Memories

I have been going through my old poetry lately and typing it into the computer – right now it is mostly in journals and on random scraps of paper. I have kind of been going through writer’s block, and I am hoping that revisiting some of my old stuff will jump-start my creativity. Last night, I came across the following scrap on memory -

Memory-

the Eye of the soul,

the Mother of Muses

and Source of all inspiration.

Our guide and our strength

through future experiences,

the very Definition of a life.

Hold Her close to your heart,

for once She is lost,

She can never be regained,

and She will take with Her

all that separates you

from the crowd.

That got me to thinking about memories – good and bad – and whether or not I would keep all of them, or cut some out of my mind if given the chance. I have read that the ancient Greeks believed that we are given a choice kind of like that when we die. We can choose to drink from the river of Lethe, goddess of forgetfulness, and thereby forget our lives and all the pain and hardships we endured. Or, we can drink from the spring of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, and carry all our life experiences with us. The choice, I think would be tough for many people. If you choose Lethe, you forget not only everything that was bad in life, but also everything that was good, and all the lessons learned from life experiences. For this choice, one is given the gift of re-birth, a new life. A chance to start over with a clean slate and learn (or re-learn) the lessons necessary to move on. If you choose Mnemosyne, however, you retain all your memories and all the important lessons that they provide. For this, you are granted access into the Elysian Fields, which is kind of like the Greek version of Heaven.

What would you choose? Would you want to forget everything and start a whole new life (I think many people already do this by living in a self-induced state of numbness and self-absorption)? Or would you want to keep all your memories, and practice all your life’s lessons? The choice is given to all of us – I hope we choose well.