Jan 14, 2015 Music, Original Poetry
The Greek Myth that Influenced Two of my Songs (YouTube links)
By Vijaya Sundaram
Among all the Greek myths, the myth of Icarus and the story of Daedalus always captured me in a way I cannot fully explain.
The image of a young boy spinning up into the sky, exulting in his freedom from gravity, disobeying the voice of reason and caution (his father’s), and paying the price for it, always stayed with me. And I imagined that Icarus, foolish though he was, made it to the sun, whom he seemed to worship more than the moon (after whom he was named by his Cretan mother). Not only that, I imagined that he met the sun-beings who beckoned him to join them inside and beyond the sun. Thus, he, the moon-being, now ascends to a state of grace, despite his disobedience. From these ruminations, a song was born. I wrote this song, and composed the music for it back in 1994, and recorded it with the Indian version of the group Antigravity (Antigravity is the name of the band begun by my musician-composer-bassist-singer husband, Warren Senders. The American version was formed in the late 1970s, and the Indian one in 1985). Here is that song, which I titled Moon Being:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-oaNk3Tp6M
A long time ago (approximately over two decades), I read The Maze Maker by Michael Ayrton, and was haunted by his deeply moving story of Daedalus, told in the first person. I pictured the distraught father escaping from his Cretan captors, and flying with his son towards freedom over the blue Aegean, and imagining him as a bird over the water, staying the course, risking nothing more than the fact that he was flying. He didn’t fly too high, for fear of melting the wax that held his contraption together, nor did he fly too low, for fear of the sea weighing his feathered wings with moisture and dragging him into the depths. I titled the song that was born from this image Bird Over The Water (I wrote this one in 1990, and recorded it in 1994 with the Indian Antigravity.) Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1KIAGcufVE&spfreload=10
Hope you enjoy my music, songs and singing!
Love,
Dreamer of Dreams
Tags: #Daedalus, Bird Over The Water, Compositions by Vijaya Sundaram, Greek Mythology references, Icarus, Moon-Being, Original songs by Vijaya Sundaram, Singing by Vijaya Sundaram
Aug 5, 2014 Current Affairs / General Interest, Original Short Stories
Overthrow–A Sombre Vision
©August 5th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
Gaea was angry, and her rage had built up to incandescent levels, lighting up the skies, pouring out through fissures, terrifying her children.
Too long, too much wrong had been done unto her.
Deep down, deeper than the human mind can follow, in the sombre shades of Tartaros, lived the monsters, the forgotten children of Gaea, who waited patiently, calmly.
They knew their turn would come. It was only a matter of Time. It is the way of the Cosmos. One gets overthrown by another, then, another, and another until the end of creation. After this, it would begin again, but in what form, nobody could know.
A crater blew up far, far away, where the Titans and Cyclopes lived in the deep, deep cold of a frost beyond human ken. Then, another, and another.
Things melted. Plumes of invisible spirits arose into the air, vengeful spirits all, locking arms, high above the world.
The Titans and their children were now the Gods of the Air, triumphant and savage after having been chained within for so many billennia.
And the Children of the Earth, puny humans, proud and heedless for so long, looked up and trembled.
Their time had come.
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Note: What made me write this piece? I’ve been reading too many accounts of the horrible methane craters being discovered in Siberia. I’ve also been reading Greek Mythology to (and with) my daughter, who has been devouring them voraciously. (I remember being the same way at that age!)
Tags: #Original Short Story, Climate Change, Cyclopes, Gaea, Gigantes, Greek Mythology references, Methane Craters in Siberia, Tartaros, Titans