On the Nature of Words, VII: Musing on the Muse

The search for a path through life

Photo: Bridge across the East River at Spuyten Dyvil in the late afternoon, north end of Manhattan. December 2023.

If we come into a right relationship with life and being, sacred words come quite easily, because they already exist outside of us in the totality of everything that is. They already exist; they have always been there; and they ever seek appropriate vessels to receive them and express themselves. This is roughly what the Greeks meant when they spoke about a Muse— although, in the end, not quite.

The Muses were as follows:

Calliope – epic poetry.

Clio – History.

Euterpe – flute playing and lyric poetry

Terpsichore – choral dancing and song

Erato – lyre playing and lyric poetry

Melpomene – tragedy

Thalia – comedy and light verse

Polyhymnia –hymns

Urania –astronomy

Notably, all of the Muses are female; they can give birth to something extraordinary and magical. This begins with the chief Muse, Calliope, which places a sacred juxtaposition of words—the telling of epic stories—at the apex of what gives birth to everything. We might recall there that Gurdjieff reports his father was an inheritor of this sacred tradition.