The Greek poet and mythographer Hesiod said that Mnemosyne was no minor deity, but one of the wisest of the Titans, the offspring of Ouranos (heaven) and Gaia (earth). It was her function to remind the soul of its higher estate and noble powers of reason, proportion and harmony. She was not merely the goddess of recalling the shadows of past events, but the patron of recapturing our other modes of being; of remembering whence we came, and where we may return.

Mnemosyne was a Titaness, a daughter of the first generation of deities in Greece. Her parents were the rulers Cronus and the goddess Gaia.

There are few stories about her even though she is often mentioned by the ancient poets who recount her awesome gifts to mankind.

The goddess Mnemosyne is sometimes credited with being the first philosopher, her gift the power of reason. She was given responsibility for the naming of all objects, and by doing so gave humans the means to dialog and to converse with each other. The powers to place things in memory an that of remembrance were also attributed to this goddess.

The ancients believed that when one died and crossed into the Underworld one would be given a choice . . . whether to drink from the river Lethe where you would forget all the pains and terrors of your previous life (and with them, the lessons they brought), or whether to drink from the Mnemosyne, the spring of memory.

Those who chose to forget had to be reborn, to return to earth to learn the lessons they needed. Those who had chosen to remember were admitted to the Elysian Fields where they would spend eternity in comfort and peace. The esteem in which the memory was held was made clear in the initiation rites of the ancient gnostics, who were required to consult with an oracle.

Before being brought to the oracle, initiates were taken to a place with two pools lying next to each other. They were instructed to first drink from the pool of Lethe, the goddess of forgetfulness, in order that they might forget their previous lives. Then they were taken to the spring of Mnemosyne to drink so that they would remember all that they were about to learn from the oracle.

Once an important goddess in her own right, Mnemosyne is largely remembered today in her capacity as the mother of the Muses, the nine Greek goddesses whose role it was to inspire poets and musicians and to promote the arts and sciences.

From the waters of Mnemosyne