mourning for adonis

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

It appears that when Ezekiel wrote this, Tammuz was another name for Adonis. The cult of Adonis employed the planting of seeds that would germinate quickly and then die.

 

 

 

“Women sit by the gate weeping for Tammuz, or they offer incense to Baal on roof-tops and plant pleasant plants. These are the very features of theAdonis legend: which is celebrated on flat roof-tops on which sherds sown with quickly germinating green salading are placed, Adonis gardens… the climax is loud lamentation for the dead god.”—Burkert, p. 177.

 

 

 

 

 

I can picture this, women planting and wailing, sorrow over the early death of a young god, ultimately, over lost opportunity, maybe over unrequited love…

 

Interesting thing, these rooftop gardens. I’d like to have one.

 

 

 

Even a simple version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sounds like ‘mourning for Adonis’ is yet another ritual–a general metaphor for loss. In the same way that a seed must fall to the ground and die, for there to be new life.

 

 

 

A Wedding and a Funeral…

How ironic, that today’s presentations were about a wedding and a funeral.

Group 6’s funeral was enlightening. Great idea. I loved all the props, costumes and background video.  I was highly entertained, lots of ambiance in that performance–candle light, a Viking ship, bottles of spirit flowing freely… quite interactive with the audience.  I remember reading about Sati(suttee), in The Far Pavillions, an amazing book that I recommend, especially if you want a verrry long read. It’s a shocking concept, that. I have a little trouble thinking these women are really willing. How fair is it if you have grown up thinking that untimely tortuous death is your highest calling? There’s a really compelling scene in that book, a dramatic rescue of a woman from suttee.The entire 600 page book is worth that one scene.

Group #5  Of Myth and Marriage:  We had a blast doing our project. We met many times, and it seems we always broke bread together–sharing a meal being a metaphor for the communal process of building our film. That in itself a sort of tradition.

So that’s Jacob, our film guy, in the middle of the next pic. We owe him a debt of gratitude, and many thanks to Cortney for insisting that we do a video, rather than a live play. I’d always wanted to do a video for a project, but lacked the editing expertise and equipment. So, that’s one thing I can scratch off my bucket list: Make a film. Enjoyed the process very much. And I couldn’t have asked for a better group to work with, everyone was committed and on task.

Read Megan’s blog to see the interview with Calasso. Good stuff, especially his idea that knowledge is communicated through reading myth.

Groups 3 and 4, a delight

I enjoyed very much group 3’s quasi-trip. Their costumes were great, and the concept of interviewing people downtown was a good one.

The reason I asked if the filmed parts were supposed to mimic an LSD trip, is NOT because I ever had that experience. No, it’s because when I was as kid I had a super-8 camera.

I was fond of creating films in which I got down on the ground and rolled around while filming. I wanted to create special effects, and boy, did I. When we watched them, it was nauseating, dizzying. My older brother Mark labeled those films, “Jenny’s LSD trip.” Funny guy.

Not that he had ever taken LSD either, it’s just my family’s weird sense of humor. Anyway, I liked the film, the references to mythology found in downtown signs, and the detail of IO writing her name in the snow. Nice.

Group #4 was also a delight. Loved the finding of mythology in Bugs Bunny, Southpark, Megan’s simple but profound Mirror, Rosemary’s story of Midas. etc. Very entertaining and creative. Especially the Bugs Bunny costume.

Immortal Eternal Game

I thought Group One’s Choose Your Own Myth game was quite clever. It’s very form echoed the themes from our class, the never ending repetition of beginnings, middles and ends. I’d have liked to have heard more of the possibilities, but they were seemingly endless, like the path of Mythology. I found the title, Zero Path, interesting. Reminded me of T.S. Eliot’s Zero Summer–mentioned in Little Gidding, from The Four Quartets.

Separation, Initiation, and Return–seems to me Group One could market this Immortal Eternal Game. Great way to teach a modern version of the great mythological stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Group 2’s presentation was full of fun and fact. Yes, Charlie Sheen could represent Dionysus because after all, Dionysus was a God, and Charlie Sheen thinks he’s God. The idea of comparing celebrities to Greek god’s was a good one, and the class seemed to want to continue to make those parallels identifications.  That could be another game, Celebrity Mythology. The last sentence of their presentation was great–“When history and mythology coincide, then apocalypse occurs…” or something like that. Yes, all is revealed. Looking forward to next week’s presentations.

Nicholas, Freud and Us

“Zeus vomited everything that had settled in his belly out into the light.” Calasso, pg 203.

I must agree with Jerrod, who writes in his blog about feeling like Nick is ‘everyman.’ Or every person. When Nicholas stands on the beach of Bourani and feels like ‘the very first man,” I think Fowles is setting him up to be the metaphor for fallen humanity.

“I led two lives.” Nicholas, pg. 16 The Magus

We see early on that Nick has had a troubled upbringing. From a mother who would not stand up to her husband, to a father whose temper was like a “red dog,” he sort of lost his way. When children are exposed to trauma, one way of dealing with that is to develop another personality. It seems as if Nick almost split. The scene where he discovers the news of their death, is telling. “After the first shock I felt an almost immediate sense of relief, of freedom.”  He goes on to say, “…I now had no family to trammel what I regarded as my real self.” This response is evidence of a very unhealthy home. Something was broken there. And so, Nick was broken.

I speak of this to illustrate the Freudian influence in Fowles’ writing. Freud is the father of modern psychology. He gave us the Psychodynamic Theory–that our issues and behavior patterns usually emerge from what happens in early life. Now for the tie-in with the Calasso quote. Zeus ‘vomiting out what had settled in his belly,’ is the equivalent of modern psychotherapy, and Chonchis’ plan. Nick was bereft of nurture. On page 17, we read how he became a member of Les Hommes Revoltes, a group of young men dedicated to drinking and cynicism. There he hid. But he is enlightened by Socratic honesty, and learns it is not enough to revolt against what one hates, but one must find where one can love.

And the remainder of the book is Nick, stumbling and falling, in this attempt. Conchis aids him with a masterful, twisted plan. We see the plan laid out on pg.69, in the Ezra Pound poem that he ‘finds’ on the beach:

“Who even dead, yet hath his mind entire!

This sound came in the dark

First must thou go the road

to hell

And to the bower of Ceres’ daughter Proserpine,

Through overhanging dark to see, to see Tiresias,

eyeless that was, a shade, that is in hell

So full of knowing that the beefy men know less than he,

Ere thou come to thy road’s end.

                           Knowledge the shade of a shade,

Yet must thou sail after knowledge

Knowing less than drugged beasts.”

Note that Tiresias was a blind prophet. Nicholas is a bit blind himself.

Persephone’s(Proserpine’s) trip to the underworld began with the picking of a narcissus.

As Calasso says, she was “looking at the act of looking.” Nick’s journey begins with him ‘picking up a book.”  The book and  the poem, reflect his image back to him.  He is the ‘drugged beast’ in search of knowledge. And much more than picking flowers, Persephone, in looking into the eye of her abductor, saw her own reflection. Conchis’ ‘abduction’ of Nick, has the same intention. To show Nick himself.

Dead Man, Parabolas and Cicadas

Tuesday Notes:

Discussion of Johnny Depp movie, Dead Man. It’s a parallel to what we are studying in Mythology, the ends.

“William Blake,” like Nicholas Urfe, is a dolt. He is clueless, has to go through same suffering that he did in life,  like the Tibetan tradition.

“Nobody”, the Indian chief, is the senex: “Time for you to leave, William Blake, to go  back where you came from. This world will no longer concern you.” Prepares him for the journey to the next world.

–Nobody is a reference to Odysseus in the Cyclops Cave, from Homer.

Final shot of Depp being pushed off in a boat, laden with his belongings, like the Vikings of old. Socrates: all of life is a preparation for death. Depp was dead all along.

“The Swerve,” a book by Stephen Greenblatt,  describes Lucretius’ poem, “On the Nature of Things.” Idea that we needn’t worry about the end.

Test Terms: Eschatology= Last + Ground(or word)

Metempsychosis= transmigration of the human soul, the idea that nothing ever dies.

Parabola= a curved shape, like the swerve. Pagio’s book, lost for a 1000 years, had a trajectory like a parabola when it was rediscovered. It influenced humanist thinking.

Parable comes from parabola–a parable deconstructs the point. Like Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. The “good” people did not help, the lowly, despised Samaritan was the one who helped. Mary/Martha  parable, Mary chose the better portion by sitting at the feet of Jesus. Parables come at us sideways, surprising us with their message.

Gesang ist dasein=German for “A God can do it.”  This poem makes the point that Song is existence. Example of the cicada-Socrates said they were humans, sang nonstop, Zeus turned them into Cicadas. Fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper– the grasshopper, though unprepared for winter, was prepared for Mythology Class. He was his own Bard…

Class theme: We have lost touch with our myths.

Myth and Fairytale

The test was actually fun. If I hadn’t studied like mad it wouldn’t have been, but I felt a camaraderie in our class when we were correcting, and I enjoyed the laughter and sense of merriment. That is a rare thing. I thought I heard the pipes of Pan…

Darell says if we are all heroes, then when we look back we should be our own bards. Hmmm…interesting thought. I guess in some ways we have to be the ones to sing our own stories.

I want to do that, indirectly, by writing a book of fairytales. I have always loved Fairy Tales and often retreated into books as a child. This class has been a good basis for work I want to do in the future. I have noticed a resurgence of interest in the genre. “Grimm” is a new tv show based on the Grimm brothers stories. It will be intriguing to see where this all leads. I turned on the TV and there was Micky Rourke dressed in black leather, holding a branch of laurel, facing a young Greek looking fella. The young guy said, “Are you just going to forget that I killed my mother?” And I knew it was Orestes. I googled his new movie, and it’s called Immortals. Sounds familiar…

 

 

Abby made reference to beautiful women being hated. There is a certain amount of judgment, or presumption, that attractive women can’t be smart. But wasn’t it Helen who figured out why the God’s make us suffer?

Now, on to our long-awaited discussion of The Magus.

Hopkins Fan

Gerard Manley Hopkins is my favorite poet, so I would like to request that Juniper recite her poem again, facing the class, so we can all hear and enjoy.

We in Group 5 are working steadily on our presentation. It’s been great fun to brainstorm,write,and act. I won’t reveal our topic, but suffice to say it’s chthonic…

Which, turns out, is a band. Most great words end up in the name of a band.

I was intrigued to learn more about the Spartans.
“the Spartans are, of all men, those who admire poetry and poetic glory least.”
Came across the word “Helots” in Calasso. They were like slaves, ritually mistreated by the Spartans. The brutal Spartans could kill them without repercussion. It would seem that modern dictators, Stalin, Hitler, took their cues from the Spartans. They did not value the lives of others. “They were the grim forebears of every utilitarianism.” There are a lot of sports teams named after the Spartans. 

It would seem that from class discussion, the Spartans would be those who are like Zeus, more thinking, less feeling

Nicholas Urfe is a Spartan.

Symbols and Scriptures–The Beal Deal

I attended the lecture last night, by Bill Deal and Tim Beal. Their very names are mythological. What an intriguing blend of thought and insight they presented. The basic premise was that the sacred scriptures of Christianity and Buddhism, share significant elements.

They spoke on The Bible and The Lotus Sutra(a holy book of Buddhism).

What I was captivated by was the fact that these two men coming from very different backgrounds, found common ground. They were very respectful of each other.

Bill made the comment that Scripture is dependent on the interactive relationship between the text and a community. Obviously true, but I hadn’t thought of it that way. Instead of the idea of it existing as an entity unto itself, it really can’t exist at all, without the people. Which ties in with the idea of Scripture being alive, and sharp as a two-edged sword.

Bill spoke of The Lotus Sutra, a very long group of texts, which Buddhists recite, copy, and revere. In both religions, there is the idea that you can take one small part of the text and it will release the power of the entire text. This is seen in the ritual use of the texts, and here’s where it relates to our mythologies class.

In Greek Orthodoxy, the Bible is held above the heads of priests as they are ordained, bibles are buried with people as ‘sacred capital.’ There seems to be salvific power in the thing itself, apart from reading it. So the sacred texts function on two levels.

In the Buddhism, the Lotus Sutra can be read, which is a daunting process(100 volumes), or one may capture the entire value or the piece in repeating merely the title, or hiring someone to copy the text. And one may join oneself to the Buddha by combining one’s blood in the ink used to write the text. Sounds strangely familiar. Tim showed a slide of the hebrew scripture, written on vellum, or goat skin. It showed the light colored areas, which is where the ribs of the animal were. So the skin of an animal carried the holy words, a sacrifice of blood. A scape goat.

The whole idea of “condensing the message” is a powerful one, in both religions, which leads to ritual practice. These rituals serve the purpose of gaining merit, or remembering. We have discussed the function of ritual in class, the idea that it ‘brings to mind’ what we already know, and in that sense re-creates community, tells us how to live. So, back to mythology.

If mythos means story, then mythology functions as ritual in itself, reminding us of the stories we once knew, need to know, need to repeat, even ritually, to learn the lessons of old, to keep community flourishing.

The Lotus Sutra teaches that it is the “one vehicle” which can transport readers to another shore, that it sucks everything into itself. Like Zeus.

The bible is the book that ‘contains everything,’ if not in every situational detail, at least in principle. And when Ezekiel took in the word of God by physically eating the scroll, well, that’s a powerful metaphor for the Word becoming flesh. And so the ritual act of Communion echoes through the ages, cry from the wilderness,  joining humanity to the divine.

Another Kind of Vision

What fun the presentations were, especially sweet little Rosemary, transformed into…

THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a perfect example of what Calasso describes on page 281: Myths are made up of actions that include their opposite within themselves.
And so quiet, sweet Rosemary becomes the monster! Myth unfolds before our eyes. I’ll bet she never saw herself quite like this before…
And how is it that we see our selves? Think of the organ of seeing–the eye. In her blog, Sam cites a quote in Calasso that I had previously underlined for its depth and profundity.  Page 230. “The eye cannot see the eye.”
Ever think about that?
“The cold eye looking out on the world modifies that world no less than the fiery Aegis…”

Sometimes I have a general idea about a word’s definition, but I usually look things up because it’s enriching and leads to other things.
Definition of AEGIS

1: a shield or breastplate emblematic of majesty that was associated with Zeus and Athena

2.a : protection b : controlling or conditioning influence

There also is the origin myth that represents the ægis as a fire-breathing chthonic monster similar to the Chimera, which was slain and flayed by Athena, who afterward wore its skin as a cuirass(wikipedia).

So, if we think of aegis as protection, then is Nicholas under the AEGIS of Conchis? On page 173 of The Magus, Conchis says,“I expect you have the wrong kind of sight.”  It’s a little, throw away line, but tells a whole lot about Nick and the entire plot of this book.

“Demeter wanted to see Persephone again(pg. 219), “with her eyes.” But how else could she have seen her? Demeter’s insistence on this plainly pleonastic formula contained a hidden message for Hades, as if Hades knew of another way of seeing and was planning to play that card, as if he wanted to cheat men out of seeing “with their eyes,” counting on another vision, which needed  neither light  nor eyes, because it was in itself both light and eye.”

And talk about scary, that last statement gives me goosebumps.