I suspect that many people wander through life without ever experiencing a ground breaking moment where everything becomes clear. I'm not writing about a 'penny dropping' moment, but something more overwhelming than that.

For me, a predominantly secular person, epiphany is "a sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something". This has happened three times to me during my life, and the name of this website is an extrapolation and a tribute to the first time I experienced this.


Back in 1987, I read an article in the (now defunct) music weekly Melody Maker about the various bands signed to 4AD. One of those bands was Throwing Muses, 'lead' by Kristin Hersh and I was drawn to Kristin's non-rock attitude to life and her struggles with bipolar disorder. As a result, I bought Throwing Muses, their debut album (not to be confused with the 2003 album of the same name, officially untitled, and unofficially titled Peace Isn't Quiet; although if you visit their website, it's the first album that's untitled, not the 2003 album. Confused?)

If I recall correctly, Kristin called this album 'brain music', and much later said "When you listen to music, it shouldn't be with your brain, it should be with your guts, or your heart, or even your skin". As I experienced Throwing Muses, it definitely wasn't brain music. I remember the first time I listened to it, headphones on, LP on the turntable, at my parents' house sitting on my bedroom floor just staring at the sleeve. It invaded me. I felt so overwhelmed by the power, beauty and terror documented in this album, and I loved it immediately. It became part of who I am. It's this epiphany that I experienced.

Vicky's Box remains my favourite Throwing Muses song, and indeed my favourite song by any artist, period. Not just because of the lyrics, or indeed the fact it's in two parts, with the second part revealing the meaning of the song, or the way Kristin screams "Welcome home" in absolute horror. The clincher is the intro — a devastatingly simple introduction of drums, then bassline (possibly the finest in rock music), and guitar riff that underlies the first half of the song. It's a perfect start to a perfect song.

But I digress. You want to know about ninth Space.

Taken from a passage written by the late German phenomenologist Martin Heidegger, I've always thought upon Throwing Muses as a perfect name for the band. I can't explain the origins more than this, since I haven't seen the passage of text. However, given the experience I had with their first album, my interest was piqued in the Muses generally. Muses have their origin in both Celtic then Greek mythology, where the Muse, the White Goddess, known as Cerridwen in Celtic mythology, was the primordial Mother, the goddess of creation, nature, healing, love, divination and poetry. To quote Robert Graves: "The reason why the hairs stand on end, the eyes water, the throat is constricted, the skin crawls and a shiver runs down the spine when one writes or reads a true poem is that a true poem is necessarily an invocation of the White Goddess or Muse, the Mother of all Living." As Greek society developed, Cerridwen became known as Mnemosyne, who is viewed as the first Muse, the goddess of memory. According to a school of psychology known as 'object relations', a child begins to develop a sense of self when he/she gains object constancy, resulting from internalizing the image or memory of a mother's nurturance and empathy. Without the necessary experiences of symbiotic oneness with the mother, a child is unable to develop the deepseated 'memory' of oneness, which provides an internal stability and sense of wellbeing.

In Greek mythology, there are nine Muses which evolved from Mnemosyne as a result of her liasons with Zeus, although some sources claim three Muses, which then became nine. Each of the nine has a particular trait:

* Calliope: eloquence and epic or heroic poetry
* Erato: romantic and erotic poetry, and mime
* Clio: the giver of fame, rules history, and can be considered today to be the source of inspiration for public and professional success
* Euterpe: lyric poetry and music
* Terpsichore: inspires all dance and creative movement
* Polyhymnia: sacred songs, sacred poetry and storytelling
* Urania: astronomy, astrology, metaphysics, divination and psychology
* Melpomene: elegies and tragedies
* Thalia: comedy, playfulness, humour and celebration

This website serves as a place for recording anything I wish, regardless of whether it may be read or used by visitors to the site. Each post on the site is likely to be of one particular kind: be it a personal or professional comment, something that I wish to rant about, rave or review, or just something I find amusing. In a sense therefore, this website serves as a space where the inspiration of a particular Muse can be documented. Hence the title of this website.