THE PEGASUS PROJECT:

This series of magically animated stories drawn from all over the world is named for Pegasus, the great winged horse, fathered by sea-god Poseidon and born of the slain moon-goddess, Medusa.  Pegasus is famous for carrying Zeus' thunderbolts and soaring through the windy skies. He is also famous for churning up the springs of the Muses on a mountaintop in ancient Greece.

This project is named for Pegasus because of his connection to these Muse-springs.  Although he was mute, he could open up the resources of the earth and transfer some of the power of his and his mother's stilled voices to the voices of others.

Here is how the Muse-Springs begin....

In the dark of night, the frightened, orphaned horse landed on a barren mountaintop where the Muses slept in a stupor.  When his small hooves touched the cold rock, sparks flew.  His feet kept striking the rock, churning up white-fire, sending sparks shooting into the black sky.  A strong, moist nerve-vein deep in the rock was struck by the flying hooves -- and suddenly waters gushed forth, spraying upwards in geysers.  Thirsty, the foal drank.

The miraculous spring would be called the Wellspring of the Hippocrene, Horse-Spring of the Maidens, the Muses.  When the women awoke, they too drank from these waters.  The waters' magic struck sparks within them, waking their creativity, their voices, gushing forth in streams of wonder.  And Pegasus, who had no voice, but could awaken it in others, listened.

From our own dark nights, when our brains sleep, cold, dull as rock, barren, listless, hopeless,  Pegasus still comes to strike the sparks and churn up our depths, allowing stories from those deep places to stream out like healing geysers.  But unlike the Muses of ancient Greece, who were human, the Muses in Pegasus' own stories are from Nature -- other animals, springs and oceans, mountain caves, the Night, pollen, wind......

There are two excerpts below -- these are not animated but the eventual animation will reflect the look of each.  Intended audience is early teens to baby boomers and beyond.

Pegasus (ancient Libya & Greece): winged horse
The Stone Flower  (Russia): goddess of stone, lizards, tree-wands
Vak and Varuna (India): the waters of the deep bring forth an elixir
Umiliana & Verdiana (Medieval Italy): serpents as Muses
Changing Woman   (Navajo): birds, pollen, turquoise, sea, corn
Mountainway (Navajo): owl, mountains, rainbows, fire, wind, butterfly
Rhea (ancient Greece): Night, drumming, cosmic egg
The Humpbacked Pony (Russia): magic, ugly little horse & the firebird
Amaterasu: (Japan): Sun, the Cave as incubation, laughter as midwife

 

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