The Furies

The Furies were Roman goddesses named Tisiphone (avenger of murder), Megaera (grudging), and Alecto (constant anger). They were born from night and they punish crimes on Earth that go unpunished.

Russia in February

We have been invited to go to Russia for a show in February.
I wish I could read this in the original Russian, but here is a translation of an Aleksandr Pushkin poem called The Prophet.

Tormented by spiritual thirst I dragged myself through a sombre desert. And a six-winged seraph appeared to me at the crossing of the ways. He touched my eyes with fingers as light as a dream: and my prophetic eyes opened like those of a frightened eagle. He touched my ears and they were filled with noise and ringing: and I heard the shuttering of the heavens, and the flight of the angels in the heights, and the movement of the beasts of the sea under the waters, and the sound of the vine growing in the valley. He bent down to my mouth and tore out my tongue, sinful, deceitful, and given to idle talk; and with his right hand steeped in blood he inserted the forked tongue of a wise serpent into my benumbed mouth. He clove my breast with a sword, and plucked out my quivering heart, and thrust a coal of live fire into my gaping breast. Like a corpse I lay in the desert. And the voice of God called out to me: 'Arise, O prophet, see and hear, be filled with My will, go forth over the land and sea, and set the hearts of men on fire with your Word.'