Ryon's Myths

Closing Statement

2005-05-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

In closing and as my e-journal is finally brought out into the day (high noon) where my deeds and accomplishments as a student are wide open for everyone to see, behold and judge, I would like acknowledge that this course has been one of the more filling classes (fun and worthwhile) I have ever taken at MSU.
This class has awoken me to a whole new world I never knew existed. There exists the world before I walked into the very first day of class, and the world as it is now after walking out of the last class; and they are two totally different places I inhabit.

Before, I had a sense of dread and apprehension about moving off to graduate school (and I plan to leave Montana behind, the place I knew growing up and have lived in almost my entire life) where ever I get accepted (a lot of the schools I’m eyeing are on the east coast), but taking this class has set my mind and heart at ease for when I do leave. It’s just another journey we all must take and venture down.

The first thing that popped into my head in describing what I eventually took away from this class is an analogy I came up with from the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indie and friends get distracted and go on this mythic journey to retrieve a powerful lost stone [the Sankara Stone] that was stolen from the village they end up at in the beginning, so they go on this epic journey with many twists and dangers, which results in the retrieval of this stone to the village it rightfully belongs to. Upon handing the stone over to the village elder, the wise man greets them with:

“We know you were coming back when life returned to our village.
Now you can see the magic of the rock.
You bring back.”

Indiana responds with: “Yes. I understand its power now.”

Its kind of like “yes, I understand myth’s power now.”

An evening with Salman Rushdie

2005-05-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

Caught Salman Rushdie’s talk on March the 11th. I was able to get my book The Ground Beneath Her Feet signed by him.
I was probably the last person in Bozeman to get him to sign something. I haven’t read any of his novels so I really didn’t know what to expect. I had already bought The Ground Beneath Her Feet, but I haven’t read it yet (its on my to do list, among some of the novels I plan to read this summer). Found it interesting that people relate themselves to his novles, to the point where they actually come up to him and tell him they forgive him for using them as material to use (without their permission) even when that encounter is the first time that person and Salman would meet. Says something about the power of myth and how we relate ourselves to a kinds of stories. The story he told us of a film about him [the one where he beats Arabic descendant people with bullwhips, all while drinking hard liquor, and he has bodyguards that look like they came directly from Israel, and how he lives in a lush mansion on a remote tropical island] that was made by (I can’t remember exactly who made it, (the Palestinians?)), was another story I fancied. Its usually best to bring these sort of things out into the light, so that they may wither rather than gain strength by festering in the shadows. He had rather fascinating viewpoints on the middle east and how we are handling the situation (or lack thereof in his opinion). Listening to him speak, I’d love to see him do a show as a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher. Another thing that caught my attention about seeing this guest speaker was his views on religion and how he related to him growing up and feeling and experiencing this desire for religion to take over and control the politics of a whole religion and the cons that come from this.
One thing that took me aback, and made me evaluate (to a point) how people should tell tell stories, especially when they’re lecturing to a classroom of students, is that perhaps the best way to do this is to change it every time its told to add flavor and excitement to the story or lecture. I had some instructors in Microbiology who were extremely dry and boring, and the thing is they tend to lecture the same way everyday without any variety. The best instructors I had seemed to do this without really knowing they were juggling some new things within every different lecture they give. Along with telling a story, this is probably the best way to teach.

Notes 3

2005-05-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

3/29/05

Following Tuesday group presentations
Deb
Allison
Adam
Martin
David

“Myth of masculinity”
Go out and experience pain as new e-journal assignment.
In completion of this new journal assignment; I went out to experience. I didn’t know where to go to get this done, so I went over to the SUB looking for whatever pain I could experience. I did experience some pain, but not that day. I ran across an old flame and learned she was now engagned to some guy. That was pretty much a week after this assignment was given out to us.

Back to the notes for the second test: four archetypes of females/divine
Devouring temptress elementary +/- nurturing
Transformative +/- Wisdom (Sophia)

2. tripartite SF ego
ID
Personal collective

3. Another definition of myth; System of stories and symbols (relates) relates
4. Dream personal: myth depersonalized dream

?
4/12/05

Family Tree
Powerpoint
Scorekeeper
Liar
Music
Movieclip

Music comes from (the word) muses

Homework: Tell someone I don’t know that they are living a mythological life
So, going over to the SUB and library, my subjects I accomplished this homework assignment with were women (for mythological reasons). Their names are: Allison, Erin, and Rae, so I stopped and talked with these ladies and found out their stories, where they came from, why they chose MSU over some of the schools within the states they came from, and what kind of activities they like to do.

There is so much more I wanted to add (probably pages and pages), but unfortunately ran out of time. Guess that's mythological too. As I run out of time before high noon, I guess I'm going to have to leave it at that.

Final Individual term paper:

2005-05-01T01:56:00.000-07:00

For anyone interested in what I wrote about "Where does Myth begin and Reality end?" here's the paper I wrote, tell me what you thought about it:

Ryon Sun Rhodes

Where does reality end and myth begin?

Mythologies

English Literature 210

Dr. Michael Sexson
The importance and prevalence of myth in our daily lives suggests a deep inner need, an axiom of sustenance that cannot be avoided, but must be fulfilled and embraced throughout every day of our lives. The extent to which myth weaves in and out of our consciousness, our everyday routine, fills us with the sense of assuredness that our lives are filled with meaning, and we have a place in the cosmology of things. If myth is the precedence behind every human action, then certainly there is a defined line where an action falls out of human control and ceases to be mythical. Calasso asks the question: “But how did it all begin?” Which brings me to the question that has developed, matured, and stirred within me: how far does myth go in terms of its ability to define existence and what are its exact limits?
Is myth an institution and abstract of the human mind such that once we consider and ponder an object or situation it already ceases to be what it once was? Does the object or situation already cease to be what it once was before our attention and instead turn into something mythological? I believe myth is a sphere whose boundaries lie at the precise limitations of human consciousness or sub-consciousness. Using Jung’s view as an example, we find that the unconscious mind has multiple layers, and within the most basic of those layers, which we never see, are the all-embracing needs and desires of the entire human race (Leonard, McClure. pg. 16). If myth is universal and has common themes that cross all cultural and racial borders (such as Joseph Campbell alludes to in Hero with a Thousand Faces), perhaps we can say that myth is baggage (albeit good baggage) that each culture has carried with it to explore and colonize different regions and parts of the globe; and we can assume that these needs for stories, for myth, are somehow part of us and perhaps a part of our DNA (Leonard, McClure. pg. 17-18). If our genome is somehow connected to our built-in inner desire and need to hear stories, then the implications would be that our DNA, and all the gene clusters and their promoters that instruct where to begin transcribing how to eventually create the human mind (and ultimately define who we are) would be drawn into the sphere of influence and borders of myth’s sovereignty. If inherited DNA helps determine our different personalities and we are living and sentinel beings because of those blue prints, is myth a creation of a predetermined destiny set in motion by our inherited past? If so, the purest and deepest roots of myth may lie within our genetic material. If that were the case, then where would myth truly begin? If we use DNA as an example to define our history, our potential, and ourselves then certain things become recognizable where myth is concerned. If we use history and fact to define ourselves individually and how we as a group of people got here, then we see things in terms of a series of events in history and fact.
Defining ourselves by historical events is similar to evoking myths to describe our place in the order of things. In Myth and Reality, Eliade makes this same point about the similarities between choosing “true stories” and “false stories,” each beginning with illo tempore in either case and leading to the present time. Eliade points out, “the myth is regarded as a sacred story, and hence a ‘true story,’ because it always deals with realities” (Eliade. pg. 11). Interesting, one of myth’s greatest strengths and properties lies in its ability to connect the past, the present, and the future into one reality. By citing a myth, performing a ritual, we are connected to the ancients, to the ancestors; likewise, we are connected to the future generations, the ones who come after us.
If we were going to talk about reality, then defining reality would be in order. According to Webster: “reality is the quality or state of being real; the actual state of things; what actually exists.” There are three possibilities where this boundary between the two worlds would exist, one in which myth is myth and reality is reality and neither of the twain shall meet; they are completely separate spheres that share no boundaries. The other is that the spheres of each must overlap, agreeing upon a common ground. And finally, the last possibility is they touch and meet at only one point; and, thus, they share a well-defined boundary line, but one in which there is no common ground. And so the question is, which one is it, or which one defines and explains both worlds equally well? I’m going to go ahead and suppose that it’s the last. As much as we need myth and as powerful as myth is in our daily lives, the institution of myth is a man-made artifact. It’s an artifact that will be around with us as long as we are here to perpetrate it and give it meaning, but once human beings cease to exist, so does myth. And once we are gone, then it is all said and done, and our story and our myths become an empty shell.
The function of myth, complex in its nature, serves many purposes and is hard to define in a way that’s agreed upon by everyone. On one hand, it seems to be a projection of the human mind on the world that surrounds us. On the other, it defines reality and our place in it. The drive to rid the world of “myths” and replace them with facts is really replacing these images and thoughts with new hollowed-out myths that pass as facts to distinguish what reality is. Which is not to say that’s bad, but as soon as we recognize that, the sooner we begin to understand the importance of both worlds. Once we study something, we’re applying our own frame of references to it.
“But how did it all begin?” That is to say, where are the boundaries of what is mythical and what is reality? Are they really contradictions of one another, or does one complement the other, making the one [the myth] seem like a more interesting place to inhabit, while at the same time the other [reality] comprises our surroundings; whereby giving us the chance to imply and read into whatever we need.

Bibliography:
Eliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality. New York City: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. 1963.
Leonard, Scott. and McClure, Michael. Myth & Knowing: An Introduction to World Mythology. New York City: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. 2004.
Calasso, Roberto. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. New York City: Vintage House. 1993.

Class Notes

2005-05-01T01:42:00.000-07:00

Contd. directly from Notes 1:

Rain conceive. Rain Fertilization of the Earth
Presentation of Demeter Myth.

Pg. 218. Wrapped in deep blue. According to Calasso: “Demeter sat in the temple of Eleusis, wrapped in her deep blue tunic: wrapped in her deep blue tunic: she was waiting for mankind to die of hunger [as a result of Zeus not aiding her/ordering the return of her daughter from Hades.]; she was waiting for the for the moment when the gods would know for the first time what it meant to smell the smoke of sacrifice no more. She wanted to break the life cycle, now that the ‘unbearable deeds of the blessed gods’ had taken her Persephone away from her. Demeter herself had ordered the Eleusinians to build this temple; she taught them the ceremonies to hold for Demophon, the child who lost his immortaility thanks to his stupidly devoted mother, Metanira, “stulte pia.”

3/22/05.

King, Judge, Trickster, Shaman. All male archetypal characters. One of the examples brought up for the male archetype was Pluto as the Lord of Destruction and the Underworld.

Mind that myth is everywhere: next and final group presentation.

Rivers associated with snakes—rivers meander just like one, over time.

Hucklebery—Fin—on the river. Another classic, this one associated with racial prejudice.

Morpheus—Morpheus is the Greek god of dreams. Made famous (at least the name) from The Matrix films (first one had an eloquent quality about it and at least had something interesting to say, the last two sucked.)

And so, did a google search on Morpheus in Greek mythology and one of the websites I stopped by was:
http://www.loggia.com/myth/morpheus.html

This website had a quote from Ovid’s Metamorphoses:
“King Sleep was father of a thousand sons –
indeed a tribe – and of them all, the one
he chose was Morpheus, who had such skill
in miming any human form at will.
No other Dream can match his artistry
in counterfeiting men; their voice, their gait,
their face – their moods; and too, he imitates
their dress precisely and the words they use
most frequently. But he mimes only men…”

Interesting, Morpheus actually has two more brothers, between them they rule our dreams.

Dionysus and Minius: bunch of daughters.

Maenads (sp?) Maenads} Female followers of Dionysus.
Bacchae Bacchae }

The bacchae are associated with sparagmos—the tearing of things and eating of flesh

Enthios--the gods are inside us all, determined by the different personalities we all exhibit, and the deeds we do. That urge (whispering in your ear) is the clout of the gods trying to exert their influence upon you.

Take Dionysus for example, “have it your way then.” Refusing to answer the gods call and or suggestion may lead to trouble for you. Dionysus, although not a violent god, was well known to cause or catalyze trouble to those who refused his temptations to drop what you were doing and go get wild. This often led to conflicting myths against each other.

Hippie—down to earth.

Apollo—a virgin god, also the monster slayer—rides his horse and would even resist the temptations of his fellow goddesses (including Aphrodite’s calls made to him) whenever they suggested the two of them go behind a bush somewhere and get busy. “No thanks, I’ll think I’ll go ride my horse instead”
Shane is one example of a virgin-like (shimmering, white, and pure) hero [played by Alan Ladd] who also rides off with his horse when the main female lead: Marian Starrett [played by Jean Arthur], calls out to him to get him to stay and settle down with her.
Scott Leonard and Michael McClure have an entry in “Myth and Knowing” on the Hero on pages 16 and 17; the separation, the initiation, and the return.

From Ambort (sp?)—another idea of Sigmund Freud.

Female—divine page 110. Myth and Knowing textbook.

Pysche that oppose one another of the different goddesses (Leonard and McClure. pg. 111). Human soul. Mind

Goddesses inside you. Example: all the women character from Sex and the City are representatives through varying degrees of the different goddesses.

Female divine—pg. 110.

Goddesses qualities are inside you.
-Athena-Warrior Woman (Wonderwoman)-also Daddy’s girl (see previous mentioning this).
-Artemis-Lonely Huntresses (aka Diana), virgin goddess of the Hunt and wood.

-Aphrodite-Goddess of love (goddess that makes the furniture move)

-Hera-goddess, Partner in Power (the one who’s REALLY in charge within a relationship/marriage).

-Persephone—Medium mystic, Mistress of the Dead.

-Demeter-she’s the one who’s the mother of us all.

You also see the different goddesses disagreeing with each other/quarreling at times, like Athena vs. Artemis (career vs. nature). You see the different types of woman being portrayed as goddesses, each of them with different personalities who conflict with one another (sometimes the tendency is for the career orientated women to look down at the stay at home household women who want to be there for the children).

Scott Leonard and Michael McClure make mention of these differences in Myth and Knowing textbook as observed on pages 110-113, and how these different personalities are thought of as/manifested as the different Greek goddesses and the conflicts (they don’t like one another) that are created as a result of this. Some of these conflicts, presented by the different dyads, the first dyad includes the extraverted and introverted personalities which is thought to constitute career pursuits versus privacy and one’s attuneness of their bodies: this includes the Athena vs. Artemis; the other dyad concerns power extraverted or introverted: the example would be the extraverted one craves political power while the introverted one wants to find the spiritual possibilities within themselves and others (Leonard and McClure. pp. 111-112).

Perhaps the real or right question shouldn’t be which of the women and the different goddesses they represent are the correct ones. That doesn’t matter, all that matters is what possesses you.

Zeus--light and order bringer
L
\ Extroverts
Demeterç----------------\·-------------------èAthena
Introverts V Dionysus

Male Gods (Male Divine)
Zeus (Up, Sky)
L Thinking
Polis—means city Higher Function

Institution
In ç-------------------·-------------------è Out (City) ß-Sensations
(Mind self)

What all mythologies
do.

V
Down
Ground or the Earth: a lower function; Feeling, people
Environmentalists

Not only are myths precedence behind every action, they are the stories and symbols which orient ourselves to reality.
[And I have written down a shout out to all the Quanternity majors
aka the build your own majors, don’t think very many people ran
to the registrar’s to join up as a result.]

Sky – Light Dyaus Piton

Piton—Father Father Sky Dyaus/Piton ZeusàEus Jupiter Father-- --Sky

Pg. 199 from the Myth and Knowing textbook: There’s a passage from Johnasthan.

Shaman—10,000 yrs.

See yourself from above-ecstasy

Experience of power.

Sky Fathers bring order.

Athena—Domestic Order (sensations)

Blood Freud
Western system (Jury system from this, if I remember hearing right, this WAS the first jury and trial). Again, the story of Athena (the daddy’s girl who chose men over women as being the most important sex in conceiving a child.)

Dionysus (Down) (Thinking)

Demeter (Goddess of intuition)(In region)

Going back to Zeus; pages 186/187.
Sorcerer.
Page 187 Male god

Hero—male character
Sets out from everyday home where he runs into all kinds of situations, obstacles, monsters/villains. One of the monsters he runs into, he fights the guardians of gates/doors

Page 117 on exam.

Homework assignment: Search for two heroes that satisfy these certain conditions: must be born of a virgin birth, must be orphaned, must know very little of childhood, must marry into a royal family, must eventually die on top of a hill.

Looking online, racking my brains, doing various google searches on a variety of mythological characters that would pop into my mind, asking the question on messagboards I visit, I came up with the following characters that seemed to fit the requirements that were established in the conditions given to us (knowing that Jesus Christ was mentioned off the bat in class and dismissed just as fast as not quite fitting the requirements):

Perseus
Darth Vader (this one is a stretch, as he’s not a true orphan [freely leaves his mother at a young age when he wins his freedom to go live with the Jedi’s] and he doesn’t actually die on a hill, but in orbit which I guess is synonymous with dying on a hill)
The Vision (a Marvel Comics character; the one knock against him is that he’s an android)

Gilgamesh, King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Thor were examples of heroes that I considered and googled for but was unable to find sufficient information on them or they didn’t fit the established requirements.

Present. Day after day of quiz.

Group 5 Haitian myths.

3/24/05

Joseph Campbell
Royal virgin, father is king, son of a god, spirited away [Spirited Away, excellent film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, by the way]

[Examples written on the board and talked about in class of heroes that the rest of the class came up with]:

Darth Vader }
King Arthur } & Moses
Perseus }

¨Oedipus-fits the previously established requirements more than anyone else.

Names of books and their authors that Prof. Sexson mentioned or passed around the room during his lecture:
“Tales from Ovid” by Ted Hughes

‘The Trickster” by Paul Radin

“Hero with a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell

“Mythical Trickster Figures, Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms” by William J. Hynes and William G. Doty.

Now, back to Oedipus; the circumstances surrounding Oedipus’s birth is mysterious, and because he doesn’t appear to have a biological father, it is assumed that his father was a god. One characteristic feature of Oedipus was that he had a clubfoot as a result of his biological father King Laius, king of Thebes. King Laius was told by the Oracle of Delphic Apollo that this (his) son would one day kill him, and marry his mother and Laius’s wife. So, being the King, he had his son’s feet pierced by a rope and taken up to a mountain top, Mount Cithaeron, where he had the shepherd Polybus kill him. Well, Polybus couldn’t bring him to kill this baby infant and instead takes him to the childless royal couple of Corinth: Polibus and Merope.

http://mason.gmu.edu/~oarans/oedip-story.html

Upon growing up and learning his fate from Tiresias, he quickly “gets the heck out of Dodge” and walks the country with a big stick [Kinda like Walking Tall] and goes around and gets into adventures, hitting people with his stick as he goes [and girls like guys who walk around hitting people, makes them feel safe], until the day comes when as he’s walking in middle of the road, an old geezer comes by in a chariot. The old man tells Oedipus “get the krunk out of the middle of the road!” But being the stubborn Greek guy, and a guy who goes around hitting people with his stick, he tells the old guy to take a hike. This infuriates the old man, and he gets out to tell Oedipus what’s up, Oedipus hits the old man killing him, thus completing his destiny without him even knowing it.

And, Prof. Sexson tells us these stories as side notes and examples:

Servant goes to Sumaria. Michael brings up the Merchant of Baghdad. The story of a merchant’s servant sees death in one of the market places of Baghdad and gives him a weird look, the servant thinks the look he received meant certain immediate doom if he were to stay in the city any longer, so he goes to his master and pleads with him for advice on what to do. The master gives his servant his fastest horse and so he rides across the desert to Samaria before the sunsets that day. Later on that night, the merchant runs into Death and ask, “why did you point at and threaten my servant earlier today in the market place?” To which, Death responded with “I didn’t threaten him, I was just startled to see him today here in Baghdad, because I have an appointment with him tonight in Samaria.”
This is a story that used to describe “fate” and how it relates to all of us. The hero at times is also subjected to fate a lot in a large variety of stories, where he goes to great lengths to try to avoid becoming the hero [because as we will learn later on, most of us live lucky and fortunate lives because the life of a hero is not our fate] when he learns something is prophesized to happen that doesn’t particularly sit well with him and so tries escape this foreseeable future by fleeing (he flees a lot in stories) and in doing so actually sets in motion the situations and circumstances that will lead him to fulfilling his fate. Here, Michael also uses a guy in the crowded classroom [already forgot his name, but not his face] to talk about fate, about how fate (his own free will) may dictate that this guy get up and walk over to the SUB.

So, both of these examples explain the story of Oedipus and how fate ruled over his life to get him to flee from his hometown (when he doesn’t know and wasn’t told he was adopted and in thinking that his adopted parents are his actual parents).

Moses was brought up in class as one possible candidate for a hero that fits our established list. He was abandoned as a child and was sent floating down the Euphrates, where he was eventually found by a female Egyptian royal family member and raised like he was a member of that family. Superman was another character that was mentioned since he too was an orphan, was raised by the Kents, and again we know very little of his childhood, was sent out into the great ocean that is space (although his parents are named and we know they are not gods, nor was he born of a virgin birth because ahem).

And so, the hero is also a fugitive a lot. He usually has cause to wander after becoming a criminal. As does Oedipus, as does Cain (the wandering Jew, who was spotted in Spain not too long ago in the National Inquirer [or some grocery store newsstand gossip magazine]) who murdered (the world’s first murder) his brother Abrahm and was forever cursed to walk the Earth and subsequently banished from heaven (he was also the world’s first fugitive).

The basis for The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones is based off of Victor Hugo’s “ Les Miserables.”

Did a google search based off The Fugitive and its source material(s) and came up with this website:
http://unchance.net/Fugitive/movie.html

Again, Oedipus’s name comes up as a fugitive in class dicussion/lecture as an example of this male archetype. Tiresias, the name of the soothsayer [recently noticed a version of this character in the film Nausicaa: The Valley of the Wind [another Hayao Mizayazaki film]]

Like in the beginning, in creation stories and the like, the story of a hero is divided up into three parts: beginnings, middle, and the end. The battle of the sexes usually occurs in the middle segment of most stories. In the case of Oedipus, the Sphinx, a negative elementary archetypal female who devours the lives of those who can’t answer her riddle, represents the battle of the sexes. The Sphinx I’ve seen in other stories as well, notably the Sphinx, who devours would-be-heroes, appears in The NeverEnding Story. The riddle that Oedipus solves in order to get past the Sphinx:
“What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” [Doing a google search on the exact wording of this riddle came up with this slightly different version of it “What is it that walks on 4 feet and 2 feet and 3 and has only one voice, when it walks on most feet it is the weakest?”] The answer, of course, being “man.” Found this interesting websites doing a google search based off the riddle of the Sphinx:
http://www.cyberessays.com/English/123.htm
http://ri.essortment.com/oedipusundth_rzl.htm

And found this website in my google search in which the author of it feels uncomfortable with the Sphinx in the story and does a fascinating job analyzing why the Sphinx even belongs in the story of Oedipus:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/sphinx.htm

“But how did it all begin?” After answering the Sphinx’s riddle, the Sphinx has some sort of panic attack, and falls over dead (some accounts say the Sphinx was so overcome with sadness and anger that it just leaps over the high wall of the gate its guarding, killing itself). An so, the people of Thebes who was shut off from the outside world because of the Sphinx all celebrate, they take Oedipus onto their shoulders, start parading him all over town (and all the kids start sharing candy and such), and make him their king as their old king was mysteriously killed. Making him their king, he marries his mother Jocasta.
But the story doesn’t end here, as Tiresias, the blind seer tells the people of Thebes that there’s a traitor and murderer in their midst. Oedipus responds with “Well this won’t stand, we’re going to find out who it is,” [“I am not a crook”] as so begins the world’s first detective story. Being an intelligent guy [who answered the Sphinx’s riddle without blinking while all the others failed and were eaten as a result], he goes around the city and country interrogating people to find out the truth. Finally, he comes upon the shepherd who was supposed to kill him on Mount Cithaeron, but eventually rescued him. So, upon learning he did kill the old king and his father, he goes and pokes his eyes out while Jocasta kills herself when she learns she laid with her son.

Father & son, son tries to atone with father a lot in other stories.
“William Blake” Johnny Depp played this guy which is similar to the above story.

Sophie Loren
Eva Gardiner
"The Dark Side"

The story of Tiresias [the origin of Tyrannosaurus rex] is another similar interesting tale, of which Tiresias is blinded by Athena by offending her when after five years of being a woman and doing nothing but getting her/his groove on, he is to do the same as a man for 5 years and at the end of those 10 years, he is supposed to report back to Athena. Upon telling her that if a scale of 10 were applied to this and divided among men and women, then women would enjoy sex with a rating of 9 and men would enjoy it at a 1. She blinds him, and as a result goes to complain to Zeus and after listening to him crying/complaining of what she did to him, Zeus tells Tiresias “I’m sorry, but what’s done is done.” As result of this, the ability to foresee the future was bestowed upon him.

Class notes

2005-04-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

2/25/05
Power to move people when they themselves are unmoved (in reference to the ability of women to control men)

Goddess
Archetypes- psychological pattern
Stereotype- sociological pattern
St. Paul should not do certain things
--honor thy husband
--head covered
--Keep mouth shut.

Elementary (sense of female)
--Depth
Freud
Jung
Deeps of ht mind subconscious
Elektra—Daddy complex by women

Eventually ID over boils past Ego & Superego layers
It’ll be bad
Superego: attic, the unconscious (The angel and devil that sits on your shoulders with the angel saying “don’t do it, it’ll be bad” and the devil that responds with “let me show you the side that rocks!”)
Ego: house ßPersonality of side you show the rest of the world
ID: basement ßLibido (thanatos, the death instinct), Bad for Social Standing

Google search found:
http://peace.saumag.edu/faculty/Kardas/Courses/GPWeiten/C12Personality/EgoIDSuper.

Did a google search on Sirius, the star that used to be the dog, Maera; who was Erigone’s companion
http://www.members.aol.com/puffindog/canis.html

Found the mention of Erigone’s tragedy, along with Maera’s tragedy in “The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony”; as it pertained to what happened to Erigone’s father: Icarius, after Icarius shared some of his new drink (wine) to a group of shepherds that he met upon his path to Attica (and his subsequent murder at the hands of these shepherds who thought the old geezer was messing with them).
These paragraphs that reference Icarius and his acquisition of wine from Dionysus’s, the slaying of the goat that wandered into his vineyard and had started to eat his grapes, and origin of tragedy by killing, skinning, and mockingly dancing on skin of that goat (the scapegoat) completely caught me off guard/took me aback.
I unexpectedly came across what I SUSPECT is a reference to Icarius, Erigone, and Maera’s mythological story (the origin of tragedy) and how it relates to what’s going on in a song entitled “The Stone” by Dave Matthews Band that was played in concert at Meadows Music Theatre, CT on 8/27/00. (Coincidentally, this is one of the songs I imagine Orpheus playing on his way through the underworld, past Cerebeus, past the furies, past the rest of the underworld’s defenses on his way to his ultimate meeting with Hades and his departed love: Eurydice) The reference I found is at the end of that song, where Dave usually adds something new each time its played live. In a way that kinda adds on to the sense of profound loss (a tragedy) that the song is about, or continues the story where the established lyrics left off. At times, the singer for this group is hard to make out at times, especially here, but it sounds like he’s singing more towards the end: “Looking up, looking up at the stars. Looking, looking up at the star’s light above the night [something I can’t make out]. [Some more things I can’t quite make out] let them all fall down. Let the dog fall down…with all little hope.”
Anyone interested in a copy of this live version, I'd be happy to email them it. Ryons@montana.edu

(Continued from Freud’s three personality aspects before I went off on a tangent) Fantasy—Fantasies is one way stream is let loose
Dreams—Ways in which sub-consciousness expresses itself.
Sexual Symbolism—Freud, in dreams
Freud was the great constructor of the modern mind.

Jung—store box of memories
Had a dream where he (Jung) found himself in a house and within that house he found a trap door that lead something into the ground. Upon opening that hidden trap door, he found a basement room filled with routine objects, and another hidden trap door. After opening that door up and exploring to see what was in the next level, found other basement rooms with similar trap doors. After continuing this for a while, came upon a trap door that lead to a winding stair case that lead to a room filled with all kinds of antiquated objects, really ancient vases, tapestries, and other objects what have you. When he woke up and following analysis of the dream he just had, figured out what his dream meant.

Psyche—soul, mind.

Jung—believed in collective conscious “Archetypes of Collective conscious”
The archetype is ancient.
Found in dreams, fairy tales, fantasies, and myths.

Joseph Campbell
--Dream is a personalized myth
Myth is depersonalized myth. (Dr. Sexson’s collections of people’s dreams (teenage girls) which span 20 years back this claim up)

Freud: events People
Quest

Elementary: + and - Transformative: + and –
3/1/05
New e-journal assignment from each class period google some term that or idea taken from class, each class period.

Google these terms: {Archetypal Feminine
{Collective unconsciousness
Performed a google search for “Archetypal Female and came up with this website:
http://ets.uop.edu/humanities/journal/beowulf.pdf
Also found these goodies:
http://www.essences.com/vibration/feb02/archeypes.html
http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/dial/oz/FEMHEROx.htm

As for the Collective unconsciousness:
http://eyelight.webservepro.com/PQR/prhi.html
And:
http://www.harvardindependent.com/news/2002/02/28/Arts/The-Collective.Conscious-192979.shtml

Pages: 110-120 Earth Mother
Elementary {+Nourishing Feeding mother; Magna
{- “Smother mother,” Negative, elementary death mother
(As an aside, the first character that popped into my mind in class that fits this definition of the negative elementary female is “Dark Phoenix,” an X-Men comic book character. “I am fire and life incarnate”). When she’s bad, she’s bad.
Did a google search for her and came up with this website
for anyone wondering who she was:
http://www.apricot.com/~phoenix/dp.htm

Mrs. Grimes in “Death in the Woods” where Mrs. Grimes on her way back from buying groceries unexpectedly dies in the woods, and her dogs that are with her stay with her. The person (a kid) that ends up finding her is caught off guard by the display he sees upon finding her corpse; in such as she’s the nourishing mother to her family and to her dogs. Happening on this scene, the kid suddenly realizes something important is being conveyed, but is unable to put a finger on it.

“Ulysses ” and “The Night Sea Jerkey”

Material Cosmos Epic “The Great Mother”
Pg. 114 Cut the umbilical to the mother.

Full figured woman universal symbol ideal of beauty/feeding nourishing mother (very much like all the big momma’s in the book that Dr. Sexson flipped through as he walked around showing the class those pictures.

Steatopygic: defined at dictionary.com as:

Mothers of tombs
Queens of the underworld--à Greek, Sumerian

Where male is subordinate to the female

Sarcophagi: --Eater of the person, coffin
She gave birth to you, now she’s going to eat you up.
She is able to control seasonal cycle
The resurrected brother caused the flooding of the Nile.

Egyptian goddess that brought beheaded brother back resulting in flood of Nile.
Eratia

Pg. 118: Lilith was Adam’s first wife, was evil and not subordinate “Coeval and coequal with him. But Lilith soon rejected Adam, who had the temerity to suggest she lie under him during intercourse”, did rule over Adam. She tickled her victim’s feet before strangling them. “Lilith, like Isis, was said once to have tricked the Supreme Being/Deity into revealing his/her secret name to her (Lilith), thereby giving her ultimate magical powers.”

Elementary {+
{- Devouring mother

Freud says we need to get rid of our demons “ID
ID where ego is
Violent behavior

Jung—need to get to know them (our inner demons), confront them, and acknowledge that they’re there. Otherwise, it makes them happy we ignore/forget them.

Individuation
Psychological element to confront demons to achieve wholeness.

Dante “Divine Comedy”

Trans {+ - Platonic ideal} adoring attitude by Greeks
{Sophia
{
{- Temptress, Beautiful, Devil in red dress, she draws you in and destroys your life.

Seen a lot in film genre: “Noir” dark, Detective or Private I. stories all alike
/vocab/ the film: “Feminine Fatale”

Homework: Clostile
A constellation Ursa major; Ursa minor
How did these constellations get placed into the night sky?
Found on page 164.

Belt of paper hands
Transition poster
--Hell
--Wiseman

3/8/05
Disgusting Characters
Account of Salman Rushdie on website extra credit

Treasures of the Gods group 1
Moai group 2
Prometheus group 3

Mine group (group 5)-à Raven steals the light
April 4th
Huron and the sea of stories

Actaeon: Was a 17-year-old Greek boy, who while walking through the wood with his pack of hunting dogs after a long day of hunting, happened upon Diana bathing naked within her secret bathing cave. Like what any 17-year-old boy would do, he stops what he’s doing to ogle at her. She notices what he’s doing, and despite the cry and attempts of her nymphs and dryads to cover her up, she motions them to cease their actions and to let Actaeon look upon her. As he does so, she reaches into the pool of water she’s in and flicks some droplets at Actaeon, hitting him at two spots on his forehead. There, where the droplets hit, great horns started to grow and Actaeon was transformed into a great stag. After his transformation was complete, Diana said to him “Now you are free to tell that you have seen me all unrobed—if you can tell.” [Ovid’s Metamorphoses 3.192] And upon uttering these words, Diana fills Actaeon with fear, and so he flees. In fleeing, he draws the attention of his hunting dogs. After a long chase, they catch him and dig their fangs into his flesh—sparagmos—ripping his living flesh to shreds.

Found this webpage documenting this myth online after doing a google search:
http://www.Homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Actaeon.html

Diana, virgin goddess of the wood, she transitions virgins into motherhood, is the cause of death during childbirth. Is also one of the more vicious goddesses, especially in protecting her virginity. Seen what should not be seen.

Pelee—son-in-law

Ugly-à Bewitched
Destruction=creation
Prime--à suicide
-----à Resurrection
Dead (again)

Sembele.

White Buffalo Calf Woman, almost sounds like the same/similar individual as Sky Woman, Changing Woman.
--giving
---Culture bringer
----Brings the sacred pipe to the Lakota.
“With visible breath I walk.
Towards a Nation I walk.
With visible voice I walk.
Something Ancient, Holy and Red
I bring.
I am walking towards a Nation”
Joseph Epes Brown - "The Sacred Pipe"

---Buffalo
Tobacco

/Nanna
Son-lover

---Inanna and Dumuzi (The world’s first love story)
---Shepherd
---Sexual metaphor
Hieros gamos

Did a google search on hieros gamos. Here’s one of the interesting websites I came across:
http://www.widdershins.org/vol5iss4/06.htm

Taste of Earth: Mum
Dragon marriage custom & language.

V
Venting Earth
Narcissist flower, the flower that Kore was picking before she was plucked away by Hades.

Gnostics. Once you taste the earth, you can’t go back. Similar to Persephone eating a pomegranate and having to stay in the underworld.

Prognostic ß--Knowledge

The first love Stories from Isis and Osiris
To Tristan and Iseult
Diane Wolkstein

3/10/05
Chapter 7 in Calasso
Kali
Story of samsara
Kali starts out as perfect, but is beheaded because the gods think she is too perfect. Her body and head are cast down into the abyss of hell.

She is reconstituted
Head goddess
Body of a prostitute
Danced on bodies
Sage: The sage (played by me, having stayed up and spent most of the night memorizing those lines, until I got up in-front of the class and forgot them anyway). Kali was filled with desire and regret until she came across the old sage.

Gnostic
Pistts Sophie

Chaos is not primary
Blind God Samdek (sp?)
Adam Created by
Demiurge ß------------------------------Eve is primary

Mt. Macrode (sp?) in Egypt
Male is more important than Female

Illo Tempore, there was a great trial to determine once and for all which sex was the most important in the creation of a child. The father, whose seed creates the child [and who decides the sex], or the mother who houses it in her womb and who gives birth to the child. Athena, who was a member of the jury if there was a tie. The jury did tie in their votes, and so it was left to Athena to break it. Athena, being the daddy’s girl, expectedly voted it was the man who was the most important. This unfortunately didn’t bode well with women after that.

Philosophy
Yahweh who created Adam and Eve, also created Lilith (Adam’s first wife), a character recognized by the Gnostics but who the church tried to wipe out from existence thereafter.
Simeal (sp?)

Gnostics believed that—every human being has a spark, one within, eternal.
Gnostics did not embrace the material world.
The snake, as opposed to Christianity, view the snake differently and in a more postive light. I was the snake that gave humans knowledge in the garden of Eden. The snake was also associated with the wisdom of regeneration, and the snake is viewed as being able to live forever. Wisdom!

Copper snake on cross in bible, snakes symbolic of healing. Cresedus, a symbol of healing that is used today by western medicine.

Herodical Movement
Rethought cosmology of established.

Roman philosopher [who wrote Metamorphoses, on MSU’s 100 greatest booklist] ---à Ovid—Stories of Callisto.

Judo-Christian—Our dominant religion today
GreecoRoman—Our secular sensibilities today.

C.J. Jung—Gnostic Frame of mind
Ovid—Metamorphoses—Much of western art comes from this or based off it.

Philo Maia—Story of how Nightingales came to be.

Pg. 206: Roberto Calasso “Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony”

A direct quote from Salman Rushdie: “Cleanliness is next to Fascism.”

Bob Dylan “It’s all over Baby Blue”

Teenage Girls at Mall—Mythology at work even at the Gallatin Mall. Teenage girls who are barely conscious hanging with other girls. According to Michael’s collection of teenage girl dreams that span 20 years, all girls want to be whisked away by a shimmering white knight, on a white horse.

And so, Hades [or who’s representing Hades as a character] comes along in his ’56 Chevy (the moderns version of the chariot, very mythological) or Harley and says to that very same girl waiting for her prince charming:

“I’m going to get you babe. Who’s your daddy? Where’s he at? Down at the PTA? Well, you don’t belong to him any more because you belong to me now!”

Smooth Talk, which is on DVD and starring Laura Dern, covers this very topic closely.

Also, Petrified Forest with Humpert Bogart comes close to this mythical situation.

Pg. 210 Calasso “Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony”
Demeter’s daughter had to return to Hades because she ate a pomegranate. Like mothers do, in this very situation where they’re daughters are abducted, she starts crying/waling and asks Zeus for help in getting her daughter back. When he refuses to help her (and because she can’t challenge him in power), she tells the rest of the gods “As long as my daughter is in the Underworld, there will be but a nuclear winter on Earth.” Since she is the goddess of the harvest and holds sway on all the plants that grow, the rest of the gods convene [insert divine huddle] and decide “well, we can’t have that” and so grant her daughter back to her for only a part of the year, the rest of that year Kore must return back to the Underworld, back to Hades. The rest of that part the year is the months of winter.

And so, there is a movie that borrows from this myth; however its not in the same language as the Greek myth. It’s called Terms of Endearment.

During the good ‘ole days, before there were males to murk things up, females only produced females and males were nonexistent. This was called pathogenesis, for us [micro]biology majors to ponder/chew on.

Atis, Jesus. Males in Hades. Eternal Lamentation as a result of this.
D & P ß---Eleusis 2000 years old religion.
Eleusian mysteries
Put on sheets when you want to join up this religion.
High Priest would say something, do something, and show
Something. The result is said to bring astonishment and life-
changing knowledge to the viewers face.

The rest of the assignments

2005-04-28T00:20:00.000-07:00

Assignment #3
I was able to remember one dream I had this semester that I was able to put into my e-journal. I remember I was sitting in the library, at one of the tables on the second floor that sits adjacent to the railing and the corner facing west that overlooks where the water fountain once was, and now overlooks the coffee shop; one of the people sitting at the table was an old high school classmate that I haven’t seen for years (don’t know what happened to him) and the whole time I’m sitting there he keeps on annoying me, slinging all these innuendos at me (like he used to back in high school). Finally, I have enough of him and I reach across the table and grab him, and a fight ensues. Soon after, one of the librarians runs over to where we are, breaks it up, and tells me to leave. What a weird dream, repressed feelings or some

Assignment #4
I really can’t remember the exact moment I stopped believing in Santa Claus. No memories of someone in elementary school telling me that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. No memories It may have been more of a series of things and events that finally eroded my belief in Ole’ Saint Nicholas. I do remember finding some of my presents that my parents hide under the bed, or something like that, but not sure if that’s what did it.

Other assignments:

Starting out in this class, my definition of myth would be a nonfactual story, something that never really happened, stories that are told to children before they eventually grow out of it. I also thought of myth as something you find in textbooks, especially the Greco-Roman myths. Well, in a way what I just said may not be totally accurate, because I have been told stories of various occurrences and supernatural characters/creatures (such as little men; for those interested in finding out who or what those things are…………….ask around in the NAS department, I’m feeling apprehensive mentioning them with the knowledge that I’m going to post this online) back home both on the Ft. Peck Reservation and Wind River Reservation that for some reason deep down I always believed, or wanted to believe were true. Now…my perspective on myth has totally changed, like I’m looking at a whole new world now, and I feel so much better that I now know what I know.

Assignment #1

2005-03-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

The first memory that I can access...probably comes out of my infancy. I remember being bathed in the kitchen sink. I remember lying there, looking up at mom and being semi-submerged in water. The more traumatic idea being that as water and soap was being splashed and lathered onto me, some of that water had actually fell upon my face. I remember an incredible sense of panic and an incredible urge to cry, but nah. As I looked up at mom, the urge to cry out was just as quickly suppressed by the ensuring sight of her, and I was just as quickly reassured.

The first memory I have of disobeying my parents, takes me back to my pre-school years. I remember being told not to wander off from the house (we lived in the country, and still do), but I must have decided to explore the vastness of the praire. Fortunately, my father noticed me right at the last second as my head dropped out of view walking down into a coulee.