And a special thanks to Rio

I also wanted to thank Rio for all of his services. If it weren't for your pencast each period, the days I was sick would have been much harder to catch up on. Thank you for all of your personal service to the class like helping us set up our blogs and all the images and definitions you portatrayed throughout each class. You are a supremely well organized human being, I can't believe you did all of this for mythologies while going to school at the same time. So thank you Rio for all of your hard work and dedication!

Good night and thank you

"We are at the end of our enquiry, but as oftern happens in the search after truth, if we have answered one question, we have raised many more;" (Frazer 685)


I have been completely enlightened through mythology. The fact that my peers are so intellectual and smart envokes my spirit. I can't tell you how mesmerized I was while reading these blogs. Completely surprised and proud to be in this generation of people. The calibur of the use of the mind boggles mine.
As far as mythology, I agree with MaryShaun that I will never look at tree without seeing a beautiful woman inside. Each winter I will feel the pain Ceres as she craves her daughter. Upon seeing my reflection in the water I will not look too long in fear of dying as Narcissus. And everytime I hear myself in the mountains I will think of Echo and mourn for her loss.
Dr. Sexson, thank you for sparking my brain alive with imagination again. Myth maybe false, but it gives me a part of my mind i thought I lost as a child and nothing is more truthful than that. As you so eliquently put it,

"life is not a problem, life is a mystery."

and with that I say, "And Taylor lived happily ever after." The end.... until Shakespeare next semester

What myth am I?

"Often he regards his shadow or reflection as his soul, or at all events as a vital part of himself, and as such it is necessarily a source of danger to him. For if it is trampled upon, struck, or stabbed, he will feel the injury as if it were done to his person;" (Frazer 185)

I have no specific myth that relates to my life. Because I am my own myth. The perfect representation would be beginnings as ends. Right now all I want out of life is to retire in Bozeman and ski. Thats one of my first memories, skiing. I want my end to be my beginning. I relate to stories from Ovid such as storytelling like the Daughters of Minyas to challenging my peers like the pierides. Its all a myth lived out in each of us. Always and forever in our souls.

Final Questions

Questions for the final exam
1) What is the only thing permanent?
Change
2) What is modern version of Pan & Apollo?
Tenacious D
3) Archetype is the old stuff
4) What false idol brought snow-Pygmalion to life?
John Madden
5) At the beginning there was the _____ & at the end there was the _____
flood & flood
6)How did John get away from (Steven) the Cyclops?
His said his name was no man
7) What can be said about all ends?
They are all beginnings
8) What two parts did Corrin say were about the same?
The heart & the groin
9) In Tristan's final presentation, the african tribe he talked about did not have knowledge they had
-oral traditions
10) In John Orsi's final presentation, what did he compare the writing process to?
Loss of virginity
11) James Joyce compares himself to what mythological personage?
God
12) Eating raw flesh of one dismembered is what?
Omophagia



* On top of this, read afterword in Ovid. The final chapters in Eliade's Myth and Reality especially focusing on pg 155, 199, 172, and 177

Read Corrin, Ashley and Sally's blog as well as everyone elses 

Term diddly erm paper

Henderson the Rain King

            Upon finishing my reading of Henderson the Rain King I discovered several mythological themes throughout the book. Henderson, trying desperately to go back to his own Illo Tempore and his relation to being a hero on an adventure.

            Within the first part of the book Henderson describes being in an age of madness. He no longer enjoys his life and is not in touch with reality. "There is a curse on this land. There is something bad going on. Something is wrong" (Bellow 38). Convinced that he must go on a journey and find what it is that is plaguing him so. I would compare this to trying to go on an adventure to become a hero. He is trying to exercise his own creative powers in his own beginning to fix what his life has become. Africa is the answer to him.

            I found Henderson to be in "Dream Time" throughout the entire book. He feels he has a job to do. During the first chapter he is in Africa he states, “and I felt I was entering the past--the real past... The prehuman past" (Bellow 46). He then states his connection between nature and himself, becoming his own supernatural being.

            Upon reaching the first tribe Henderson immediately notices the connection between the cattle and their owners. Cattle are mythological beings in themselves. He allows the thought of the cattle being relatives to those who own them. Henderson is so overwhelmed with what he has discovered he is sure he has left the real world stating, "And I'm still not convinced that I didn't penetrate beyond geography" (Bellow 55). Beginning his journey to recreate what his own supernatural being did, going back to his own "sacred time."

            The start of Henderson's own recreation is discovering the frogs that have poisoned the water supply. This was his task, he was sure of it. Saving these people was his journey's purpose. Discovering at this point Henderson is extremely strong; he proves this by wrestling Itelo. He defines himself as a hero at this point, or so he thinks.

            Henderson is deeply crushed when his plan to kill the frogs backfires and he ends up leaving the tribe in even worse condition then when he arrived. I could not help but compare his actions to Hercules and Achelous. Henderson takes on a role as Hercules with characteristics of a hero. I believe cutting off the water supply completely compare to ripping off Achelous' horn leaving the land sterile. Later, he brings much rain to Dahfu's tribe which represents the Horn of Plenty.

            The next stop on Henderson's journey brings him to Dahfu. Again, reacting on impulse and wanting so much to be a hero he moves Mummah. He again sees a chance to go back to the beginning and make things right in his world. What Henderson seems to not understand is that the world cannot be changed, only relived.

             "This may be interpreted as a promise that in time we would be delivered from blindness and understand. On the other hand, it may also mean that with time we will understand our own enormities and crimes, and that sounds to me like a threat" (Bellow 162). Henderson goes on the quest to try and fix something that he wants, but he is fighting what will show him the truth.  Dahfu tries to show him how to embrace the truth of the world. Henderson is a becomer but wants to be a be-er but is trying so hard to fight the reliving of times and to not be another person but something more. "I mean that depth where I have always belonged" (Bellow 193)

            Dahfu teaches Henderson many things while he is staying with the tribe. You can tell Henderson accepts many new things that he didn't before through Dahfu's intelligence. "the flesh influencing the mind, the mind influencing the flesh, back again to the mind, back once more to the flesh" (Bellow 236). Henderson is beginning to understand that life is a continuing circle that cannot change, however he still believes it can.

            Upon meeting Atti, Henderson goes back to resistance of reality. Dahfu is trying to teach Henderson that life involves becoming something more than what you are. He tries to get Henderson to embrace the Lion, to become like the lion. In order to be, you must become. Henderson never really grasps on to the concept resulting in his fear of change.

            After Dahfu's death Henderson is given the chance to start a new life. One as the king and hero he always wanted, the purpose of his journey. However, he realizes that he wants to go back to where he started. His supernatural journey ends up taking him back to the beginning, just like the rest of us. On the brighter side, his journey resulted in a manifestation of something new, strong, and significant which means he did go back to a "sacred time." He relived what he needed which created the hero in himself. Henderson finally accepts that the beginning is the end, “Ages of longing and willing, willing and longing, and how have they ended? In a draw, dust and dust” (Bellow 285).

           

simpsons much?

I was recently attempting to go to sleep when watching an episode of the Simpsons. I had not realized how mythological this show was. The particular episode I watched was about Homer going to the chili cookoff. He ends up trying some chili made by Chief Wiggum made with insane peppers from mental patients in the forests of such and such. Homer ends up going on a spiritual quest in his mind. He then runs into a coyote who tells him he needs to find his soul mate. The coyote voiced by Johnny Cash mind you. However, what struck me funny was not the spiritual journey but after Homer comes to. He explains how all the things around him are what he saw in his fantasy. The pyramid being some stairs nearby to the coyote being a dog. It just struck me that if we look at things a different way... we can see them not for what they appear but what they can become.

sublime experience

"Again the performer enters into details, and cries, ‘He killed the crawling snake. It is a sin.’ In a moment the last word is caught up, and all the people cry ‘It is a sin.’ As they shout, the performer lays his hand upon the calf. The sin is transferred to the calf." (The Golden Bough)

I was sparked with the discussion a couple of classes ago about Tristans south park blog. The line at the end "I am happy something can make me feel so sad." No one realizes it but Matt Stone and Trey Parker are geniuses. A great apocalytic episode is when hamsters try taking over the world. Relating to the then recent movie Cloverfield. Anyways, enough with my tangent on south park. Butters quote sparked my mind however, how would it feel not to feel? The points of our lives that are most important to us are the points that we remember through what we were feeling. Your emotions are what you live for. Its like when you ask a person how their vacation was, and they respond with all the things that went wrong. It was a sublime experience but these are all the things that didn't go according to plan. Several years down the road, they don't remember their vacation from scuba diving, they remember that George left his wallet at home and couldn't get on the plain. Then there was a massive snow storm that caused the plain to not take off for three hours. Ask them what they ate.... they won't remember. Its anger, sadness, happiness, etc.. in extreme that make us remember how much we love life.