Sep 25, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT Copyright – Marie Gail Stratford
Word Count: 100 words
Genre: Greek Mythology
The Twice-Born*
©September 26th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I stand, ivy-covered thyrsus in hand. I induce madness, ecstasy or death. I, born of Semele of earth, and Zeus of the Lightning Bolt, stand, uncertain for the first time.
You ask, “Will you help me forget myself? For I am bereft.”
If I said, “Yes,” I would invite your death. I will not willingly take you there.
I kneel at your feet, Ariadne of the Labyrinth.
Come, sip on nectar and sup on ambrosia, while I throw your crown into the skies.
I am Dionysos, God of Joyous Oblivion. And this is the first time have I truly loved.
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* My second attempt at a story based on this photo-prompt. Thanks for reading!
Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, our Fairy Blog-Mother, for hosting Friday Fictioneers, and to Marie Gail Stratford for the lovely photograph!
Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Love, 100-word short story based on photo prompt, Ariadne, Dionysos, Dionysus, falling in love, Flash Fiction, Greek Mythology, thyrsus
Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Reading, Writing, Thinking
Passion or Calmness?
©A Pondering by Vijaya Sundaram
March 29th, 2013
I am equally moved by both.
If there is too much passion, though, I get suspicious. It’s easy enough to weep and rant, easy enough to be outraged and enraged, easy enough to wave one’s hands about and gesticulate fiercely when making a point, if one feels deeply about something. And that’s important, because we need deep feeling and deep engagement with our own, and others’ emotions.
Go on for too long, though, and it becomes too much — one needs a check to correct the flood, re-channel it, perhaps, to irrigate fields, rather than inundating them.
Calmness and reasoned thinking matter. Logic matters. True logic can be married to true emotion. The two can go hand-in-hand. One has to step back from personal response as the sole arbiter of one’s philosophy of life. One needs to truly see. Beware of false traps and circular logic, self-serving interests disguised as dispassionate interest, logic that seeks to destroy rather than build up a good, reasoned, calm, thoughtful approach to a problem, any problem that exists in one’s own life, or in the collective lives of humanity.
I cannot help but remember Yeats: The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.
My definition of Balance: The merging of the Apollonian and the Dionysian.
So, what do we do when there’s a flood?
Build irrigation ditches, and grow food. Feed the hungry, and nourish the spirit. Then, dance, sing and get drunk.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S. I do not advocate drinking (although I think the occasional wine is fine). I like metaphors!
Tags: Apollo, Dionysus, ego, Finding balance, Logic, Passion