Song of the Hummingbird Muses

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Sometimes when walking through the forest I make very slow progress, not wanting to miss some tiny foliant treasure hidden within the forest undergrowth.

As dancing rays of sunlight search through the shimmering vaults of the forest cathedral, it almost seems there are the windy voices of a sublime choir, angels of nature, permeating that sacred place with song. Who is it that sings with such irresistible beauty, inviting the intrepid into discovery?

I call these mythological beings Zoanthropia Musaicum (“animal-human mosaic�?, and they represent the unseen relation between ourselves and the rest of the natural world. The co-mingling of forms is a way of portraying the invisible integration that binds all living things together into a larger entity: sometimes called the biosphere, or Gaia.

We are beginning to understand the astounding unity of the apparent diversity of nature; someday perhaps we will actually feel the intimate genetic kinship we share with all terrestrial life. We might even find, in that profound perception, the picture formed by all the perfectly interlocking jigsaw pieces of the world’s living puzzle: the image of the true poetry of the world and a knowledge of the destiny of life and consciousness in the cosmos.

But poetry, the distillation of experience to its essential magic, is a mysterious form of perception,often happening, it sometimes seems, of its own deeply hidden volition, and only in accord with its own inscrutable objectives. Where then shall we look for the ethereal messenger that brings the miraculous boon of inspiration?

The ancient Greeks believed that all ideas were created by gods. When moved by sympathy for the travails of humanity, Apollo (a solar diety representing the burning light of understanding) would bestow upon a meritorious individual a precious gift of divine knowledge, delivered upon the wings of a divine messenger.

One of nine muses would fly down to earth and silently whisper a little bundle of wisdom directly into the mind of the beneficiary. She would leave no trace of her presence, except the vague feeling that the new idea in one’s mind was discovered, and not invented - almost as if it was pre-existent elsewhere, and was merely unknown until encountered.

Each muse is meant to represent an aspect of human creative expression:

Terpischore - Muse of Dance, Thalia - Muse of Comedy, Eutere - Muse of Music and Lyric Poetry, Polyhymnia - Muse of Sacred Hymns, Urania - Muse of Astronomy, Melpomene - Muse of Tragedy, Calliope - Muse of Epic Poetry, Erato - Muse of Love Poetry, and Clio - Muse of History. The muses are arranged here in the configuration of their number: nine.

Why nine muses? Well, the root of 9 is 3 (3 X 3 = 9). That is, the root - that which connects the living to the source of nourishment (physical food or spiritual wisdom) - of the nine muses is three: the Trinity. In different places in the world there are different representations of the Trinity. In Hindu belief, there is Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. This is just one example of many.

Of course, the Trinity with which the western world is most familiar is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The bible describes Christ and the Holy spirit as the right and left hands of some Great Mind between.

A symbolic reading of these words refers to a divinity with two complimentary natures. Christ is the physical manifestation and form, objective, and representative of the conscious rational mind. The Holy Spirit is the ethereal will and idea, subjective, and representative of the unconscious intuitive mind. And in the centre is the third aspect of mysterious totality, the transcendent union of the two.

This is one interpretation of the Holy Trinity, and in this sense the nine muses are symbolic of the connection between us, and the divine fire that sustains the cosmos.

The Trinity is also here in this image: the objective aspect is portrayed as feminine - the hummingbirds; the subjective aspect is portrayed as masculine - the phallus-like crimson columbines.

And Nature is the unity of the two, wherein masculine and feminine are merely component parts - incomplete halves that are subsumed into a greater entity - a supra-personal unity of which the constituent parts are mostly ignorant.

And so, like many people who walk too slowly through the forest, I feel like I have made a connection to something grand, beyond comprehension.

Perhaps those little muses have whispered something in my ear...

Author Unknown~