Guernica 3D

Professor Sexson just emailed me one of the coolest things ever! It is a Youtube video of a 3D rendering of Picasso's Guernica. After watching this video, it feels like I have been transported into Guernica and into Dionysus' initiations. I feel like by recreating this wonderful painting into a 3D video, the myth of Dionysus truly has been relived, just like our Cave Man myth of last week. When watching this, I could see people lifting their arms in agony towards the gods. I could specifically see mythological characters from Ovid. It is even more certain in my mind from this that war and initiation are amazingly similar. I truly encourage all of you to watch this video. It will blow your mind as you will be able to find mythology in something that is based off of a factual war. Mythology really is the origins of the most amazingly horrible and beautiful events of life (i.c. war, birth, and death).

Picasso's Guernica

Sunday I was shown Picasso's Guernica and I have to say that it is one of the most amazing things that I have ever seen. It has left me speechless and awestruck. I have never really been a huge fan of Picasso's work before but that is definitely changing. When I look at this famous painting, I see a representation of the Dionysus and his Bacchae, specifically during their initiation practices.  In this picture, I see pain, suffering, and wailing women. Those are some of the basic imagery that comes to mind when reading about Dionysus and his followers. However, when this was painted Picasso was trying to portray war but I think that war and initiations are very similar. Both are a fight between two parties, there is always a victor, there is always pain and suffering, and after it is over, something new has been created. To go through an initiation is to go through a war within oneself to create a new level of existence. In Picasso's work, I can see that it is the middle of the war but that the new world/existence for the wailing women is getting closer. This representation of war is a beautiful piece of work, though it is gruesome and terrifying. Ancient initiations are the same way. There is beauty in all of the rituals and ceremonies even when they are horrifically painful and terrible to watch. The beauty comes through the knowledge that after the process is completed, something wonderful will be there. We have discussed the birth as a type of initiation. People always say that it is one of the most beautiful natural events in the universe. But it is also bloody, painful, and not that much fun to watch (I'm guessing). At least it isn't until the end when you know that it is almost over and everything that had been worked for and fought for was about to become a reality. It is the same with initiation practices. Initiations manage to be horrifically beautiful as is war and birth. 

The Palm of Beauty

I have been slowly working my way through Ulysses. It is a tiring job to read Joyce's words. The difficulty stems from Joyce's vast sources of material. I am constantly looking up new and interesting information. After finding what I ant to read, it is herculean task to bring myself back to Joyce and not to follow some new line of research and thoughts. From reading Joyce, my brain just goes into overdrive and I can't seem to hold onto my thoughts long enough to blog about all of them. I feel like a am drowning in sea of stories with Joyce being my only lifeline. 

There is one section that reminded me of Autumn's poem. I cannot get these words out of my mind but I also cannot seem to understand what they mean.

"away the palm of beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope.

Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich."

Since I cannot seem to fathom what these words mean by myself, I decided that the best way to understand them was to write about them. So bear with me as I answer my current call to adventure and try to find the meaning of Joyce's beautiful words.

When I search "Palm of Beauty", the first thing that appears on my feed is an article about Yeats and Rilke. Now as I am sure most of us have, I have studied Yeats some during my time at MSU but I can't seem to place Rilke. After exploring both of these authors, I found that the best way to understand what Joyce meant here was to go back to the origins of my quest and the origins of his story. So in other words go back and re-read Ulysses and the Odyssey. 

Now it is quite obvious that Penelope refers to Odysseus' wife. But in Joyce's work I found a new name that I had not heard before: Antisthenes. Antistenes was a philosopher who was mentored by Socrates. He is most known for his writings on ethics in various dialogues. Very few of these dialogues still survive but the ones that do center around his opinions of virtue and pleasures of life. His teachings show how wise men (or women!) realize that virtue will bring them to the closest thing that is true happiness. All actions must stem from virtue for one to be considered wise. To Anisthenes pleasure that comes from sensual or material happiness is not true pleasure but in fact evil. However, he believed that pleasure that comes from the soul is indeed the only kind of pleasure that can create happiness as it must come from virtue. 

I think that virtue is what is the point of the palm of beauty. It is often said that Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world. But she most definitely was not the most virtuous. She was in fact one of the causes of the Battle of Troy. To me, this indicates a lack of virtue and thus an absence of happiness in her life. By Joyce "speaking" the words "away the palm of beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope. Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich", he is signaling that the virtue of Penelope is the true cause of her happiness. Penelope is able to create happiness from her virtue as the object of her happiness is not sensual or material gratification but stems from the soul. 

 "Jove's daughter Helen would never have yielded herself to a man from a foreign country, if she had known that the sons of Achaeans would come after her and bring her back. Heaven put it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no thought to that sin, which has been the source of all our sorrows."

Penelope The Odyssey Boox XXIII

As you can see, even Penelope realized that lack of virtue was the true cause of all sorrow. 

At this point, I can only guess how virtue will in the end lead to the happiness or unhappiness in James Joyce's Ulysses. But this one single tangent demonstrates how fantastically mythological Leopold Bloom's life is. Every single page is saturated with the world's mythologies. In just four sentences, we have traveled the mythological world of Leopold Bloom, Penelope, Helen of Troy, Odysseus, and Antisthenes. 

This just struck me as really cool. I can imagine this class sitting around in a circle telling stories of creation, initiation, and the apocalypse. These boys are preparing for a new part of their life, just like all of us. So you can see that no matter the age, culture, dress, or other external factors, everyone joins into initiation rituals in preparation for the rest of their life.

African Initiation

In fact as I am typing this, all of you are crowding around Flat Stanley. As I look up from my laptop, I see the modern Montana version of these African boys preparing for their initiation ceremonies. As we are all preparing for our ceremonies next week.

Parable of the Lotus Eaters in Ulysses

As part of my independent research with Professor Sexson, I have been reading Ulysses by James Joyce. This has to be one of the hardest books I have ever read in my entire life. But the mythological background and content of it is absolutely amazing. And not just the Greek mythology but I have found traces of Judaism and its own mythological stories.

As we were discussing this past week's reading assignment at our meeting, I was struck by something that resonated with what Dr. Sexson said at the beginning of the semester. He told us the story of Mary, Martha, and the needed thing. Fairly early on in Ulysses, the main character, Leopold Bloom, becomes pen pals with a woman named Martha. This woman seems to be of average or less than average intelligence and just basically average in most ways. However, the author, not particularly Martha, does allude to one thing that is way above average intellectually. As the postscript of her letter, Martha says "I want to know". As in the biblical story, Martha has once again chosen not to do the needed things in life but instead the things that she wants to do. She focuses more on the physically and carnal aspects of life instead of the more spiritual. On the opposite spectrum, Leopold spends most of his day thinking as he runs his errands. However, his thoughts seem to gravitate more towards the spiritual and emotional. He is embodying the spirit of Mary. He is choosing to base his life on things that cannot be taken away, like the memories of his son and his friends, instead of thinking about headaches and perfumes. 

It is goes to show that Joyce is indeed a brilliant man that this letter was found in the Lotus Eaters Chapter. All references in mythology to the Lotus Eaters show them to be beautiful women who try and lure men into forgetting about the rest of the world, including family, honor, and duty. They do this by drugging them with the lotus flower. In this section of the Leopold's life, Martha was trying to drag him down to a lower level of existence that is based solely on instant gratification. Even after Leopold pulls himself away from the letter, he has to fight for the rest of the chapter to not be dragged back into the Martha's web of the carnal. So through Joyce's Ulysses, we get to morals. 1) Do the needed thing, not the wanted thing. 2) Always be on the lookout for the Lotus Eaters and the Lotus Flower as both takes many many different forms and will tempt a person away from the needed thing. 

Lotus Flower

The Importance of Hestia

Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honour: glorious is your portion and your right. For without you mortals hold no banquet,—where one does not duly pour sweet wine in offering to Hestia both first and last.

In class on Monday we discussed the goddess Hestia. I can't remember the exact phrases that were used to describe her but the impression that I got was that she was a minor unimportant goddess. This really bothered me as she is one of my favorite goddesses. The reason that I am so emotionally involved in how she is portrayed is because of what she represents. Hestia is the goddess of home and hearth. She takes the least amount of credit in godly interference in mortal lives but underneath it all she is probably one of the more important goddesses. The home and hearth underpin every other aspect of life. Without her help in raising a family, Aphrodite would have no one to make fall in love, Dionysus would have no one to drink his wine, Ares would have no one to go to war, Hephaestus would have no one to build things, Athena would have no one to build new inventions, and the list goes on and on. Today, Dr. Sexson used whimsical to describe the gods. I think that this is one of the more apt descriptions that I have ever heard in relation to these immortal beings. They truly are whimsical, capricious, and scattered especially the gods of the Pantheon. This is one reason why I think that Hestia did not really fit with the rest of them. Home and hearth cannot be unstable or scattered. It has to be the foundation that allows everything else to be more fluid. As you can see from the quote above, Hestia truly is the foundation for immortals and mortal alike. There are two important lessons that can be learned from the deity, Hestia. First, home is the foundation for everything else. If a person doesn't take care of the home and all it entails, then everything else will crumble. Second, the most important thing is not always the brightest, biggest, or flashiest. It is often the strongest and the most durable that is most important. 

Another interesting thing about Hestia is that she is able to be the youngest and the oldest of the first generation immortal siblings. This puts her in an unique position within the family dynamics. And it is important to remember that the gods do have complex family dynamics that goes beyond just their own individual elements. In terms of birth, Hestia and Dionysus are the closest in birth. Both were born twice in some manner that was unique from the birth of the other immortals. That is probably why they are able to be interchanged as the final member of the Pantheon. After doing some research, I found that no where does it specifically tell the story of how, why, or when Hestia stepped down to allow Dionysus to take her place. It puzzles me that we have so many other stories but we do not have access to a story that has such resounding affects throughout all of mythology. From what I was able to glean from the Internet is that the two can both be found holding the place of the Pantheon, depending on the place of the picture and its purpose. This shows that mythology is a fluid entity that is shaped not by organizational structures but by the needs of the humans who live this mythology.

My point in all of this is that we must remember that while we all have our favorite gods, we must remember that they are interconnected. Without all of them, the mythological world would not work. They need each other, just as all families need all the members in order to form a functioning unit. 

Tereus the Mythological Hoopoe

I have spent quite a bit of time studying mythologies in the past few years but usually I would read summaries of the ancient stories or stories that incorporated the long-forgotten myths. I had completely blanked how gory and graphically terrifying stories are. I am shocked! I guess that's what happens when a lot of your ancient myth exposure comes from mythological children's stories.  

Percy Jackson Poster

It is amazing to me how much of Ovid's tales are able to be translated to books and novels that have been written in the current era and been wonderfully successful. The books that I am specifically thinking about are the Percy Jackson series. My point is not my love of the series (which is very great) but that the idea of gods, heroes, and anything mythological is welcomed at any era in time. We, as humans, need these stories to help make sense of the world and our role in it. The group of humans that most need these myths during our lifetime is our children. Our children need an acceptable and accessible way to reach back in time to these myths. Not only haven't children learned to be bored but they also haven't learned to be untrusting and cynical. It is a shame that we have stopped teaching our children to believe in these myths or more importantly to believe in anything. I say this not only as a Lit major who is tired of being asked what the point of my degree actually is going to be but also a future mother, aunt, and hopefully someday a grandma! I have been extremely lucky to have a family who has encouraged my exploration into the mythical, magical, and extraordinary. 

Now to get off of my little tangent and back to how horrified I was at some of the stories. I think that the story that made me most want to be sick was the story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela. Every character in this story was absolutely awful except for maybe the women's father. I get that Procne and Philomela had been tragically wronged but the idea of someone killing their own child and feeding that child to someone is one of the sickest things I have ever read or imagined. 

Tereus, Procne, & Philomela at the Banquet

While I am disgusted by this story, I have been doing some research on the origins of it and some meanings of names, symbols, and such. One really thing that I did come across was that Tereus was turned into a Hoopoe. In Ovid, I could not find the specificiation of what he turned into but Wikipedia said that he turned into this greatly magical creature. This creature has been seen in mythologies all across the world. He is often seen as a king of the birdly realm. 

Hoopoe Bird

The place that I most distinctly remember encountering the Hoopoe is in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. This once again is a children's story that has untold value to children and adults alike. I read this in a class last year for Dr. Sexson and it quickly became one of my favorites of all time. I strongly recommend that everyone read this amazing classic. This story connects not only the mythological world of eons ago with today but it also connects the political, social, and economical problems of our ancestors to us. This story is in fact my answer to why literature matters and why it is important that children are given the chance to explore the magical, mythical, and extraordinary. 

Presentation Similarities

It was amazing how many similarities there were in the creation myths that were re-enacted this past week. While I saw a lot of similarities, the more amazing part was how different all of them were. Yes there were a lot of similar themes and wording but by having different people present, I felt that each creation myth was uniquely its own. Once again I am taken back to remembering how powerful the spoken word truly is! As much as I loved listening to the presentations, I got an even greater experience in watching all of my classmates during the presentations. Being at the front of the room allowed me to not only watch the presentation but also to see all of you react to the presentation. It was a wonderful experience to see everyone so enthralled and on the edge of their seats for the presentation. It was kind of like watching over 40 short films combined into one.

As Professor Sexson said last week, the most popular theme was the Earth Diver. I could definitely see that trend. Other trends that I saw were that the stories all contained some aspect that could be found in a different story. I have heard before that all mythology is inter-related and my findings from this class experience leads me to believe that claim. Even though our stories came from all the corners of the world, or even the farthest corners of the universe, they were all inter-related. This relation does not just stem from them all being creation myths but by the individuals who played a part, the symbols that came into our minds when listening to the presentations. For example, I have already talked about the fact that I chose my story because of Ouroboros but listening I heard many different references to this creature, in multiple of your presentations even though no one said his specific name! I think we all probably heard aspects of our own stories in the words of our peers. Thus almost everything that was said in our classes last week is similar to something else in a different presentation. Because remember nothing is a coincidence and myths are the precedent for everything else, including other myths.

I forgot to include what type of story mine was when I blogged about it before. The Pelasgian Creation story was an example of the Emergence creation story. After reading about these types of myth, I am so happy that I chose it to use as my presentation. I think that these types of myth speak directly to the themes of this class. The description directly correlates to initiation, birth, metamorphosis, and transformations. All of the myths that were told definitely have at least some of these characteristics but I think that mine had all four. What a happy coincidence!

Weekend Assignments

Weekend Assignments

• Retell your myth or link to where you found the myth
• Write about the parts of the myths that you heard repeated throughout various myths

We seemed to use the Earth Diver the most in our creation myths.