March Musings

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.