No Stone Unturned (final Paper)

  I was told to be a mythic detective in this class. I thought about it and realized that being actively looking for signs and symbols that lead back to mythology was not the right way. I felt that approaching it that was kind of like looking for love. When you really want love and look for it every where the first person that you go into a relationship with you think you love them. When in fact you had just project so much emotion on to the situation it appears that way. If I went looking for signs of myth in everyday life, I would see connections that weren't really there or that where in fact there but misread. So instead I decided just to enjoy life and when things came to me I took note.

During my time in the class I have had many mythological experiences, most have just been ordinary things that until now I had no idea what the meant. The biggest one I feel is stumbling upon the paintings. I was with a couple of friends waiting to get a table for dinner. We were told that it was a 30 minute wait, so we decided to walk down Main Street. We ended up in the record store, as soon as I stepped through the door I felt that unexplainable pull. I was uninterested and unaware of the things I walked past. I had no idea where I was really going, but I knew my feet would carry me to the place. Down stairs I found an art gallery and I knew I was in the right place. There was painting called “The Doors of Perception”. From a distance it looked as though trees were on fire with smoke surrounding the trunks, and just maybe the ruins of some ancient temple. As I got closer it disappeared in fact what I just described wasn't there are all. Now as I looked at it there were faces. The trees in fact were the eyes, eye brows, hair, mouth, and nose of the faces. In front of me stared back three extraordinary musicians, Bob Marley, Jimmy Hendrix, and Jim Morison.

How could this ever be mythological? Well trees are significant not only in our world, but in mythology. People only think trees are good for building things and fuel, but that is untrue. Trees offer shelter, give us clean air to breath, and above all trees are living beings that love and change. The trees in the painting changed, metamorphosed, into humans. In mythology there are numerous examples of humans being transformed into trees, such as Daphne. This painting embodied everything that Ovid had to tell through words only it had no words. This paint shows in every way possible the change, metamorphoses, that humans and nature under go. It also shows that what you see on the outside or first glance may not always be the truth so you should take a deeper look.

Another mythological moment I experienced was when we discussed how myth follow a particular pattern, Creation, Initiation, and Return. I am an avid reader, in fact if I could read all day and do nothing else I would, but after hearing this my reading world has flipped up sided down and turned inside out. Like most people I have my favorite books, and after talking about the pattern of mythology I found myself reading them again. Sure enough they were there, the beginning, the middle and the end. I'm not just talking how a book is written, but some of my favorite books follow the pattern of myth. I found myself comparing Harry Potter, The Princess Bride, and The Hobbit to this pattern and all of them have it, not in the same exact way. My biggest connection between Harry Potter and the pattern was the return. When Harry sacrifices himself against Voldemort, he ends up in kind of an in between. He can choose to go back or move on. This is his trip to the “underworld” that most heroes of mythology eventual have to journey too. The other books have connections also, but I feel that one should discover them for themselves. I will say though that The Hobbit is the best example of “A Call to Adventure”.

Before having even enrolled in the class I had been doing this assignment and not known it. I have always been a person who though you should “Leap Before You Look”. To many times opportunities fly by us because we are to scared to take the leap. On the rare occasion that we do leap we often have a “security net” to catch us, but that “security net” will eventually disappear. I had a call to adventure and with out a second guess I leapt. Like Bilbo, all I had to do was step across the threshold. I switched majors, this was my “call to adventure”. Many people asked why, told me my new degree was useless, said I wouldn't make money, and told me I shouldn't change because it was hard. What nobody seemed to understand is that none of that mattered, not to me anyways. Sure it's nice to have money, but I would rather do something I love for very little money than do something I hate for a lot of money. Anyways because of my call to adventure, I have learned more than I have in my entire life. Had it not been for my leap, I wouldn't be writing this paper nor would I be able to look at a tree, a book, or a person and now that there is more to them then they themselves know.

Out of all my mythological moments this one was my last. Not last as in never going to happen again, but as in last realization of doing this assignment. This class has changed the way I perceive the world. It has changed the way I have learned. I realize now that this assignment which was given to us months ago, that is finished now, will never truly end. I can't just stop. I can't just ignore the pull. I can't just pull a blanket over the boxes in my mind. This assignment will not stop here, but will continue the rest of my life and beyond. When I look up at the stars I will think of the Callisto and Arcas. Every tree I see will be Daphne, Baucis, and Philemon and every spider will be Arachne. The world is a mythological place, but we have been raised to not see it this way. This assignment may have been given to us just as an assignment, but I see it now as a way to change the future. To tell our kids the truth about the world. The truth is... myth is the precedence behind every action.  

The End happened in The Beginning

On Monday we were talking about Jim Morrison's (The Doors) song the end and how it was talking about apocalypse. I have been meaning to post a blog about a piece of art work that I feel in love with at the beginning of the semester and just haven't gotten around to it until now. Which is the perfect opportunity to do it, because it in fact is painting of Jim Morrison. A few friends and I were waiting for a table for dinner, when we decided to walk down main street to kill some time. We went into the record store (can never remember the name of it) and that's where I found it. Down stairs was an art gallery of some work of a local artist. 

The Doors of Perception

I instantly fell in love with this painting, there was no question that I want it in my house someday. I found this shortly after talking about trees and I found it to be very symbolic. The trees in the paint are much more than trees the change (morph) into the faces of Jim Morrison, Bob Marley, and Jimmy Hendrix. I love the fact that nothing is as it seems. The first time I saw this was from across the room and it looked like some trees with smoke and a forest fire. As I got closer the painting appeared to change in front of my eyes. No longer was trees blackened by flames, but it was face, no it was multiple faces. This is the reason why I like it so much it changed and I saw it for what it really was. 

The artist site: http://www.mangumart.com/index.html

Chain of thought.....

So you know how someone says one little thing and it just sends your brain on a race. One clue leads to the next until some how you end up in some foreign place with no clue how you got. That happened to me today in class. I felt like I was the little kid in that comic strip where Calvin rolls a snowball down a hill and it keeps growing until and then it rolls into the kid at the bottom.(See bottom of blog for comic strip).
     First thing that started the snowball effect was Sibyl or Cybil. I do not know a 3D heart beating in a body that I can touch. I did how ever grow up with a Sibyl however she spelt her name Sybill. She talked, walked, cried, drank and ate like all other Sibyl's however she did it with in the contents the pages of book. If you haven't guessed who I am talking about it is none other than Ms. Sybill Trelawny herself.  When Professor Sexson was talking about the seer who read the leaves that had blown into the cave, my mind instantly jumped to the scene in the 3rd Harry Potter book where the Hogwarts students are reading tea leaves in Divinations class. Professor Trelawny is a "seer" she is portrayed as a poor one or a fraud. However she does carry the ability of the second sight just not on a regular basis, she does after all give the prophecy of Harry and Voldemort and later on the one about Wormtail. This is pretty boring stuff to most, but my mind made another connection. Sybill Trelawny is the great great granddaughter of Cassandra Trelawny who was also a seer. Why is this so important? Cassandra is the seer of Troy. Everything she prophesies is true, but no one believes. When the events happens that she for warns people of, they never remember she was right. Kind of like Sybill people think she is a fraud a fake no one believes, but when the two prophecies she made come true most forget it was her who made them. My favorite childhood book just became mythological it only took me 12years to find the truth....

     Second thing that kept the snowball going even farther than that was the mention of the movie Seventh Seal. I will admit that I have never watched this in my life (probably will go procrastinate and watch it after I'm done writing this). However, about 5 years ago I came a crossed a book series that some guys in my high school were reading. Of course being the book fanatic that I was, I wanted to see what all the hype was about. The series was called Demonata. With out giving too much away I'll give a quick summary of the first book which is called Lord Loss. Grubbs the main character finds out about demons which causes him to go somewhat insane. Then his uncle comes along and tells him he knows about the demons too. blah... blah... blah... the point is this kid who is like 12 ends up playing the Demon Loss in a game of chess for his life. Apparently people were not lying when the said I should learn the game. Playing chess and telling stories both save lives in the end... guess I better get on that.

A room with all white walls- Displaced Myth

It all started back in August of 1994.
   "Now you be careful when you go to college. People aren't always how they seem to be." The old woman said with a concerned look on her aged face.

   "I will Gram. I promise." replied the beautiful young girl.

Girl wasn't the right word though...she was a young woman. The only world she had traveled or seen was in the book and movies, she read and saw. Maybe had she saw the truth, the reality with in those stories and images she clung too so hard she wouldn't have fallen for the trap. But she fell regardless of her Grandmother's warnings, and her own instincts.

With in the first month of college she had her first real love. She did love him and for the next few months everything was good. However, like all good things it came to an end. After their first real fight the young woman decided to drink her problems away...this is where the real problem began. She woke up in a strange place,  a strange house, a strange bed, and a stranger next to her.

When she had realized what had happened and exactly WHO it happened with she was scared. In a matter of weeks she realized that she was in over her head, not by feet but by miles. She was afraid of what was growing inside of her...for what would become of her unknown child. She already knew that normal was not going to happen, not after that night.

   "Sam...I need your help." tears swelled in her eyes as she looked at his face. She always went to him with her problems, he made her feel safe, secure like a dad or brother.

   "I'm worried. Not only for my safety, but yours, my families. You know what its father was, you know what he was capable of... What if what grows inside of me is the same?" her voice trembled.

   "We can't do anything... Not until after you have given birth, but I promise you that what grows inside of you is only half of that monster. It is half of you also, and maybe just maybe your good will ride it of the dark."His voice sounded confident, but he wasn't. He only sounded that way for her benefit.

Months came and passed. The seed of life grew with in her. She found out that she was to have a boy and whether she liked it or not she would have to give it a name. She hated the thought of it, she had to name something she didn't want. Actually it wasn't that she didn't want him, she always wanted children, but not this way and not this one. Daemyn that was to be his name. From that moment on she grew attached she couldn't help it the name made him real made him a part of her. After she gave birth, things went bad again.

She knew what he was, she knew that he was to much like his father, she knew the moment she found him huddled over a lunch box filled with dead animals.

   "He is his fathers son, what ever part of you was in him is gone! You have to let me deal with this, you can't put everyone in danger of his uncontrollable desires!" Sam said his voice was forceful, it made her cringe she had never seen him this way. She curled up against the wall hugging her knees to her chest crying uncontrollable, as he took her son.

She didn't know what Sam had done with him, she just knew that he wasn't her concern at least at that time. Years later she saw a man hunter for a viscous serial killer who targeted young women. She knew it was him, no question. The FBI said that kid was lost in the labyrinth of a thing called the foster care system for years and that he had a history of violence. It took years before they actually caught him but they did and he was given the death sentence. He died on his 18th birthday.

Sam had never returned that night, she didn't have to ask why she already knew. However, she thought of him, that day her son was killed. She wondered where he was, what he was doing, if he had a family, if he thought of her. She didn't know.

I couldn't go back not to face her, not after I couldn't kill him, I couldn't do what needed to be done. I could only hope to lose him in the system to keep him out of public for as long as possible. Short of putting him in some secret, abandoned, underground city this was all I could do. It's been years now I want to go home... I want my son to go home. We have been here too long. I didn't want him to grow up the way he did. For the past 15 years we have been living in the "City of Lights" Vegas.  I have managed to keep a roof over Landon and I's head, food on the table, and clothes on our back. I am a pool player, a good one I can hold my own against the pros, but I don't do it for big money, I do it to survive. I'm worried though Landon is better than I am and he is only 16, fame, money, all of it goes to his head. I warn him that if he goes down that path, it will not end. I was making arrangements to fly back to Washington, when I got the call. He hadn't listened, he got in way over his head and couldn't get out. 

   "Is this Sam Jones, father of Landon Jones?" an unemotional voice rang through the phone.

My heart thumped louder as to answer the question for me "Yes."
   "Yes, it is." I barely managed to whisper I knew what was coming it was said. 

   "I'm sorry sir but you need to come down the the county corners office and I.D. the body."

When I stumbled through the cold hard steel door, to that room, I felt like I was going to be sick. 
There on a metal slab lay his beloved son, he had felt the rush, of fame and money and in the end it burnt him. It was all my fault. I was never the same after Landon's death, I couldn't forgive myself I hated kids even my own nephew I couldn't stand the sight of. My sister unaware how far my hatred went left the her son at my house unattained. When I came back I found the only childhood craft left made by Landon lay in ruins on the floor of his room. The rest is a curtain of red... from what I was I have pieced together,I threw my nephew my own flesh and blood from the top most wind of my house. As he was falling to his impending death he changed into a bird. From that day the bird does not fly to close to the sun, nor does it rest in high place because of the fear of the fall. All I know is that I am room surrounded by white walls, wearing a white jacket and nobody believes me.... 

Under Which Lyre

I found this in a book of poems by my favorite author. It just so happened to be placed right next to my favorite poem which is "Leap Before You Look". 

Under Which Lyre

A Reactionary Tract for the Times

(PHI BETA KAPPA POEM, HARVARD 1946)

Ares at last has quit the field,

          The bloodstains on the bushes yield

To seeping showers,

And in their convalescent state

The fractured towns associate

With summer flowers.

        Encamped upon the college plain

Raw veterans already train

As freshman forces;

Instructors with sarcastic tongue

 Shepherd the battle-weary young

Through basic courses.

Among bewildering appliances 

       For mastering the arts and sciences

They stroll or run, 

                         And nerves that steeled themselves to slaughter 

Are shot to pieces by the shorter 

Poems of Donne. 

         Professors back from secret missions

Resume their proper eruditions,

Though some regret it;

They liked their dictaphones a lot,

        They met some big wheels, and do not

Let you forget it.

 But Zeus' inscrutable decree

Permits the will-to-disagree

To be pandemic,

Ordains that vaudeville shall preach

And every commencement speech

Be a polemic.

Let Ares doze, that other war

    Is instantly declared once more

’Twixt those who follow

Precocious Hermes all the way

       And those who without qualms obey

Pompous Apollo.

Brutal like all Olympic games,

                           Though fought with smiles and Christian names

And less dramatic,

This dialectic strife between

   The civil gods is just as mean,

And more fanatic.

What high immortals do in mirth

   Is life and death on Middle Earth;

Their a-historic

Antipathy forever gripes

    All ages and somatic types,

The sophomoric

Who face the future’s darkest hints

With giggles or with prairie squints

As stout as Cortez,

    And those who like myself turn pale

As we approach with ragged sail

The fattening forties.

The sons of Hermes love to play

And only do their best when they

Are told they oughtn’t;

Apollo’s children never shrink

      From boring jobs but have to think

Their work important.

Related by antithesis,

           A compromise between us is

Impossible;

        Respect perhaps but friendship never:

Falstaff the fool confronts forever

The prig Prince Hal.

If he would leave the self alone,

Apollo’s welcome to the throne,

Fasces and falcons;

He loves to rule, has always done it;

      The earth would soon, did Hermes run it,

Be like the Balkans.

But jealous of our god of dreams,

       His common-sense in secret schemes

To rule the heart;

Unable to invent the lyre,

 Creates with simulated fire

Official art.

And when he occupies a college,

        Truth is replaced by Useful Knowledge;

He pays particular

Attention to Commercial Thought,

Public Relations, Hygiene, Sport,

In his curricula.

  Athletic, extrovert and crude,

For him, to work in solitude

Is the offence,

The goal a populous Nirvana:

                His shield bears this device: Mens sana

Qui mal y pense.

Today his arms, we must confess,

      From Right to Left have met success,

His banners wave

From Yale to Princeton, and the news

From Broadway to the Book Reviews

Is very grave.

    His radio Homers all day long

In over-Whitmanated song

That does not scan,

With adjectives laid end to end,

    Extol the doughnut and commend

The Common Man.

His, too, each homely lyric thing

  On sport or spousal love or spring

Or dogs or dusters,

                Invented by some court-house bard

For recitation by the yard

In filibusters.

        To him ascend the prize orations

And sets of fugal variations

         On some folk-ballad,

While dietitians sacrifice

          A glass of prune-juice or a nice

       Marsh-mallow salad.

             Charged with his compound of sensational

Sex plus some undenominational

Religious matter,

Enormous novels by co-eds

              Rain down on our defenceless heads

    Till our teeth chatter.

In fake Hermetic uniforms

          Behind our battle-line, in swarms

    That keep alighting,

His existentialists declare

          That they are in complete despair,

 Yet go on writing.

No matter; He shall be defied;

White Aphrodite is on our side:

What though his threat

   To organize us grow more critical?

Zeus willing, we, the unpolitical,

Shall beat him yet.

                     Lone scholars, sniping from the walls

Of learned periodicals, 

        Our facts defend, 

Our intellectual marines,

    Landing in little magazines 

      Capture a trend.

  By night our student Underground

At cocktail parties whisper round

From ear to ear;

Fat figures in the public eye

                Collapse next morning, ambushed by

  Some witty sneer.

   In our morale must lie our strength:

So, that we may behold at length

Routed Apollo’s

Battalions melt away like fog,

         Keep well the Hermetic Decalogue,

           Which runs as follows:--

Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases, 

Thou shalt not write thy doctor’s thesis 

On education, 

Thou shalt not worship projects nor

 Shalt thou or thine bow down before 

Administration.

         Thou shalt not answer questionnaires 

Or quizzes upon World-Affairs, 

   Nor with compliance 

Take any test. Thou shalt not sit

With statisticians nor commit 

A social science.

      Thou shalt not be on friendly terms

With guys in advertising firms,

  Nor speak with such

As read the Bible for its prose,

     Nor, above all, make love to those

  Who wash too much.

Thou shalt not live within thy means

Nor on plain water and raw greens.

If thou must choose

     Between the chances, choose the odd;

Read The New Yorker, trust in God;

And take short views. 

WH Auden

Gramz and I tell a story

Once upon a time, there was a kind old grandmother, a daughter, and two beautiful children. They decided to travel to a far off land to acquire some exotic fabrics, to make beautiful clothing for the city. The grandmother and mother went off to shop, leaving the kids with some money to play games. Like all little kids the money didn't last long enough to keep the kids preoccupied while the adults where handling business. The oldest one had a stroke of genius when he saw a bridge built over a wishing pond.

"Come." He said to his little sister, "I have an idea."

They walked to the center of the bridge and the brother said, "You have to squeeze through the bars. I can't I'm to big. I'll hold your ankles, while you fish out as much money as you can."

The little girl opened her mouth to protest.... "Do you want to play games or not?!" Her brother snapped.

The little girl slid between the rails on the bridge and let herself down slowing, praying that her brother would not drop her. Her fingers skimmed the water, as her brother lowered her closer to the surface. After about fifteen minutes both children had a handful of coins.

"We need quarters." The boy said. He then gave the little girl all the change besides the quarters. She walked up to a nice young lady behind a counter, and said "Excuse me miss, but can I get these in quarters please."

The young lady took one look at the little girl with a such innocent eyes and big smile, and said, "Sure Sweetheart."

Out of the noise of the busy market place a sharp voice came "Young lady what do you think your doing? And where did you get that money?"

The little girl look at her mother's stern face and said "We found it momma."

"Found it! Found it where? Why is your hair wet?"

"Under the machines. I was sucking on it." The little girl replied as she grabbed the wet strand of hair and placed it in her mouth. Only then did she realize it was half an inch farther up then she could suck.

"Kids, why don't we go find a place to eat while your mom finishes paying." Said the old grandmother.

The kids followed her to a table where they sat. She looked at her two grandchildren and asked in a soft voice, "Okay, kids where did you really get the money from? Dong worry I won't tell your mother and you won't be get in trouble."

They looked at each other and the little girl said, "We got it from the wishing pond." She looked down, feeling ashamed, when she heard her grandmother laugh.

"You know, your mother stole petemoss from the local grocery store when she was 17, because she was bored. I found it the next day in the back yard, when she told me what she had done I made her return it to the store. After that we just laughed about it."

"What are you all laughing at?" The mother had come to join them to eat. She took a good long stern look at her children and asked "Are you two ready to tell me, where you really got all that money?"

With out hesitation the little girl looked at her mom with a very serious face and replied "The wishing pond. But momma you can't be bad at us. You stole from a grocery store once and you were much older then we are."

There was a moment of silence and everyone started laughing. "Did you have to tell them that?" The daughter asked her mother. "Couldn't you have at least told them about your escapade as a thief, instead of mine?"

"Wait... Gramz has stolen?" The boy asked after catching his breath.

"A story for a different day son."

Stories Over and Over and Over again.......

Stories, we all spend our lives telling them. About this, about that, about people, but some. Some stories are so good that we wished they'd never end. The are so gripping that we'll go with out sleep to see a little bit more. Some stories bring us laughter, some times they bring us tears, but isn't that what a story does, makes you feel. Stories are so powerful, they really are with us forever. 

- Dustin Hoffman

This post is way late, but it's in regards to repetition and stories. When we are little we love doing or watching things over and over. We love playing the same games, reading the same books, and watching the same movies. It's almost as if we would never get bored of doing it, at that time in our lives we love doing it. As we get older we grow old, we become more opposed to doing something over and over. Some people say things like "Different day, same shit." or "Same old, same old." But is that really true? Did they really relive the same exact things as they did yesterday or the day before that? If so, I think you maybe stuck in the movie Groundhog Day, and I would suggest getting some serious help at that point.

The quote above in my mind puts the way I think and feel about stories into words for others to understand. Everything we have done, are doing, and will do in the future will become stories. Stories for us to tell, for others to to tell. Our memories are the story they just haven't been given a voice yet. When we share those memories they become the stories people tell about us long after we have passed.
I love telling stories, hearing them, reading them, and watching them. There is something about them that make me feel. Feel like I'm right there in the middle of all the action, the heartbreak, the happiness, and the sorrow. They have a way of pulling me from reality into the a world of imagination where the impossible is possible.

I tell stories all the time, if you ask my friends I have my favorites that I love to tell. Sometimes I'll tell someone the same story two or thee times with out even realizing that I already told them. To some its annoying as hell, to others they really don't mind. The way I see it is that I never tell the story the same twice. The place is different, the mood is different, and the story applies differently this time compared to the last time. Like a mentioned in class I actually ask my Grams to tell me stories I have heard time and time again because I love to hear them. What I didn't say was as much as I like to hear the story again and again, I love the look on her face when she tells it. I know that in that moment, she loves to tell it as much as I love hearing it.