Spring break mythology

So I am a lot late in posting this, but I ran into two goddesses on my spring break trip to Seattle.  They were about ten minutes and five blocks away from one another.  My family and I went to the Maroon 5 concert, and in the arena they had many food vendors.  One of them immediately stuck out to me, and it was the Ceres Roasting Company.

I had never heard of this company before, but I think the name is appropriate.  As we all should know, Ceres is the goddess of Agriculture.

And about ten minutes later, we walked into a QFC grocery store for bottled water, and there right in front of my eyes is Athena.

I had never heard of Athena water before, but there it was! It was the world wanting me to remember mythology on my vacation. 

Displacement story

One Friday evening, John was put in charge of watching his younger sister, Marilyn, while their parents went out for dinner.  John didn't really care to watch Marilyn; he thought she was old enough to take care of herself. He would much rather hang out with his friends on a Friday night. He was frightened of his father, but nothing would happen. Once mom and dad left, John invited a couple of his friends over and they blasted music in his room for a while.  When his friends left a while later, it was quiet inside the house and Marilyn's light was off, so John went to sleep.

John abruptly awoke to screaming.  Marilyn was missing from her bed, looking as if an intruder had kidnapped her.  Dad grabbed John by both arms and slammed him up against the wall.  "If you do not go out and find her, don't bother coming back," Johns father said angrily.  "I know you had your punk friends over, so maybe they can help you out of this one!"  With that, John packed his things and left his comfortable home  for a life on the road, with his friends for help.

He searched for his sister everywhere he could think of possible, but Marilyn was nowhere to be found.  The police were having no luck as well.  So one night, John sat down in a dark alley somewhere in Denver, Colorado preparing for sleep.  He placed his hands together and prayed, "Marilyn is gone for good, and now I cannot return home. What should I do? Where should I live now? Please help me Lord." God spoke to John in a dream that night.  He told John to find the countryside with his friends and build themselves a house; they could live off the land this way together.

The next day, the gang set off for the country of Colorado. They found perfect land to build on, and even received permission from the land owner to share crop and meat. John played the lost, and possibly dead, sister card to make that happen. It was getting close to nighttime, so John stayed to pitch a tent for now and sent his friends to find water for the next couple days. As night grew darker, John became worried about his friends. They had been gone for hours.  He grabbed his hunting knife and searched the area, and found them being torn apart by a wolf.  With the wolf distracted by his meal, John plunged the knife into the wolf's neck.

For the next few months, John mourned the death of his friends while he built his home. It was difficult being exiled from his family, but soon John fell in love with the land owner's daughter and they married. He made new friends and bore many children. He became the happiest man alive.

The Caduceus, again!

So I went home for a little while during spring break and saw my sister drink one of these dream waters right before bed.  I was curious as to what it was or how it worked exactly.  She has trouble falling asleep at night, so my mother thought these would help. As I was reading the information on the bottle, I found the caduceus symbol towards the bottom. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, or even knew what the significance behind the caduceus is, if it was not for this mythology class.  I find it very cool to see mythology in my life without even seeking it out!

My interpretation of The Spinners

Art is definitely not a strong suit of mine, so I am just going to tell it like I see it. Now if I were to just see this painting without knowing the story of Arachne and Minerva (which I did not before this class), I would have said that I enjoyed the painting within the painting, or the story within the story aspect. I love paintings that have many things going on at once. I feel like they are more exciting that way.

When I first glanced at the painting, I was studying the foreground scene. My interpretation is that Minerva is spinning on the left, with Arachne weaving between the beams on the right. It appears as if Arachne's aid to her right is treading lightly, afraid of what Minerva will do to her. The woman in the red skirt looks upset as well, like she would rather be anywhere else.  Minerva's aid on the other hand appears very loyal. The look they are exchanging tells me that Minerva is saying something along the lines of, "Get ready to close the curtain on this show!"

In the background story, Arachne is presenting her work. I can see the story of Europa and the frame of flowers and ivy that she wove. Arachne is the woman standing in the front of the loom, looking very proud of her accomplishment.  Minerva is to her left, wearing her helmet and armor. It looks as if she is pointing something at Arachne's weave, or almost shooting a beam of light at it. I know in the story that Minerva struck at the loom and destroyed it, so she might be doing that in this scene. Lastly, I want to comment on the spectator to the far right. She is looking towards the foreground scene, almost as if she would rather be there, or peering at what started the whole thing.

The peacocks are stalking me!

I was at work this weekend, and I swear that there were peacocks everywhere I turned. It's as if mythology was following me and reminding me of Juno placing Argos' eyes on the feathers of her bird. I found the first when I was reorganizing the candles, and the paintings were right there on the wall to the left when I turned my head! The other picture was hanging in the women's bathroom, and I found the last peacock when I was color-coordinating the scarfs. It was the strangest thing; I couldn't ignore it, so I took pictures of each incident. Mythology really is everywhere, if we are open to seeing it.

                   Peacock on the side of a candle box                           Paintings of peacocks

                 Peacock on a scarf                                                           Another picture of a peacock

Learning to be a mythological detective

Before talking with Dr. Sexson yesterday, I had misplaced the fact that our blog is for the main purpose of writing about our findings of mythology in our daily lives. Up to this point, I haven't seen much in my life pertaining to myth, but now I am reconsidering. I now think that I just wasn't open to seeing the mythological clues.

Last night, I was going over all the notes from class and researching what I couldn't remember, when I came across something that I hadn't seen since in eight years. I looked up "memory palaces" and along with some images of old architecture popped up a painting that I instantly recognized.

      The Persistence of Memory       Artist: Salvador Dali

In 8th grade art class, our assignment was to pick an oil painting and paint an exact replica to the best of our ability, also downsized on a 4 by 6 inch card. I chose this piece because of the melting clocks; I thought they were very cool and hadn't seen anything like it before. When I saw this picture last night, it brought me back to the 8th grade with all of my memories. So this painting contributes to the mythology of my life, almost as if it was kept in a "memory palace" deep in my mind, as I'm sure this painting held meaning for the artist about his life and mythology. 

Initiation with pain and suffering

In class on Wednesday, Professor Sexson assigned us to find an initiation myth with pain and suffering involved to present to the class. I personally cannot stand pain and suffering when I read about it, or see it. There are movies that have gore and war, and I love them! But once you step into the realm of torture and suffering, that is the material I can do without. This is why I have never seen the Saw movies! Anyway, this assignment reminded me of two things: a movie that I have seen, and also a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

The movie is Seven starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. This is the only pain and suffering movie I like and it is definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it, and worth owning. In the movie, there are two homicide detectives investigating murders that correspond to the seven deadly sins. The initiation myth assignment reminded me of this movie due to the sadistic nature of the killings. One man is forced to literally eat himself to death, representing gluttony. Another is a prostitute, forced to be brutally raped by a knife, representing lust. I won't give anything else away for those who haven't seen it, but it only becomes more painful and torturous from there.

After remembering this movie, the lust killing had me thinking about the story of Tereus, Procne, and Philomela (on page 153). Not the same situation, but similar in the ability to shock me with it's suffering. In this story, Tereus marries Procne, becoming the tyrant of Thrace and they bear a child Itys. Soon after, Procne pleaded with Tereus to bring her sister, Philomela to Thrace so she could visit her. Tereus did this, but instead hauled her to a cabin in the forest and raped her. Afterwords, Philomela told him, "you shall find just payment for your crimes, I'll tell the world how you have ravished me." To this, she prepared for death, but instead he cut off her tongue and had her imprisoned to the cabin. Little did he know that she weaved her story on the loom and sent it to her sister. Procne enraged, set free her sister, and together for revenge, killed Itys and fed him to Tereus. I didn't go into the painful details here, but when I read this story, my jaw literally dropped in horror. I have a feeling that this will happen again in class on presentation day.

Tereus cutting off Philomela's tongue.

Comparing creation myths

I thought my creation myth was so cool when I found it, and then I heard some of the presentations in class. The Salish creation myth was the first one I read about, so I didn't really explore through any other ones. My creation myth can be classified as creation ex nihilo, or creation through thought or word. There was some clay involved, as well. I liked the Salish creation myth very much, but I really enjoyed the creation myths with earth diver and the cosmic eggs. I thought those were really interesting, and even though there were many presentations with those common classifications, every myth brought its own uniqueness to the picture. Although unique, I found the dismemberment creation myths disturbing. I think that is personal taste though.

Salish Creation Myth

Old Man in the sky created the world. Then he drained all the water off the earth and crowded it into the big salt holes now called the oceans. The land became dry except for the lakes and rivers. Old Man Coyote became lonely and went up to the sky to talk. He was so unhappy that he was crying. Old Man in the sky questioned him.

"Why are you so unhappy? Have I not made enough land for you to run around on? Are not Chief Beaver, Chief Otter, Chief Bear, and Chief Buffalo on the land to keep you company?"

Old Man Coyote cried more to this. Old Man in the sky became cross and scolded him. "Foolish Old Man Coyote, you must not drop so much water onto the land. I have worked many days to dry it. Soon you will have it all covered with water again. What is the trouble you are having? What more do you want?"

"I am very lonely because I have no one to talk to," he replied. "Chief Beaver, Chief Otter, Chief Bear, and Chief Buffalo are too busy with their families. I want people of my own to watch over."

"Then stop this crying," said Old Man in the sky. "If you stop annoying me with your visits, I will make people for you. Take this parfleche. It is a bag made of rawhide. Take it to a mountain filled with red earth and fill the bag to bring back to me."

Old Man Coyote took the bag and traveled many days and nights. At last he found a mountain with much red soil.  He filled the parfleche, but was weary from the long journey and decided to sleep for a while. "When I waken, I will run swiftly back to Old Man in the sky."

After a while, Mountain Sheep came along. He saw the bag and looked to see what was inside. "The poor fool has come a long distance to get such a big load of red soil," he said to himself. "I do not know what he wants it for, but I think I will mess with him." Mountain Sheep dumped all of the red earth out and filled the lower half of the bag with white soil, and the upper part with red soil.  Then laughing heartily, he ran to his hiding place.

Soon Old Man Coyote woke up. He tied the top of the bag and hurried to Old Man in the sky. When he arrived to the sky, it was nighttime. It was so dark that the two of them could not see the soil in the parfleche. Old Man in the sky took the dirt and said, "I will make this soil into the forms of two men and two women."

He did not see that half of the soil was red and the other white. Then he said to Old Man Coyote, "Take these people down to land. They are yours. So do not come up here anymore." Then he finished shaping the two men and women in the darkness.

Old Man Coyote put them in parfleche and carried them down to land. In the morning, he put breath into them. He was surprised to see that one pair was red and one pair was white. "Now I know that Mountain Sheep came while I was asleep. I cannot keep these two colors together." He carried the white ones to land by a big salt hole. The red ones he kept in his land so he could talk with them. That is how the Indians and white people came to the earth.

Making Memories with Ovid!

In today's class, we discussed memories, the first memories we remember having.  Well that finalized my decision on what to write about in my blog today.  I was thinking earlier today that I would share something about my reading habits.  I was reading The Metamorphoses before class and was hooked into it for almost three hours.  This is only possible for me in complete silence, or if I plug in my iPod and play a song on repeat for the duration of the reading session (I get distracted very easily).  I read in complete silence with all my textbooks, but for my books that I read on my own, I call them fun books, I pick a song.  This has been a habit of mine for a long time with every fun book that I have read.  I start by reading a couple chapters, experimenting with different songs that have a similar mood and "feel".  When one is decided upon, it plays on repeat every time I read the book until it is finished.  I love this habit, because I can relive the book in memory anytime by listening to that song.  I'm sure everyone has heard a song that reminds them of a time in the past, or a memory of some kind.  This is what I do for my love of reading and my love of music.

Anyway, I have come to consider Ovid's Metamorphoses as a fun book, so I have chosen a song for it.  I was debating sharing this song because I am semi-embarrassed of its origin.  I will start from the beginning:

I read the Twilight series starting when the first one published in 2005.  Then the movies came out, and I wasn't so impressed.  Nonetheless, I have seen all of them and have the score of Breaking Dawn Part 1 on my iPod.  The score is done by Carter Burwell, and in my opinion he did an amazing job.  To bring this back to point, I am reading Metamorphoses with a song from the score by Carter Burwell.  It is called A Nova Vida.  I think it has a good tone and brings a little something extra to reading Ovid. It will give me memories of Ovid into my future! A nova vida also translates to "a new life", which I think has a position in mythology, even with our theme of creation myths!! And everything comes back to trees (what came up in google for "a new life")..

If anyone is interested in listening to it, I'm sure it can be found on the internet somewhere.  For being from the Twilight movie, it is really good music.  I am partial to instrumental music though.

Dreams..

I had a set of dreams last night.  They don't all make sense together, but it was as if one began as soon as the one before ended, sort of mimicking flashbacks.  I have always had very detailed and vivid dreams, and could remember the details when I would wake up.  Some of these dreams have been with me since I was a child.  The oldest dream I remember took place when I was around six years old.  I know this because it happened before I moved to Montana.  My mother and I were riding a motorcycle on the highway when walls of bricks began forming around us.  I remember being scared when I woke up, but never found out how the dream ended until it continued in another dream a few years later, with my mother throwing me outside the bricks before the walls closed completely. I have no idea how something like that happens.  It is the mystery of dreams!  

Anyway, I haven't had dreams that detailed in a while, so you'll have to settle for the flashes.  My dreams last night began with people I do not recognize and myself inside a house.  A few people started breaking through barricades that we had around the house.  I'm not sure who these people were either, but I remember knowing they were the enemy.  I defended myself with a pencil to one man's chest, and then flashed to a road in the middle of nowhere with fields on either side.  I was again with people I do not recognize, but we were running from a darkness that I can only describe as a tornado that filled the entire sky behind us.  We were just beginning to think we weren't going to beat the darkness, when we saw a farmhouse not far from the road.  I had just opened the door when I flashed to a restaurant.  I was sitting at a table with my family, but couldn't decide what I wanted to eat.  I was confused because the waiter at this restaurant normally works at Buffalo Wild Wings, but there were pancakes on the menu.  Then I woke up to my alarm very hungry.

Synchronicity? I think yes!

So I was at the bookstore as soon as class was out today.  I went there to pick up some notecards, and passed by the stuffed animal section that I'm sure most everyone has seen.  There was a white sheep-looking animal that caught my eye.  I was drawn to it because of the Salish creation myth I read about with a Mountain Sheep in it.  As I read the tag attached to the ear to see if it truly was a sheep, it read "White Buffalo" along with the legend behind the White Buffalo.  This is a Lakota Souix legend about American Buffalo being a symbol of sacred life and abundance.  It is said that the birth of a white buffalo calf is the most prophetic of signs.  A long time ago, the Lakota Souix were starving with no game in sight in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  The Tribe sent two hunters out and along the way ran into a beautiful young woman dressed in white.  She returned with the young men to the camp and taught them the mysteries of the earth, how to pray and follow the proper path while on earth.  As she was leaving, she rolled upon the earth four times, changing color and turning into a white buffalo calf.  Just as she vanished, the tribe could see herds of buffalo surrounding the camps.

This is one of many tweaked versions of the myth.  I found this one the most enjoyable when researching on the internet.  It gives a little more detail than the tag on the stuffed white buffalo.  If you would like to read more about it, here is the link:

http://www.lightningmedicinecloud.com/legend.html

I also think I will count this as my mythological coincidence.  I was in our class, and then in the bookstore, where the great white buffalo found me.

I am officially a tree hugger!

This is me hugging my favorite white birch tree on campus.  I chose this tree because it reminds me of the birch tree planted in front of my grandmother's house.  I guess you could say it reminded me of my family, or my origins!

Thoughts on Phaethon's Ride

So I noticed that many of you were writing about the origins of your names.  The stories behind them were very interesting, and I would have liked to do the same with my name, but it was nearly impossible to find any story behind the origin of my name.  I read that it originated in England and it refers to a shelter where willows grow free.  Also, that it used to be rarely used, and very masculine!  With that, I am going to share my thoughts on Phaethon's Ride from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

First, there is a stanza from the beginning of the myth (page 34) that really caught my eye:

While eager Phaethon gazed at Vulcan's craft
Aurora, sleepless in the waking dawn,
Swung wide her purple gates and rose-tipped light
Glowed through her stairs and halls; retreating stars
Were closed in ranks by Lucifer who vanished
Even from his watchtower in the morning sky.

I really enjoyed the detail and description in this stanza.  The way that Ovid speaks of Aurora as a majestic and beautiful woman is lovely.  Reading this verse in Ovid's story is what really first peaked my interest in reading this book, and has kept me reading it to find more of them. I feel like when I took mythologies in high school, there was a name for this type of descriptive stanza, so if anyone knows it, please comment!  

Second, I gained feelings of sadness from hearing Earth speak on page 39 after Phaethon's destruction of most of the land.  There was so much detail to what she was feeling and how it was affecting her Universe.  I pitied her that it took her utter despair for the gods to do something about the wreckage of the world.  It seemed to me as though they were watching everything going on, and not caring as long as the Heavens were safe from Phaethon and Phoebus' chariot.  I was pained that the way to stop Phaethon had to end with death.  He was a child doing childish things.  Who can blame the kid for that?