeotia were made to drink alternately from two springs called "Lethe" and "Mnemosyne". An analogous setup is described in the Myth of Er at the end of Plato's Republic. According to Pausanias in the later second century AD[2] there were but three original Muses: Aoide ("song" or "voice"), Melete ("practice" or "occasion") and Mneme ("memory"). Together, these three form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice. In Delphi three Muses were worshipped as well, but with other names: Nete, Mesi, and Hypate, which are the names of the three chords of the ancient musical instrument, the lyre. Alternatively they were called Cephisso, Apollonis, and Borysthenis, whose names characterise them as daughters of Apollo. In later tradition, four Muses were recognised: Thelxinoe, Aoede, Arche, and Melete, said to be daughters of Zeus and Plusia (or of Uranus). One of the persons associated with the Muses was Pierus. By some he was called the father (by a Pimpleian nymph: called Antiope by Cicero) of a total of seven Muses, called Neilo, Tritone, Asopo, Heptapora, Achelois, Tipoplo, and Rhodia. [1] Though taken together, the Muses form a complete picture of the subjects proper to poetic art, the association of specific muses with specific art forms is a later innovation. The muses were not assigned standardized divisions of poetry with which they are now identified until late Hellenistic times. The canonical nine Muses, with their fields of patronage, as established since the Renaissance, are:

• Calliope (Chief of the muses and muse of epic poetry)
• Clio (muse of history)
• Erato (muse of erotic poetry)
• Euterpe (muse of lyric song)
• Melpomene (muse of tragedy)
• Polyhymnia (muse of sacred song)
• Terpsichore (muse of dance)
• Thalia (muse of comedy and bucolic poetry)
• Urania (muse of astronomy)

This information is from wikipedia