Summary

         How can I sum up in just a couple sentences the main thing I have learned this semester?    I think it is that humanity has a grave error.  It is that later generations don't learn from the mistakes of older generations and that we continue to walk in the same pathways that others have in an unending circle.  It isn't that we are all the same, it is just that the experiences we have are very similar to others around us, before us, and even the people who will come after us. 

Toy Story

       On the way out of class on Monday, I was talking to Autumn and we got on the movie topic.  Somehow,  the Toy Story trilogy came up.  Kind of strange, I know, but it is a little mythological and personally.  I think it may have been that we had been talking about graduation in class, actually.
      I grew up with Toy Story,  literally. When Andy, from the movie was around the age of seven, I was that age, too.  As he went to camp and got older, I got older.  In the finally movie,  Andy is leaving for college.  I remember that Dad really wanted to see this movie, and so for Father's day, we went to see Toy Story 3.  I had just graduated college and was preparing to leave for College.  My senior had been rough, and I was, and wasn't, ready to step out on my own.  To say the least, I bawled.  Yes, the movie was about Toys, but here was an end to the life of Andy and Woody together.  Woody was moving forward, just like Andy, to a new unknown.  It scared me, and the feeling of leaving the things, or friends, or family, you love is the most bittersweet emotion I have ever had.  It is that apocalypse.  It was the lifting of a veil and turning of a page for me.  My parents told me all summer that I was starting a new chapter in my life.
     Toy Story summed it up perfectly.  From the mythological number of three, the creation of the friendship between Woody and Buzz, the Initiation that Woody goes through (struggles with loosing his arm and the pain he deals with because of it) to the apocalyptic end of becoming a toy belonging to different child.  For me, the story had a moral of how hard change is for people.  We are more comfortable in what we know and so stepping of the edge into the unknown isn't something we deal well with.  This may not be true for everyone, but it is most definitely true for me. 
     I don't think I will ever see things the same because of this class.  This movie is just another example of seeing mythology in the every aspect of my life, including movies from my childhood.

Our Own Tree

  After class on Friday, I remembered something that I thought was interesting about trees.  During Autumn's presentation, she talked about her friend calling her a tree.  I smiled and thought about it literally for a second before an image from my anatomy lab popped into my head.  Technically, we all have a "tree" inside of us.  In the back part of the head lies a portion of the brain called the cerebellum, which is responsible for coordination and movement.  If you cut this portion of the brain in half, you can see the different types of matter (white and gray) making the picture of a sideways tree called the Arbor Vitae, or tree of life.  Once again, I am surprised by trees all around us and, in this case, inside us, too. 

Final Project

At the beginning of this last school year, like many of my peers, I was still contemplating the courses I would eventually take during the course of my education at Montana State.  I had fulfilled a core here and there, but had never sat down and made sure that every course was on track and placed specifically into chosen semesters.  This year, though, I was required for ROTC to plan out the next three years in the exact courses I would take for each semester.  As some students in this class are probably also aware of, this course fulfills MSU’s diversity core. 

            My expectations of this class and what it has turned out to be, though, are stark opposites.  I had always wanted to take a mythologies course, and believed them to be about just that, old myths or tales, or stories.  I even expected it from this class.  I believed before stepping into this class that I would be learning stories from Greek mythology and then regurgitating them for tests.  Black and white, cut and dry.  I found, though, that this class was more about my own life and the lives of every individual who has been, is, and will be an inhabitant on our earth. 

            Our book was deceiving.  When I arrived at the book store before the beginning of the semester to grab all of my textbooks, I was relieved to find that it was only one book, but was still hesitant after quickly flipping through it.  All I could think was here we go. 

            And off we went.  From the very first lecture, I was hooked.  When Dr. Sexton said that it was a third grade level, I didn’t really believe him.  In class, though, I felt like I was in third grade all over again.  This is my deep secret that I keep from other professors.  In lectures during every other college class I am in, I listen and scribble down notes as fast as I can, hoping that some of the information sticks. I leave these classes discouraged and weary praying that the week goes slowly in order for me to fit more monotonous study time in.   In Mythologies, though, I sit in wide-eyed wonder, soaking in every word.  I struggled at first, finding it hard to wrap my science-based mind around this idea.  It was a gray area, not the straight answers I was used to receiving from my other teachers.  But ideas slowly started to build.

            At first, when I thought about this assignment, I didn’t know what to do.  I had learned to look for specifics, but I didn’t want to talk only about examples for this paper’s entirety.  If I did, I would just have to copy and paste my blog into a Word document and hand it in.   For me, the big picture, and what I have learned as a mythic detective, finally became clear this last weekend.  I started to go into this idea in my blog from Monday, but don’t believe I fully explained my thoughts on the subject as well as I wanted. 

            This last weekend, I noticed a trend, one that I constantly see in everyday life, but was never sensitive to.  Mistakes are repeated over and over again.  One early mistake that stands out most vividly for me is from third or fourth grade.  I could not spell the word because and instead would spell it as “becouse.” I must have been correctly hundreds of times.  I would have to write it over and over, but still I would be writing an essay question answer and the spelling would be wrong again.  To this day, my mom will harass me about it.  The funny thing is that my dad has the same issue with spelling that I do.  I would joke that it was genetics, and I still think that it is to a degree.  But why, if my dad had these mistakes, didn’t I learn from them.  Why couldn’t this tripping block be moved on from?   

            In class, we talked on the first day of Myth being the precedent behind every action.  Everything has been done before, nothing is original.   We as humans like to believe that we are different.  We make fashion and behavior statements to try and convince ourselves that we are our own individual.  After this class, I don’t think that these tactics work.  We can’t be different through our actions because somewhere along the line, someone has already done the same thing we have.  So many times, my parents have told me that each generation becomes “worse and worse”, meaning that we become more evil as time progresses.  Whether or not I can take Ovid’s work realistically, his stories paint a vivid contradiction to that belief.  Humanity has not changed.  Then I also remember that Ovid received inspiration from elsewhere.  His stories were passed down to him.  Multiple times throughout class, it was mentioned that Ovid was trying to outdo Homer.   This is just another example of an individual trying to become unique and original, but in reality is just repeating exactly what has already been done. 

            When we started to talk about the parts of myth, I was still confused, enjoying the learning process, but not completely grasping the concepts.   I contributed it to my lack of experience in the English classroom, but maybe it was my unwillingness to see what was right in front of me.   But like I said, this weekend something just snapped into place.  Where else had I heard of a beginning, middle and end being pertinent? None other than in human’s themselves.  We are born, and go through our own creation story.  Each story is a different variation, but it is all the same.   Each of us has a mother who carries us and gives birth to us after nine months, give or take.  After birth, we grow and are shaped through childhood by our families or life.   We learn good and evil.  Just as in the stories Ovid tells for beginning, we learn when to speak and when to keep quiet, as well as to not snoop into things we have no business being involved in.

We have middle, a time period of trial and error.  In class it would seem to be our initiation era.    I believe the main initiation most individuals experience is during our puberty years until we have passed into adulthood. We like Arachnae learn when not to brag and who we shouldn’t upset.  We learn when to heed the advice our parents give us.   Not all of our life stories are as heartbreaking during initiation as the characters in Ovid, but each individual goes through some life changing moments. 

Then there is our end.   When we die, although we don’t know what happens, we pass through a doorway and start a new adventure in the unknown.  It is a never ending circle.  It was the Ouroboros that started my contemplation of the cycles that we go through in life as well as the continuation of these cycles.  I also see it as the rings in trees.  For me, this is part of the significance of trees.  I know that in many Ovidian stories, trees were transformed people.  But I also believe that they hold a secret in the rings they have inside.  They may grow in years, but they continue to grow the same way every year.  Complete circles make up the rings inside trees.  I used to love counting the rings on large cottonwoods that my dad would cut down at our place when we were younger.   Even then, before this class, I knew there was something special about trees.  They were much older than any human.  I would start counting the rings, but eventually give up because it took too long and I would skip away, excepting that the tree was much older than I or my parents.  The funny thing about trees is they are silent and they sometimes hunch over like a wise elder.  You can whisper secrets in a tree and they, unlike the wind, will keep the secret quiet.  They seem to have missed this cycle of having to relearn from past mistakes. 

I wish I had learned more from the mistakes of others instead of having had to make them all myself.  As I stood in formation this weekend and watched a girl in charge of personnel accountability be yelled at in front of our platoon, I saw two mistakes that we had learned not to do over the course of the year.  The first was to keep a close eye on who was with you at all times and the other to always pull people aside to reprimand them.    I made mistake after mistake as well during our training exercises, and every time I would want to hit my head at the simple mistake that I had been taught multiple times to be careful about.     I hate failure, but there seems to be this cycle I can’t get out of.  I learn more through failure, though, than I do when just being taught something. 

On the bus ride home when a friend of mine asked me about Professor Sexton’s comment of mythologies are everywhere and we just have to find them.  My mind started turning.  I finally came to a conclusion which I think is the main theme I have learned from this class.  The precedent has been set, but that doesn’t mean we are immune to follies and mistakes that those before us have made.  It just means that this is the life cycle that has been set for all humans to work their way through by trial and error.   

I have never been more grateful for a class.  I won’t forget it and I will probably keep Ovid with me for a long time. 

Ripples

It's funny.  When I first thought, and started, this final project, it was more of a mod podge of stories and collection of things that I didn't really know how to fit together.  But the more I mulled it over, the less I like the concepts I had decided to use.  They had no real impact on me personally, and felt more like a repetition of everything we had discussed in class and what I had already wrote here.  I didn't want to suck in and spit back out everything I had already discussed into a compact paper just so that I had something to write about for the final project.  But then part of me wonders if that was more what this class wanted us to appreciate.  On Jake's blog where he said that he had to be truthful and say he hadn't read all of Ovid, I had to agree with him and raise my hand in guilt, but I was surprised at the response to this that Professor Sexton had.  The more I think about it, the more I wonder if we were supposed to gain a more broad understanding of myth than I first thought, though.  The  more I contemplate all of the concepts we have discussed, the more the dominoes fall and the more I believe I understand.  I feel as though I have learned more in this class, in some ways, than I have learned in many classes and wish I could continue into next year with the same type of class.  This final presentation feels a little like an ending and transition to the turning of the page in order to become a mythic observer in my life, without having to look for it just to blog about, but instead to be able to appreciate and notice things, that before, I would not have cared about.  I really liked the pictures of the ripples above because it makes me think of how the class interacts.  Each one of the main circles is a student and we interact, sparking new ideas.  We continued to grow on our own, though, throughout the semester building upon our original foundation of the ideas of myth. 

History Repeats

  This weekend I was able to participate in field training for a class of mine.  It was cold and wet and people were not always happy with each other.  Mistakes were made and individuals chewed out but overall it went well.  On the ride back, I was talking to a guy that was in Prof. Sextons Shakespeare class and then another girl, who was with me when Prof Sexton was talking to me in the sub and told me that mythologies are everywhere, asked about what Prof Sexton was talking about.  I quickly gave her the idea of mythology but I could tell she wasnt super interested.  But by bringing up the topic of mythology, it got me thinking about relating my weekend to mythology.  I started to think more broadscale though.   Mistakes is what my mind went to.  When I was younger, my parents told me that my generation had more problems than theirs and that their parents had told them the same thing and so on and so forth. But when I started reading Ovid, I noticed that the things he was takking about were things that were the same as what we deal with now.  We as people still look at things we shouldnt and tell secrets we shouldnt and hurt each other.  I think that this is because everyone has a beginning and middlr and end and that we have to learn from our own mistakes and dont take advise as people very well.  Whether ornot this is the reason for repeating history, or myth, or not I dont know though

End songs

I found a song this weekend that reminded me of ends.  Partly because of the movie it came from, though.  It is "The Call" by Regina Spektor.  I was listening to musicwhile driving back to Bozeman and it randomly, or maybe on purpose.  It is thesong at the end of the movie Prince Caspien and is when the children are passing through thedoorway on their way back to their own world and to me the doorway is the end.  And thestart of a new adventure for the children back in England.  Here is a link to the song:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNsQewlFtEs

Simplicity

       For some reason, Wednesday felt ordinary and normal, more so than usually.  I cant explain why it just does.  In reality, though, it was different than most days.  I got up earlier that morning and had my final APFT test of the year, this is my army physical fitness test.  I suppose you can call me a goal person, but I have been striving to achieve a perfect score this entire year.  This is a certain time for a two mile run, a certain number of push-ups in two minutes, and a certain number of sit-ups in two minutes.  This was one of those victories, or milestones, that I was able to reach.   After PT I was sitting in the Sub with another girl from the program when I saw Professor Sexton.  I was working on my anatomy and physiology reading for the day and he asked me about mythologies and reminded me that everything is mythological.  This is really true.  A day that should have been considered abnormal felt more normal than usual.  I started to have my mind wander toward mythologies and different men and women who accomplished great things.  Recently, Margaret Thatcher has passed away.  A women who I would  consider a historical hero to me, she was able to accomplish what she set out to do in England and win her battles as well.  while many would argue st her political decisions, I saw her as a strong woman who defied the normals and thought she could do it better.  In a way it reminded me of Arachne but without the end that Arachne saw.  I was reminded, though, that everything is mythological and has been done before

Woman's Punishment

In class on Friday, I was very interested in the ending topic.  I think I had always thought that men got the worse punishment in our creation story, now we all have to die, can it get much worse?  But know looking at our discussion, I am starting to question that.  I am still a little confused at the analogy of death and knowledge.  But what definitely spoke me was about the scientific look at the size of a human's skull.  I had just the day before been in my anatomy and physiology class talking about the size of the brain and the cost - need analysis of the size of a human brain, or how large a baby's skull could be.  What my teacher said mimicked what Dr. Turner said.  The size of a woman's pelvis determines the size of a baby's brain.  So when I started to look at it this way, I started to wonder if pain wasn't really the main curse that Eve was given, but instead it was the limit to our knowledge.  I know that my A & P teacher would hate this, because immediately after telling us that woman's pelvises determine brain size, he said that statistically there is no proof that brain size determines how smart a person is.  But I do wonder if it was easier to have children and we didn't have this restraint, how much our knowledge of things would have differed.  I know that Dr. Turner also talked about Knowledge and death go hand in hand and also that science proves our stories.  I just was a little blown away at this new look at an old story that I have known since I was very little.  

Apple Blossoms

  Spring Storm and Pear Trees was the free verse Poem that Doctor Turner read on Thursday of last week.  While I immensely enjoyed all of his works, this one gave me the most vivid mental picture, not because I knew what pear trees in bloom looked like, but because of an apple tree that while growing up had sat in front of one of my bedroom windows.  I had claimed the tree as my own, and was very quick to yell at my brothers if they started to climb it or break it's branches.  Thinking back now, I believe in a way I considered it a dear friend, who grew older with me as the years passed on.  On windy nights, it's branches would scrape against the window of my room, scaring me at first then becoming a lulling sound in the storm.  In the winter, it stood solemn and bare, but in the spring it was the most romantic tree.  Although it never produced fruit, every year thousands and thousands of blooms would fill the tree producing the most wonderful smell and I would leave my windows open just to bring the apple blossom smell into my room.  Along with the pale pink flowers, bees would swarm around the tree, creating a relaxing sound.  Bees were always something that scared me when I was younger, and although I loved the tree, I would avoid it outside because of the hundreds of bees that traveled to collect pollen and nectar next to my house.   But when I got older, I actually worked with bees for a summer job and my fear of them has decreased tremendously.  As we are talking about "the end," or Apocalypse portion of this class, I have to think of bees a little bit.  All summer long, these little insects work much like ants.  Every morning after the temperature raises to around 50 degrees, the workers leave the hive and start their daily journey to find nectar and pollen.  They will travel up to a five mile radius in order to find both food and water.  One hive can produce up to 100 pounds of honey in one summer.  This is all to prepare for winter.  This made me think of the end period.  I don't know why I associate winter with end, maybe because it is the end of the year or maybe because of the cold harsh weather.  I was surprised at how Spring Storm and Pear Trees made me reminisce of childhood memories though.  

Be Careful What You Wish For!

I had to laugh in class the other day when Professor Sexton was talking in class the other day about being careful what you wish for.  I had an experience when I was eight that mirrors this point of view perfectly.  My Aunt and Uncle had come over for dinner on a Sunday night in the late spring (I still remember the fact that it was a Sunday) and my cousin, brother and I were outside playing.  My cousin had on a blue cast that ran from his wrist to the middle of his shoulder.  I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen and was slightly jealous of all the signatures he had on it.  I couldn't help but think how much I wanted a cast just like it.  Sure enough, the next day while playing on the swing set my Dad had built for my siblings and I, I fell off the trapeze bar, backwards, and dislocated and fractured my left elbow and arm.  Ironically, it was the left arm, which was the same side that my cousin broke.  So to say the least, the entire ride to the hospital, riding on a gravel road, I was telling myself that I would never again wish for something that I really had no business wishing for in the first place. 

Perspective

I loved reading all the different displacement stories from the class this weekend.  I think I got though all of them, but I'm really good at missing some on the side of my blog, so I will have to continue to keep looking to make sure that I did read them all.  With some of the stories, the "theme" story stuck out very quickly, others you had to read quite a ways until you saw it, and then others I still am puzzling over.  What really struck me, though, was perspective.  Seeing how differently everyone weaved Ovid into their stories was what I enjoyed.  Some people to small clues while others used the plots of the story from Ovid.  I kept thinking how the story was either like the "Signs and Symbols" or like the displacement story that Professor Sexson read to us from his former student.  Two completely different ways to displace, but both still masterfully done. 

Displacement

If I had to give a time period in my life that had impacted me the most, I would have to say it was the summer of 1997.  I had just finished my senior year at Arizona State, were I had been studying photography.    Over winter break that year, my Digital Processes professor had contacted me about an internship with Dan Venator, a well-known wildlife photographer who worked primarily in the Bob Marshall wilderness who was a friend of hers.  I had known I wanted the internship immediately.   I was three credits short of graduating and wildlife photography was what I wanted to specialize in.  So four and a half months later I found myself finishing the twenty hour drive from Phoenix to Kalispell Montana.   Driving through the small town, I looked from the map in my lap back up to the road.  Turning down the last street, I stopped in front of the small apartment I would call mine for the next few months, 105 S. Skylos.   Turning off the car, I sighed quietly.  This had been the longest trip I had ever been on and my legs were killing me.  I opened the door and stepped out, stretching my arms above my head as I tried to ease the aching in my lower body.  I heard a door slam behind me and quickly turned around.  A friendly face greeted me with a small wave as he walked toward me. 

“You must be Anna?  I’m Dan.”  He reached his hand out towards me.

“Hi, and yeah, that’s me,” I said with a small laugh, as I shook his hand.  

“Well, I’m glad to see you made it in one piece, when Carol told me that you were driving here I couldn’t believe it.  That isn’t exactly a short drive.”  

“No it is not, and I’m glad I don’t have to drive it a lot.”

Dan smiled, “Well, the apartment is all set up.  Here are the keys and tomorrow we are going to go out for a short day.  I’ll pick you up at five so we can get out there early.”

“Okay, and thank you again.”

As Dan drove off, I grabbed my bag and started inside.  I hadn’t expected to start so soon and as excited as I was, I was too tired right now to really want to think about tomorrow.  The house was comfortable with furniture already in place and as soon as I had showered and changed, my head hit the pillow and I was out until my alarm went off the next morning at four. 

Soon I was in a small navy blue Toyota Tundra, driving toward the even smaller town of Seeley Lake on Highway 83.   Snow still covered the peaks of most of the summits around us.Dan enjoyed to talk and kept the conversation flowing throughout the drive.   

 After arriving in Seeley Lake, the highway quickly turned into a road and travel became slower.  When the truck finally stopped, we stepped out and started to pull the equipment out of the back, which was covered by a topper.  I grabbed the tripod and the base with the extra lenses.  Dan would be taking most of the pictures as I observed.    Just as I expected, the day passed in flash, with Dan pointing out different things to me as we moved along a well-used path.   But although this day had included a path, I realized that I would soon be going on longer backpacking trips to the heart of the wilderness.   It was something new every day and just as exciting as before.  I loved wandering throughout the wild landscape, looking for different animals and scenes.  I had never felt closer to God and been more amazed by everything I had seen. 

 Before I knew it, mid-August was upon us and we were preparing for one final trip.  Dan wouldn’t tell me where we were going, insisting that I just was going to be surprised.  Usually, he would give me a little back brief on the general location and I would spend the evening pouring over maps, the internet and books to find everything I could about the terrain.  It took us three days to hike in, each of us carrying at least sixty pounds of equipment and supplies.  Dan’s Idea was to spend two days at that location and then head back.  When we reached the site where we were staying, it was already late afternoon.  We set up camp and hurried out to use the last bit of daylight to our advantage.  Of all the places I had been that summer, this beat it all.  

  The landscape was breathtaking, sweeping on for miles, untouched and green with magnificent peaks jutting out as far as the eye could see.  The light didn’t last long and we headed back to camp to settle in for the night.  The next day, it was the same routine as always: breakfast, leave camp, hike, and take as many photos’ as possible, back to camp, dinner and bed.  As I lay down for the night, I was amazed that the next day was going to be the last day in that little haven.  Dan acted different the next day; he was quieter, as if contemplating something.  I just figured he wasn’t feeling well and forgot about it.  My head swiveled around at every sound, every landmark, anything that was around me.  For most of the afternoon, the air had been silent, except for a few birds here and there and the wind through the trees, but now I could hear water.  It was a loud rushing sound, almost a roar.  I kept looking around for a sign of a stream or waterfall but couldn’t see anything.  Finally, around a bend we stumbled across it at last.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  The water streamed down the mountainside with spray shooting out to hit our legs, arms, and faces. 

  I started to pull the camera out but Dan stopped me, waving his hand in my direction

“Don’t, this is something I’ve never documented.  I wanted to show you, but its just my little secret.”  

I nodded and put the camera back.  We stood in silence for what must have been an hour, but only seemed a few minutes.  Finally, he turned to me and smiled, “Okay, let’s go, Anna.  I wanted to show you this one, but if we want to get back in time to camp, we’ll have to hurry.”

“Okay, I just have to go the bathroom first.” I pointed over towards a wooded area, already stepping in that direction.  

Dan nodded, “I’ll wait here.”

As you probably already guessed, I didn’t go to the backroom, but instead found the best angle for a picture and snapped a handful before returning back to where Dan was waiting.  We headed back to camp, and life was back to normal as if the pictures had never been taken.  I left for graduate school soon after that and left behind that summer.  But I didn’t leave the pictures.  I took them with me and during the semester showed them to a professor in a class of mine.  He raved about them and had them submitted to National Geographic.  I was offered a job there and was more than ecstatic to except it.    I still remember Dan’s face when I saw him after the release.  I had never felt so bad, betraying a man who had been my greatest teacher.  I still can’t tell you where we were, and have tried to get back multiple times, but have never found the site.  I learned that some things are just too beautiful to share with the world and that betrayal stings the worst. 

Blackbird

     During spring break, I was sitting in my parents kitchen eating breakfast when my little sister started humming "Blackbird" by the Beatles under her breath.  It was stuck in my head the entire day, and I have listened to a cover of the song by Sarah Darling at least five times now. 

    While reading Ovid's metamorphasis this afternoon, I was all of a sudden struck by how often birds are involved in the transformations throughout the various stories.  From book two with the the stories of the crow and raven to the story of Pierides becoming parrots.  So, now at my curiosity at the deeper meaning of the song I started to research the meaning behind the lyrics.  According to the different things I found, Paul McCartney was inspired by many things to write the song.  One of them was the racial tension in the United States, but also that he used the poem by RS Thomas "Blackbird Singing" as well.  But my mind just starts to wander sometimes and poetry and Blackbirds brings me back to the days of high school English class and the study of Edgar Allen Poe with his poem "The Raven".  I looked up the poem and I had to smile because I realized Poe also knew his Ovid.  One of the lines of his poem says. 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Poe is most obviously referencing to the story of the Raven were Pallas was directly involved.  I just had to smile that a simple song could cause me to finally make a mythic detective finding that made me smile. 

Beauty

     My mother and I were having a conversation over spring break about an art class I attended during my childhood.   I didn't particularly excel in the arts, but through the years, my different teachers would look down at the piece I had created and smile, encouraging me to continue practicing.  Most months, I would look over to the right and peak a glance at my neighbors artwork and then look back at mine and grimace a little bit.  If drawing was involved, I found myself to be a master at stick-men and women.  But my favorite classes were always on the wheel.  There is something calming in the soft whirring of the pottery wheel, the cool clay beneath your hands, and the water that inevitably dripped from my arms.  I loved the shaping process, first pulling the clay up and then pushing it back down until the base was ready and I was ready to begin creating.  I always see pottery as a picture of every individuals journey through life.  We are all shaped different, and sometimes when we have just about figured life out, something happens and we have to adjust to fit this experience into our own lives.  I think this picture sticks out because growing up I always heard of the biblical story of the potter who, when something went wrong with his pot, he just changed the pot to work the best way he could.  

     After discussing Signs and Symbols on Monday, I realized that while the story could say one thing to me, it might speak differently to another individual and that I just have to analyze things according to how they best speak to me.  As I write, I have to laugh a little bit.  The idea of looking at things differently always makes me think of storms.  One of my friends and I have been unsuccessfully arguing our view on storms for many years, especially thunderstorms.  My experience with storms has left me with a bitter taste.  Whenever there is a thunderstorm, I am immediately reminded of a time period where my dad's radio would go off at ungodly hours, calling him to fight another wildland fire.  This as well as the pain lightening has caused to family members and friends has given me almost a phobia of thunderstorms.  My friend on the other hand, has watched storms with her family and been enthralled with the sheer power such a storm has.  Just because we don't agree on how we feel about these storms, doesn't make one of us right and the other wrong.  We have just had our own life experiences that make us different people. 

Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange

    Without these different interpretations, though, we wouldn't have the inventors, dreamers, artists, writers, any name you wish to give them.  The picture coming to mind for me right now is one by Dorothea Lange.   The mother's expression shows that life has dealt her with experiences she will never forget, as well as hardships that seem impossible to bear. But then this brings us to Autumn's blog and how we need to find beauty in the things that seem the saddest and most heartbreaking.  My mom once told me that hardships are sent our way to make us better people, maybe that is the beauty in the pain because we hope in the end that it will make us into a person better than we now are.    I know this might seem a bit redundant and breaking off from by detective work, but it seems nice to reflect on the things we talk about it class to make it sink in a little more for me. 

Signs and Symbols

The first time I read Signs and Symbols, I thought I understood the gist of the story.  A crazy boy who's parents try to come and see him but can't and go home about their day.  But then I read it again, and again, and again.  I started to highlight different things.  First I highlighted all the numbers: fourth time in four years, ten different fruit jellies in ten different fruit jars, a real American of almost forty years, ten minutes (man sitting on the steps), different ages of the boy (four eight and ten), midnight when her husband got up, knave of hearts, nine of spades and ace of spades (which I realize now is equal to ten), and the fact that the phone rings three times.  Numbers were somehow important to this story, but why?  Then I read it again and noticed the emphasis on another thing.  One was names and the other was birds.  I noticed the first name was Mrs. Sol.  This is also another word for sun, I circled the name and moved on.  The second name was Isaac, who was also nicknamed the Prince, and the third name was Soloveichiks.

The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel

At this point I was frustrated.  I didn't understand and I felt pulled in a few directions.  I realized that the story was about chances, or opportunities missed, but I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around it (and to be honest still am).  So I decided to continue in searching, and at that moment, Google was looking very inviting.  When I typed "Signs and Symbols" into the search bar and pushed images, one in general caught my eye.  A piece by an artist that we had recently been talking about, Pieter Bruegel.  Only this time, his painting was The Triumph of Death.  Now I was even more confused, and therefore, my fingers flew across the keypad in order to gain some understanding of the information that had just been unfolded in front of me.  And suddenly, it was clear.  The story was about a Jewish family who had escaped from Germany, and the picture in the book the boy was afraid of was this one.  The picture "which merely showed an idyllic landscape with rocks on a hillside and an old cart wheel hanging from the one branch of a leafless tree."

But now that this picture was involved, my first theory seemed a little more out of reach.  I had thought at first that the story was about Tereus Procne and Philomela.  It made sense in my head.  Opportunities missed.  Procne missed the opportunity to see her sister, Philomela missed the opportunity to grow up normally, and Itys missed opportunity to grow up at all.  Somewhere along the way, while I tried to research this story, I stumbled across a finding of another.  I found that the word for Nightingale in Russian is Solovey, which is very close to the name from the story, Soloveichiks.  I must say that although I am still not sure, my interpretation led me to believe that Signs and Symbols was an interpretation of the story of Terius Procne and Philomela, although I will still be researching this because it will drive me crazy until the puzzle is solved. 

The Spinners

In class on Monday and Wednesday I was amazed each time that the painting by Velazquez was put up on the projector.  Breathtaking is the word I would use to describe the work of art.  Vivid colors and texture build the story and show the business of the room.  You can almost see the women weaving, the gentle whir of the wool on the wheel as the wood creaks from the use.  You can see the knowing look shared between the disguised goddess and the maiden by her side.  The bright red curtain seems to tell us that something is to come.  In the background, the painting by Titian is recreated to show the story that Arachne weaved into her tapestry.  Someone in a helmet in the back seems to symbolize the picture of herself that Pallas weaved into her tapestry.  Light from the left side falls on a Arachne, who is sitting with her arms wide.  She has proven at that point she is the better weaver.  In the front to the right, darkness shadows a doorway with a rope hanging down.  I wonder if this symbolizes that a time very soon, Arachne herself will use. 

Beauty is Pain

Last week while we were listening to the different initiation stories, I noticed that when it came to some of the initiations for women, it was to make them more beautiful.  These painful experiences these women went through, such as having their teeth chiseled and scaring of the face, was found to make them more beautiful to the men in their community.  While in our own country we may not chisel our teeth for looks, we have our own share of strange things we are willing to go through to be seen as beautiful.  All you have to do is look at the world of plastic surgery.  A few weeks back, I was browsing through Netflix at different TV shows and saw one that made me stop just by the name.  Bridalplasty.  In the show women fight each other to receive different procedures, of which you can see them while they recover.  All of these surgeries recovers looked awful.  Bruising, stitches, and pain were written across the faces of these women as they lay in bed days after receiving the procedure.  Who would ever want to receive something that would cause so much pain?  But as you look through the centuries, endured pain for the sake of beauty can be found over and over again.  Foot binding in China was thought to make a women's feet more beautiful. Lip plates in Southern Africa are inserted before a women is to be married.  Corsets were worn to give a woman a smaller waist.  Whether physically forced or not, these woman felt to pressure, just as we do now, to be involved in these practices to maintain her appearance of beauty to those around her.  

Crossing the Line

Jonah and the Whale by Gaspard Dughet

My story of initiation, though not gory and obviously painful like that of the bullet ant, crocodile scarification and the land diver, I saw it more as the transformation from an older ritual.  In the initiation of crossing the line, sailors are required to perform different ritualistic activities such as crawling through garbage, kissing the Royal Baby, passing an inspection by Davey Jones and so on.  But there is more meaning to this than meets the eye.  What one might pass off as just a dumb activity of bored sailors at sea, others can see the deeper and darker side to this.  In the ritual, King Neptune and Queen Amphitrite, as well as Davey Jones, play an important role in the ceremony.   From Ovid's story, itself, we know that Neptune is the god of the seas and controls the waves and storms.  Superstitious sailors were very careful not to upset Neptune, in order to ensure safe sailing and reaching their destination. These men knew that the god would playfully send a storm to splinter a ship, and therefore did everything in their power to make sure that his wrath was never sent their way.   Ancient seamen did these ceremonies to pay homage to Neptune, sacrificing a goat or ox to the god during their journey.  Where the ship was during the sacrifice was just as important as the sacrifice itself.  Locations near certain capes, temples or lines (such as the equator) made the sacrifice more acceptable to Neptune.  Sometimes, though, a man would be offered to the god, such as in Jonah's case.  In the biblical myth from the bible, Jonah was instructed by God to go to the city of Nineveh in order to prophesy to the city's people.  When Jonah flees in the opposite direction, God sends a storm upon the ship he is traveling on.  Jonah tells the sailors aboard to throw him over the side and the seas will calm.  Just as he said, the seas calm when Jonah is thrown overboard.  He is swallowed by a whale and stays three days and three nights inside the whale before being spit out on shore.   While researching Davey Jones, I found that links he links to Jonah and this may be where the myth of the Sailors devil originates.  I found it interesting that this modern initiation had the deeper meaning that it did and the connections that can be found woven throughout it. 

Initiation

I won't lie, I was a little disappointed on Monday, when I heard the Crocodile Scarification story three times... considering that was the one I was going to tell.  But now that I have changed my story, I am so excited to tell it.  Although I did like my original story quite alot, the one I have now hits a little closer to home.  On Wednesday after class, I went to my house to meet my dad, who was driving through Bozeman on his was to Missoula to teach classes there for the next few days.  He always likes to ask how everything is going, how my day went and so forth.  I told him about how I had to find a new initiation story and he had an idea immediately.  As you have probably figured out from my creation story, and my childhood memory, my dad was in the Navy when I was younger.  And just like athletes are superstitious, sailors are even worse.  In the Navy, there are ceremonies for when certain things happen, such as going up in rank, crossing the equator, etc. etc.  He has told me these stories so many times and I still love to listen to them, but I always forget about them.  So today I will be telling a story that my dad has told me, and which I did a little research to see where it come from.