Make Yourselves Poets
The Valley of the Muses is a sacred grove, a wooded sanctuary west of the city of Thespiae, nestled in a cleft on the eastern slope of Mount Helicon, near the spring of Hippocrene.
A verdant valley shaded by oaks and other trees, it’s cooler than surrounding Boeotia, the exposed agricultural plain it overlooks. Elevation and seclusion make it a retreat-like location, set apart from the everyday world, holy ground ideal for honoring the goddesses of inspiration.
According to myth, the Nine Muses—daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory)—reside on Mount Helicon and bathe in Hippocrene, which sprang from the mountain when the winged horse Pegasus struck the ground with his hoof. Each muse tends to her own sphere of the arts.
The inhabitants of Thespiae (“Thespians”) worshipped the Muses by hosting a religious and cultural festival every five years, the center of which were poetry and music contests performed in the theater, where spectators sat on seats cut into the mountain slope. The root of the word Thespiae is the same as that of the legendary actor Thespis, which means “divine inspiration.”
Thespians also held a yearly festival to honor Eros, organizing—in addition to theatrical contests—athletic games and other offerings to celebrate love, beauty, and youthful vigor. Eros for them was not only a god of romance and passion but also a powerful force shaping civic life.
Indeed, Thespians were famous for their cult of Eros, housing one of the oldest known images of the god, an unwrought stone. In ancient times, pre-sculptural objects such as rocks and wood were picked to symbolize the presence of the divine, venerated not because of what they looked like but because of what they represented: in Eros’ case, cosmic generative energy.
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The Athenian sculptor Praxiteles (4th century BCE) was renowned for his lifelike statues of gods and mortals. He introduced greater naturalism, grace, and sensuality in his sculptures and, as a master of marble, was admired for the beauty and emotional softness he expressed in that medium—stunning those who saw his work.
One of his most famous works was a statue of Eros. Unlike earlier symbols, Praxiteles' Eros was likely a sensuous, mortal-like adolescent, reflecting a broader shift in Greek imagination, an evolution from divine force to personified deity. The statue replaced (or complemented) the unwrought stone in Thespiae, drawing crowds of people there for centuries until it was taken by Emperor Caligula and later destroyed during the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE.
Praxiteles’ desire for Phryne, a high-status courtesan from Thespiae, motivated him to make the sculpture. He probably met her at a symposium or festival or through wealthy patrons of the arts. She was his lover and muse and said to be the model for Aphrodite of Knidos, the first major Greek statue to depict a goddess nude, which incited both acclaim and scandal and became one of the most copied statues in classical antiquity.
Phryne is credited with dedicating his statue of Eros to the sanctuary in her hometown. Their relationship was romantic, intellectual, and collaborative. She inspired and supported his work, and he immortalized her beauty and presence in his sculpture. Whether mythologized or real, their bond became a symbolic chord of art, love, and divine beauty that resounds today.
Separated by two thousand years and six thousand miles, William Stafford, a poet in Lake Oswego where I live, described meeting his muse in this poem:
I glanced at her and took my glasses
off—they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.
Stafford links inspiration and perception, reporting that his muse (human or not) teaches him that she’s his “own way of looking” and that when present with her, “every glance at the world … [is] a sort of salvation.” She alters his perception, which redeems him.
Like Phryne does for Praxiteles, the muse rouses eros and animates the world around us, an interdependent co-arising of subject and object, of actor and audience, in the theater of life. We’re not just rough stones rolling down a high mountain, a corner rubbed off here and there until we become smooth and polished by whatever we contact. When moved by the muse, we’re also sculptors whose every encounter is sacred material for our hands to fashion into beauty.
So make your house a home and—through your own way of looking—your home holy ground.
Salvation depends on it.