The ancient Greeks believed in nine muses, and five were for different genres of poetry. I’m not going to list those – you can easily find them online.
Painters, writers and other artists sometimes claim to be
inspired by a live muse, a significant other, etc.
Personally, I don’t have a real-life ongoing muse, but my
imagination has been kindled by various people, writers, musicians, historical
and mythical figures, and ordinary people.
Sammu-Rammat, also known as Shammuramat, and Sammuramat, probably
ruled the Assyrian empire from 811 to 806 BCE (Before the Common Era), as
regent for her young son. It was unusual for a woman to rule in Assyria, and
she had a difficult job to do. Her husband, Shamshi-Adad, had helped his father
prevent an attempt by another son to take the throne. This civil war depleted
the resources of the kingdom, and the Assyrian Empire was weakened. Sammu-Rammat
supposedly accompanied her husband on at least one military campaign. After her
husband died, she defeated the Medes and annexed their territory. She had her
own obelisk inscribed and placed in the city of Ashur. It was the Greeks who
remembered her and later called her Semiramis. There are many stories and
legends about her, but little is known for certain; much of the above is
speculation.
I thought of her when I created my blog and publishing
company, Serimuse.
Singer Tina Turner has been an inspiration to me for years
because she persevered through many challenges and continued to perform as she grew
older. I just found out that there’s a new documentary called ‘Tina’ which
premiered at the March 2021 Berlin Film Festival and will be released (at least
in the U.S.) at the end of this month. Tina stopped touring some years ago. She
is 81 now and living in Zurich. I plan to see the film when I can.
A legion of writers inspired and continue to inspire me,
from Charles Dickens through L.M. Montgomery, Margaret Laurence, Octavia
Butler, Guy Gavriel Kay, Elizbeth Moon, Andreas Schroeder, Lorna Crozier, Janet
Kagan, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many more.
Of course, I also remember my father who died a year ago
(March 11) at the age of 97 and influenced me in so many ways. I wrote in a
blog at that time:
He loved to tell
stories, used to make up bedtime stories on the spur of the moment. That’s
probably where I got my drive to write. He loved to read, too. I remember going
to libraries with him in Germany. And he had a prodigious memory for facts,
whether things he’d personally experienced or had read about.
Dad was interested
in the world around him, the cultures and history of other countries, in art
and music. This began my own understanding that variety is indeed the spice of
life, that differences are not things to be feared but celebrated, and that we
can each contribute in our own ways.
