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.