Sappho, i've missed you.

flowers in my room!

[I was considering titling this post "Stop! Sappho time!"]

I've been  mentally restless lately. I believe this has been the primary reason for the long, rambling, scatter-brained blog entries, and difficult to follow thought process. I think working on my portfolio is helping.

But still...something doesn't feel right...it's time for some Sappho...

Sappho is my favorite writer EVER, in the history of humans. 

Sappho was:

❦ a woman

❦ she was born sometime between 630-612 BC

❦ she was a lyrist (≈ poet, but it was to be recited with a LYRE accompaniment so -> lyrist...i guess  that's where the word lyric must come from. cool, huh? )  

❦ She lead an aesthetic movement that concentrated on the theme of individual human experience, as opposed to the classical theme of gods.

❦ She was a lesbian (actually, bi) 

❦ and her work describes love and loss as it affected her personally. 

❦ what remains of Sappho's work is just in fragments. this is because the christian church actively destroyed and neglected to copy her work because of its homosexual content. 

❦ Also, apparently she was small and brown (represent!)

[p.s. what IS this ❦ ? it kind of looks like a pepper on a vine. no? i can't tell if i like it.]

What I like most about reading Sappho is that it makes me realize how insignificant I am.  

Just a tiny speck in time

("we live in the flicker"-heart of darkness).  

Just a tiny speck in the universe.

we always say "humans have existed for approx. half a million years" those humans were people. individuals. and all those people have felt these feelings i'm feeling now for years and years and years. (even if my feelings or problems aren't about love or loss, reading Sappho makes you realize,  'if they felt the same way i do about love and loss 

then they probably felt the same way i do about a lot of things'.

I just think its amazing that as much as technology and fashion and architecture can change, human emotions are the same.

It just makes me realize my "problems" are not all that bad.

and really not that big.
(i don't even have any problems right now, what am i talking about? i guess just if i'm ever feeling melancholy or...etc)

if you're ever feeling kind of emotionally heavy, and you don't want to anymore, read Sappho, and then realize that:

two thousand-something-years-ago a lady felt the same exact way and wrote about it. 

Or, if for whatever reason you don't have access to some Sappho...

zoom out of your body, of whatever room you're sitting in, of your town, of your state/province, of your country, of your continent, of the world, of the universe, and look around at all the huge asteroids and meteoroids and comets (and probably alien spaceships) flying around and black holes collapsing, and suns exploding, and all the galaxies being formed and then look back at earth (if you can even see it) and realize how small your problem is. 

its not to put you down or to make you feel bad, its just to put perspective on things. 

and take away the gravity of your problem.

your problem is probably not as big as a galaxy, or the sun, or even a comet.

really now, Sappho time:

1:

I tell you

someone will remember us

in the future.

2:

I desire

And I crave.

3:

You set me on fire.

 4:

As a wind in the mountains

assaults an oak,

Love shook my breast.

5:

“Virginity, virginity

Where will you go when you’ve left me?”

“I’ll never come back to you , bride,

I’ll never come back to you.” 

 6:

Sweet mother, I can’t do my weaving—

Aphrodite has crushed me with desire

for that boy.

7:

Like a sweet-apple

turning red

high

on the tip

of the topmost branch.

Forgotten by pickers.

Not forgotten—

they couldn’t reach it.

8:

Like a hyacinth

in the mountains

that shepherds crush underfoot.

Even on the ground

a purple flower.

9:

The stars about the fair moon 

in their turn hide their bright face 

when she at about her full 

lights up all earth with silver.

10:

…Again and again…because those

I care for best, do me

Most harm…

11:

...but you have forgotten me… 

12:

Of all the stars, the loveliest…

*

[they're just so simple. in vocabulary, in length, the subject. At the same time they are so vivid and profound and timeless]