Memory, War, Goddesses, Legends and Muses

Nov 16, 2022

The War On Memory

“This is always history's greatest failure, its inability to believe what it sees, what, almost always, someone sees.” - Larry Kramer

For the Greeks, the hidden life demanded invisible ink. They wrote an ordinary letter and in between the lines set out another letter, written in milk. The document looked innocent enough until one who knew better sprinkled coal-dust over it. What the letter had been no longer mattered; what mattered was the life flaring up undetected

…till now.

‘Sexing the Cherry’ by Jeanette Winterson

Before the Gods ruled from Mount Olympus there was a war. The war was between the Titans and the Gods. The female titans went below the ground while the men were spectacularly defeated by Zeus and his army…

As the earth settled from the quakes of battle, the Titannes Mnemosyne came forth. She is the Titaness, now called Goddess of memory.

Zeus took note and lusted over her. For nine consecutive days and nights they were intertwined and from their passion was birthed the nine muses.

Mnemosyne herself and her siblings, of course, were also birthed from the sacred. She, the daughter of Gaia - the Earth and Uranus the Sky - one of the twelve Titans.

The nine daughters are not simply a chorus that symbolize inspiration or whisper into the ears of poets and prophets.

Their mother was Memory.

Her goddess aspect walked upon the earth, and also - below she flowed in the underworld, waters adjacent to the river Lethe - the river of forgetfulness.

The rivers Lethe and Mnemosyne await mortals after death, the souls choose between these waters - most choose Lethe, to forget believing they could finally release their lifetime of pains and doubt and loss and be free, yet simply be reborn without memory flowing through their newly formed veins and mapping their newborn nerves and cells.

“When a woman gives birth her a waters break and she pours out the child and the child runs free.” -Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

Back to the New Gods victorious, and their King of the Gods intertwined for nine consecutive days and nights with Mnemosyne, …from their union was birthed the Muses, one for each sun rise to sun set.

Calliope - Epic Poetry
Clio - History
Euterpe - Flutes/Wind instruments and Music
Thalia - Comedy and Pastoral Poetry
Melpomene - Tragedy
Terpsichore - Dance
Erato - Love and lyric poetry
Polyhymnia - Hymns and sacred poetry
Urania - Astronomy

Thalia is depicted holding a mask - she doesn’t so much whisper inspiration that becomes comedy. She carries, imbues and IS comedy.

Now…let’s imagine what happens on the earth when her mother, Mnemosyne and her waters of forgotten memory are damed; either through neglect or the ignorance of deceit to sustain mortal power.

It is something like being imprisoned. I imagine “cancel culture” - an oxymoron operates like the bars and the guards.

This scene in the same novella I keep quoting both inspires and eludes to I think the Titan’s captivity, on one occasion perhaps, may have gone…

He asked me to shut up. He wasn't a hero.

'Then why should I be a heroine?'

He didn't answer, he plucked at the blanket.

I considered my choices.

I could stay and be unhappy and humiliated.

I could leave and be unhappy and dignified.

I could Beg him to touch me again.

I could live in hope and die of bitterness.

I took some things and left. It wasn't easy, it was my home too.

I hear he's replaced the back fence.

-Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

On perhaps yet another occasion it looked more like;

…Alice being flung into and through wonderland, and there she finds Mnemosyne in madness - overflowing with forgotten memory.

She’s now the Queen of Hearts, The Red Queen, The Queen with her Magic Mirror, The Old Woman and her Poisoned Apple, Titus Andronicus’ Queen Tamora, The Red Death.

I imagine her daughters musing against the strain of all this forgetting; their mother soul sick and the mortal world fabricating - fornicating, and fowl with apathetic grunts, and honks over her lifeless body.

Rhea - the consort of the youngest titan Cronus and a fertility Goddess once again hides under the earth in sights of Zeus’s brothers…

Poseidon, is the God of the Waters, Earthquakes and Horses. His dry land aspect was known as enosichthon and ennosigaios (“earth-shaker”) and was worshipped as asphalios (“stabilizer”).

Many of his sons became rulers of Ancient Greece. Festivals in his honor included horse races and athleticism - spectacular but not mere spectacle.

I imagine when Mnemosyne is captured, we see the festive turn grotesque, while the muses try to strip the forgetful off their mother’s fretful body.

The Greeks regarded the Titans as archaic, and did not worship them. However, Mnemosyne was found within the temple of Dionysus, Athens and more.

For the Greeks, memory was so important and that they deemed and regarded her an essential building block of not only knowledge, but also civilization and creation.

There’s of course a remnant of this. It surrounds us; this war on memory.

Lethe’s allure without the Muses is far too tempting, and far too common.

We will never understand totalitarianism if we do not understand people rarely have the strength to be uncommon - Eugène Ionesco, father of Absurdism 1909-1994