What a terrible life to have to worry about being abducted by your gods/goddesses and basically raped? I would not want to have that fear that my provider would also take one of the most precious gifts given - my virginity.
Moving on.....
So far this class is not as I expected it would be (Mythologies taught at Montana State University) and is covering completely different texts than the other section. And I am perfectly ok with this. The class gives the perception that it will be challenging, but not repeating items read in Humanities senior year of high school such as 'Dante's Inferno' is going to be nice. As a short introduction to my blogs, they will be set up pretty note style until I can get a better flow for the mindset of the class.
In class we were given the assignment to contemplate origins and myths. All I could think about the entire time was a Native American story read during my English class in 10th grade in high school. The story was just bizarre. I believe it was called something along the lines of "The World on a Turtles Back". The few parts I remember the most were their was a lady (mother earth?) who was pregnant with twins. They both saw light to follow to exist their mother when it was time to be born, but in opposite directions. They argued a little inside of her and the one went the correct way, and the other insisted on going the opposite direction, was born from her armpit, which killed her. For some reason that part has stuck in my brain. Probably cause it weirded me out so much...
Class Notes
According to Calasso in the book The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, the definition of 'myth' is: "the precedent behind every action, its invisible, ever-present lining". In more simpler terms, it is the predestined outline for life - it is already there. The Greek word for myth is 'mytos' meaning "story". This is very fitting, however, this can lead into a whole debate on is story real or fiction? Because if myth is something that is already there, then it makes it fiction, but if a story is something which is made up, then it is false - a farce.
Myth is also in relations to the origin of items. According to our teacher (Michael Sexson), mythology is all about how it started, and where it came from, but yet, there is no such thing as originality in mythology. And the word originality has the root word 'origin' in it which is going back to where it all happened. It's a very perplexing topic when trying to justify in the world's standards. If there is one thing I'm starting to realize more than ever about mythology so far, is that you cannot look at mythology with 100% common sense. After reading the stories from the book, From Primitives to Zen, it is almost impossible to go into those myths reading them as though they were realistic or factual. (Especially the corn one {A Pawnee Emergence Myth}. In my opinion that one was weird...)
From Primitives to Zen
Interesting myths. I think I've read the Native American myth with the diver and turtle, An Earth-Diver Creation Myth, in my English class while in high school (the same class that I read the woman giving birth to twins, one through the armpit). One thing I found that the majority of the creations stories had in common where they all began with the world being nothing but water and possibly sky. A lot of them also began with violence.
Magus
I began reading The Magus. Well, actually, I began having The Magus being read to me. I have problems really getting involved or enjoying books that I have to read for a class, so I'm trying something new and is letting my boyfriend read the book out loud to me (he was more interested in reading the book than I was anyway.) So far it's working pretty well. His vocab knowledge is a lot greater than mine so I can ask him what most of the words mean and if he doesn't know, write them down to look up later. Plus, it gives me someone to make side comments to and discuss the book as I go. The book isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be so far, and it's becoming easier to understand the farther we go. I have chapter 1-3 finished. So far the guys seems like an arrogant jerk. I don't understand how someone could be so happy about not having any relatives. I would be devastated if I didn't have any family left! And he's so cocky! But yet too snobbish to get take most jobs when it sounds like he probably needs the money. Curious where the book is headed.....
Calasso
I also began reading Calasso (by myself). I haven't gotten very far yet though (only the first two pages). Seems I don't know my Greek gods/goddesses enough to know exactly who is being mentioned. A few I needed to look up were:
- Boreas (Greek god of wind)
- Tethys (Titan goddess of the sources of fresh water)
- Nereid (goddesses of the sea)
http://www.theoi.com/
