I didn't do it the Gremlins did!!!!

So at some point during the past two weeks of class, we talked shortly about Gremlins. Gremlins are those little creatures known for being most mischievous and mechanical skilled. Apparently they particularly like air crafts. There are many stories about airmen saying the Gremlins cause the malfunctions on their air crafts. Either way when something goes a-rye either with machines or something goes missing one can almost bet they are behind it. 

Earlier this semester my phone charge mysteriously went missing. Yeah, I know what your thinking. You think I just accidentally miss placed it, but I didn't the Gremlins took it! I looked all over at work, strip searched my room, and even emptied my backpack. Nothing! No, trace of it anywhere. So of course I broke down and bought another. A day and a half later I was pulling out my computer charger, and low and behold tangled up in it was my old phone charger! 

That isn't the only time something weird has happened. The mechanic at my work absolutely hates when I work, because every time I step through the door the machines tend to break or act up. It's is unusual if I don't call him once a week for a broken machine. The first week I worked 3 of the lanes went down within 30mins and there was 60 people. At least once a week (and that's if it's a good week) there is a huge break down when I work. 

(a Gremlin in Hollywood's eyes)

Destiny in Disguise

Fate and My Weekend

When thinking about our assignment "go have a coincidence" I though that coincidence just don't happen when you want them. It's not like you can call a business and ask the person on the other end, "Hey, can you make sure I have a coincidence today. It's an assignment for my mythologies class." If you know of a place like that please let me know! 

Any ways back to my story. So my sister (really my best friend) came down. We were head back home for the weekend and I was telling her how out of all the times I have had to drive home, I haven't seen one cop. Boy was I wrong. No less than a mile off the exit was the a Hypo sitting on the access patch of the interstate. Next thing you know no less that 20 to 30 cop cars are between Livingston and Big Timber! Way to go for opening my mouth! Thankfully they were more concerned with the semis going off the road, then they were with people (a.k.a. me) going 5 to 10 miles over the speed limit. 

That wasn't the only time I encountered what would normally be called a coincidence. Earlier in the week I was working a closing shift that the SUB Rec. Center. I was training a new guy how to close and open for this weekend. I was telling him that Ask Us isn't allowed to leave until we close, and on the rare occasion they do to take the cash bag and keys to the Police Dept. As far as I knew this had only happened once in the past 2 semesters. After closing Ryan and I go to take the cash bag to Ask Us. What did we find? Nobody. The lights were off and there was no desk attendant. The janitor asked if I knew where the guy was, and of course I didn't. So for the first time in 2 semesters I had to take the cash bag all the way over to the Police department. 

"There is no such thing as coincidences, just the illusion of coincidences."

- V

Notes Jan. 9-18, 2013

Jan. 9, 2013

• Mythos is stories, fairy tales, fables

• Mythology
• precedent behind all actions

• Origins
• back to the beginning

• Story of Mary & Martha
• only 1 thing is necessary
• biblical

• Metamorphoses
• transformation of Souls
• chapter 15
• story of Pythagoras

• In ilo tempore
• everything goes back to myth

• 3 Divisions of myth
• Aristotle
• beginning, middle & an end
• referenced in Alice in Wonderland the King
• Start at the beginning and go until you reach the end

• Logos is "the world"
• can also mean truth, fact

• Mythology
•  comes from mythos & logos
• combining stories and truth

Jan. 11, 2013

• Sequence of Myths
• beginnings
• creations stories
• middle
• initiation
• returns
• death 
• returns

• King Midas and the Barber story
• Initiation - Pain
• scars
• patterns 
• learning experience
• signals transformation
• where there is a scar there is a story 
• scars are very mythological

• Piece of Psyche
• story of Psyche & Cupid
• Precedent 
• Cinderella 
• Snow White

• Sparagmos 
• Wikipedia

Jan. 14, 2013

• Memory Palaces
• odder & more interesting the better
• allows entire universe to be held with in the mind

• Henrik Isben
• plays
• A Doll's  House 

• Hug a Tree
• take a picture
• Daphne & Apollo
• Adonis' birth

• According to Myth
• everything is alive

• Braving obstacles
• mythology in every day life
• sings, clues, & symbols 
• Call to Adventure
• everyone has their own

• All stories are de-generated Myths
• Contract with the Frog
• Don't forget
• Princess & the Frog
• really a call to adventure

• Mono-myth
• separation, initiation, & transformation 

• After Ovid: New Metamorphoses
• contemporary reality
• Ovid still applicable
• "mythical key to extreme forms of Human behavior
• Holocaust, sexual harassment, suicide, sex change, torture, war, etc. 

• Italo Calvino 
• writer
• compact point at beginning of the World
• Big Bang Theory 
• Ovid's story is of rapidity
• overlapping & high speed 

Jan. 16, 2013

• No such thing as distractions
• always leads to mythology

• Epiphany
• Christian festival
• manifestation of a deity

• Zen to Primitive
• Hyperborean
• Norse mythology

• The Song-lines

• Displacement of Creation Myth
• useful

• Book 11
• Orpheus singing
• Maenads
• Crazy women

Jan. 18, 2013

• Orpheus
• stories within stories
• Arabian Nights
• 6 Levels
• recursive stories
• Theseus & Pirithous
• Theseus killed Minotaur
• abandoner of woman
• Helen
• born out of an egg
• daughter of Ledna and Zeus
• raped by Zeus in form of a swan
• "a sudden blow great wings beating still"
• W.B. Yeats
• Caster and Pollox- Helen's brothers from one egg
• Helen and Clytemnestra- born from Ledna's second egg
• Pirithous
• Persephanie (wife of hades)
• gets stuck on bench
• tells Hercules saves Pirithous
• ripped off part of his tush
• why Greek men have small butts
• Sunday & Cybele
• pg. 278 sing the song of Jove
• pg. 267 Pygmalion
• made a woman 
• fell in love
• to modest to advances
• was she alive or not?
• he called her his wife
• bring to life
• blessed by Venus
• had a baby girl
• Pretty Woman
• My Fair Lady
• George Bernard Shaw
• mythology is the president of everything
• synchronicity
• unlikely to occur together
• no coincidence
•  concept of Jung
• Sisyphus
• push rock up hill for all of eternity 
• Ixion 
• wheel of fire torture all of eternity
• Tantalus
• served up own children to gods
• tantalized for all of eternity 

Everybody Needs Love

Me hugging a tree back home. It needed some love!

             Trees In Mythology

 The Story of Apollo and Daphne 

(Picture to the right)

Once upon a time the god Apollo mocked Cupid. In doing so the god of love struck Apollo with an arrow made with gold and a point. This arrow aroused love, while Cupid struck Daphne (a nymph), with an arrow made of lead and dull point. This arrow made Daphne indifferent to love. 

Apollo fell in love with Daphne and seduce. However, in sensitive to the sun gods love Daphne ran from him. In the end she begged her father, for help. Answering his daughters call, he turned Daphne into a laurel tree. Because of this the laurel tree became very sacred to Apollo. 

Birth of Adonis

(picture to the left)

Once up a time a girl named Myrrha was in love with her father Cinyras. Feeling that there was no solutions to her dilemma, she attempted to kill herself only to be saved by her nurse. After learning the girl's secret the nurse helped Myrrha. One night the nurse told the king that a fair maiden was madly in love with him. The nurse then led Myrrha to her father, where the laid together for nine nights. 

Finally curious about what his lover looked like

he lit her face.  Horror over came him when he

saw his daughters face. Cinyras attempted to kill

his daughter, Myrrha escaped though. She begged

the gods to turn her into another living being. The 

gods herd her plea and transformed her into a tree. 

A child grew inside of Myrrha (in tree form) until the bark broke and a boy was born he was called Adonis. Myrrha was able to give birth to Adonis through the help of Lucina (picture bottom left), the goddess of childbirth.

Sources:

           Impelluso, Lucia . "Apollo and Daphne."Myths Tales of the Greek and Roman Gods. 

New York: Arbrams, 2008. 114-118. Print.

           Impelluso, Lucia . "Venus and Adonis."Myths Tales of the Greek and Roman Gods.

New York: Arbrams, 2008. 184. Print.

google.com (for pictures)

In a World Entirely My Own

Last night I entered a world of my own. I had dream inside a dream. Don't ask what the dream was because it is unimportant. The dream within the dream is the one you should be curious about. 

My mother is taking a friends son out to look at our sheep. They hop into one of the golf cart thing s and take off. I follow shortly after in my mothers car, I'm not driving though. A man is I don't know who it is, but I know he is familiar and that I can trust him. As we are driving to the pasture it is pitch black. In the middle of the road, stood a man dressed in black from head to toe. His hood covered his face making me even more weary of him. My drive starts to slow down  to ask the guy if he needed help. In the distance I saw another man dressed the same, with no houses or vehicles in sight. I begged and pleaded with my driver to continue driving, that I felt that something was wrong. Listening to my pleas he speed up passing both strangers.  When we arrived at the T I told him to turn left, but not to turn on his blinker. I could still see the strangers in the review mirror following us. As we turned left I saw the golf cart my mother was driving in the ditch, my mother and the boy were not insight. Suddenly two people screaming and waving their arms came running towards our car. I told the driver to stop, I unlocked the door and my mother and the boy got in. As the driver sped away, the strangers stopped chasing us. 

I awoke with my phone ringing, with my sisters name on the caller I.D. 

I have never blogged before so please bare with me for the first few attempts.

My name is Cyrill Wend Hergenrider. My name is one that has a unquie spelling as well as story behind it. My last name is of course German, however my family didn't immigrate from Germany. In fact they immigrated from Russia. Now to the story of how I was named. My mother decided that it was wise to let my four year old cousin at the time name me. He was of course like many his age and in the region obsessed with cowboys and indians. My first name was to be Corral, yes as in the enclosure that keeps horses penned up. Wind as though wind was blowing through the horses mains. And I was giving my fathers last name however my cousin thought of it as an indian name, meaning rider of horses. This was a great idea except if you have ever been around little kids their speech is not always clear. My mother failed to hear my intend first and middle name correctly so instead of my name being Corral Wind Hergenrider, it became Cyrill Wend Hergenrider. However, I still pronounce it the same.

I will admit that I am not one of those people who is very knowledgable in the study of myths. Besides the section I covered in 8th grade and high school, I don't know a whole lot. I do love reading them but my true love lies in Fairytales, which according to Dr. Sexson falls under the many definitions mythos. I have the complete works of the Grimm Brothers as well as other versions of their fairytales. I recently just finished reading a book called The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly, and something that Dr. Sexson said about myths wanting to be told reminded me of a certain passage from the book.

“Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, books had no real existence in our world. Like seeds in the beak of a bird waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being. they lie dormant hoping for the chance to emerge.They want us to give them life.” 

- John Connolly The Book of Lost Things