Pythian Dream

154. Demons are especially feared by persons who have just entered a new house. Hence at a house-warming among the Alfoors of Minahassa in Celebes the priest performs a ceremony for the purpose of restoring their souls to the inmates. He hangs up a bag at the place of sacrifice and then goes through a list of the gods. There are so many of them that this takes him the whole night through without stopping. In the morning he offers the gods an egg and some rice. By this time the souls of the household are supposed to be gathered in the bag. So the priest takes the bag, and holding it on the head of the master of the house, says, "Here you have your soul; go (soul) to-morrow away again." He then does the same, saying the same words, to the housewife and all the other members of the family.

While we were supposed to be writing a sentence for the tales in Ovid's which we most enjoy I became stuck on the story of the python, specifically this passage:

"To keep the memory of his great feat
alive, the god established sacred games;
and after the defeated serpent's name,
they were called Pythian. Here all young men
who proved to be the best at boxing or
at running or at chariot racing wore
a wreath of oak leaves as their crown of honor."- Ovid's

I couldn't quite figure out why, why I was suddenly obsessed with this passage. Why did it pop out to me? So I stared at it. I read it multiple times. I decided that the reason it was showing worth was due to how it takes something magnificently horrible and turns it into something joyously memorable.

When I went to bed, as I rolled into the womb of the sheets, tucking my head between pillow and sheets to hide from the rotation of the fan, I told myself I was going to dream tonight.

Remember what I said earlier about the worth of Python? Boy was I wrong.

At least to myself.

---

I awoke in white athletic shorts rimmed upon the bottoms in dark navy blue. A similar Jersey. A similar height to the one I have now, A similar build to the one I have now. Not the one I had in highschool when I wasn't playing basketball. The Crowd was cheering! people packed and up upon there feet in the tiny gymnasium where I used to sit through basketball games, athletic class, and those blessed stations of the cross.

That tiny room is certainly a cabinet overflowing with remembrance ready to be plucked and picked dry of detail but while I was awake in this dream I was thinking about non of these things. I was winning at basketball. Something I've never done.

Everything blurs and I come again into consciousness talking to a girl who's positively glowing, radiant with beauty. We're still at the gymnasium only it's been turned into a giant party. The girl and I are talking by the make shift bar in the corner. I keep flirting with her and she goes from pouring a drink to turning with a flip of her hair to smile at me. Back to pouring her drink. To smiling at me. She never takes a drink and for this I'm quite happy. I don't know if me talking to her is just the distraction she needs, or if it has nothing to do with her recent gift. Perhaps the bottomless drink symbolizes something that will never be filled.

Either I blacked out in my dream or I have forgotten the rest up to the point where I'm walking into the school to pick up somethings with my brother only to find out they are running practice without me. I'd forgotten about the practice involved in playing the game. I was running around aimlessly trying to do drills while all my giant teammates tried to help me understand what the coach was trying to do. And then drowned. Until Class today.

A Bozeman Myth

"That's not the true story, you know."

A raspy voice of criticism bound in arrogant delight.

It's coming from over there, somewhere behind the gentleman glossed with anxiety and arousal.

"The police never get it right you know."

Do you know?

"Well, I'm not supposed to say this. It's supposed to be a secret. Not many people even know about this."

She says. She says again. She adds dramatic affect. She's Probably curling little Suzie Cue's into her blonde hair. Smacking lips. Rolling eyes.

"But it was all set up by this girl with an Oxy addiction. You know Oxy-cottin. Well he has a prescription or something from when he was in the army. He hurt himself. But he never takes the pills."

She stressed Cotton, not sure yet very definite. Holes begin to Gape in her story. But is it her, or is it what she doesn't know? Or is it what we already know?

"Well this girl set it all up so they would get his pills for her. It didn't even happen on campus."

"Wait, didn't they ring the rape station?"

spouts another voice, female. Elongated. Pruned to carry every syllable.

"That's what they say, but I know. It didn't happen behind the gym. Who are you going to trust, some stupid police reports or me?"

-----------------------------------------------

We're supposed to be listening in on our peers turnings Kings into Gods are we not? Or is it the truth?

Ovid's Book I.....Chapter ?

218. In Cyprus it appears that before marriage all women were formerly obliged by custom to prostitute themselves to strangers at the sanctuary of the goddess, whether she went by the name of Aphrodite, Astarte, or what not. Similar customs prevailed in many parts of Wetern Asia. Whatever its motive, the practice was clearly regarded, not as an orgy of lust, but as a solemn religious duty performed in the service of that great Mother Goddess of Western Asia whose name varied, while her type remained constant, from place to place. Thus at Babylon every woman, whether rich or poor, had once in her life to submit to the embraces of a stranger at the temple of Mylitta, that is. of Ishtar or Astarte, and to dedicate to the goddess the wages earned by this sanctified harlotry.

ASIDE: In my spare time I've been reading the late Stegg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy and can't help but notice how far society has come from this. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as well as its Sequel all have a central theme based upon the raping of women. The book has served quite well as a basis for current thoughts of women's rights in comparison with Mythologies as well as Bible as Literature. So, if you're interested in the metamorphosis of women's rights throughout time and culture, I'd invite you to read a truly thrilling set of present day novels to gain a deeper perspective. (warning: Contains far more brutal language and pictorial texture than Ovid's or the Bible)

Prologue- This most definitely describes Ovid in a moment; From "bodies becoming other bodies" to "Changes" to "Seamless" to "Weave", everything describes the interchanging circle of life.

The Creation- Poetic as a Johave writer, descriptive as the Priest, and much more entertaining than a simple boom and particles finding meaning. Favorite line: "The god placed above these winds the ether, without weight, a fluid free of Earth's impurity."

The Giants- odd, boring passage added to the fact that I've found no other textual evidence of this Myth in any other sacred texts leads me to believe that the Giants must have been Babelers, incapable of speech let alone writing. Favorite line: "heaped mountain peak on mountain mass, star-high"

The Flood- As again in this case the beginning always seems to be cleansed by water, and apocalypse's always has fire and brimstone; a complete destruction of the heavens and the earth compared to just the earth. Favorite line: "He brought to mind that, in the book of fates, this was inscribed: a time would come when sea and land would burn, a conflagration that would overturn the place of the sky-in fact destroy the stunning fabric of the universe.

Deucalion and Pyrrha- Just as we now throw salt over our shoulder to keep away bad luck, The Gods threw us.

Python- Story of how we make games out of the things that are horrible in order to make them less frightening. "London bridge is falling down" "Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down!"

Sarah Knox and The Crazies

586. In certain western civilizations, among the Xesson people, it is considered a sin for a woman to speak openly against a man in public. Whether it be blasphemous, malevolent, or in chide matters not; all the man must do is enter a holy place of worship and ask of the spirits that which he wishes to fall upon her and it shall be done. That is, in the dreamworld.

hmmmm......now I'm not saying anything.....but this seems oddly suspicious.....

A Verse from The Golden Bough

Last night, as I was reading, I came across this passage in The Golden Bough under Death and Resurrection and couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the potency of the verse. And without further ado this is the lead up passage as well as the clever little verse.

In some parts of Bavaria the boys who play the parts of Winter and Summer act their little drama in every house that they visit, and engage in a war of words before they come to blows, each of them vaunting the pleasures and benefits of the season he represents and disparaging those of the other. The dialogue is in verse. A few couplets may serve as specimens:-

Summer

"Green, green are meadows wherever I pass

And the mowers are busy among the grass."

Winter

"White, white are the meadows wherever I go,

And the sledges glide hissing across the snow."

Summer

"I'll climb up the tree where the red cherries glow,

And Winter can stand by himself down below."

Winter

"With you I will climb the cherry-tree tall,

Its branches will kindle the fire in the hall."

Summer

"O Winter, you are most uncivil

to send old women to the devil."

Winter

"By that I make them warm and mellow,

So let them bawl and let them bellow."

Summer

"I am the Summer in white array,

I'm chasing the Winter far, far away."

Winter

"I am the Winter in mantle of furs,

I'm chasing the Summer o'er bushes and burs."

Summer

"Just say a word more, and I'll have you bann'd

At once and for ever from Summer Land."

Winter

"O Summer, for all your bluster and brag,

You'd not dare to carry a hen in a bag."

Summer

"O Winter, your chatter no more can I stay,

I'll kick and I'll cuff you without delay."

Here ensues a scuffle between the two little boys, in which Summer gets the best of it, and turns Winter out of the house. But soon the beaten champion of Winter peeps in at the door and says with a humbled and crestfallen air:-

"O Summer, dear Summer, I'm under your bran,

For you are the master and I am the man."

To which Summer replies:-

" 'Tis a capital notion, an excellent plan,

   If I am the master and you are the man.

   So come, my dear Winter, and give me your hand,

   We'll travel together to Summer Land."

Present...er Day Myth.

"As the Garments which have been touched by a sacred chief kill those who handle them, so do the things which have been touched by a menstruous woman."

                                                                    -The Golden Bough; Taboo and Perils of the Soul 166.

Now I'm not quite sure which desk to use anymore. Nor whether or not this keyboard has in fact been infested. Or if the used books I've been receiving in the male have come underneath such perilous conditions! And, now to think of it, Barnes and Noble has a majority employment base of young and middle aged woman! I see death at every fingertip!

I must be a sacred chief or menstruating myself, and since I have neither the genitalia nor the genealogy I suppose it must be a hoax. Tackle this one MythBusters!

Now, on a more serious note.

More Present Day Myths

"Is not this whole world an illusion? And yet it fools everybody."  - Angela Carter

In our schools Dracula class yesterday we were discussing Orientallism, or The Orient, and how the word, was not a physical place, but a imaginative-magical mental place that had been instilled into the minds of Europeans through Literature. It was not the Land that brought the people or captivated the audiences, increasing the want and need to travel and enjoy; no, it was the writing. The stories. The not quite true, but most truthful, stories of adventure and excitement and other!

And it dawned on me.

This is myth. This is mythology at its best. This is storytellers captivating an audience, making them believe the unbelievable.

Now here is my question; are they believing the factual evidence of the story, or is it the spirit, the imagination, the breathing organism that the author has captured and condensed into literature that they truly believe in? Does the fable of a story ruin the truth inside? Or does it create a stronger truth?

Minute Myths For Thursday! & Class Notes

Everyone be sure to create a minute myth out of a creation story you've discovered amongst the cobwebs!

Make sure to rehearse or else face the hook!

Also.....

Check out Mercia Eliade's

5 Basic Types of Creation Myths

 Click For more about the Kaaba Stone.

Everyone be sure to read John Nay's Blogpost as well.

Refresh yourself on The hero's Myth by reading some humpty dumpty.

Humplty dumpty is the story of how we start out as a whole (creation) and then we fall (split) and our (failed) attempt to piece it back together (end). (For a refreshment of Humpty Dumpty)

SUBJECT TO WRITE ABOUT: The Presence of Myth in the present day.

PEOPLE WHO MISSED: we received groups today. Check with Shaman Sexson

Naked

"I'm naked."

hmm..

"I'm naked."

what?

"I am naked."

And she obviously isn't.

She's wearing black. All black. Except her belt buckle. That's silver.

 "James I'm naked."

 And she's looking down at me. and I up at her from aside, kneeling for some strange reason. Who knows where my subconscious was before it began lying to me.

"No, you don't understand I'm naked."

And she's obviously wearing a polyester v-neck. cut low to show the ripe breasts of her age. That trick of her trade. Her lips are done up. Red but not scarlet. Not magenta. but not pink. Red with the crimson of glosped on gloss. The rosy cheeks that you should really only see in seventy's reenactments of the rocking 20's that weren't ever as real as when they were done up in a film and a script.

And this is all scripted I'm sure. He's trying to tell me something. Myself. Arguing through this dolled up dress of a woman shouting at me through waving arms that she truly is naked and I wake up.

Class Notes Day # 4 9/9/10

I.
Origins -> Muddles -> Apocalypse

II.
Retitle YOUR BLOG SITE W/YOUR NAME
1. Go To Your Dashboard
2. Go To Settings underneath your blog
3. Re title the blog.
4. anymore instructions needed see me in class. I will walk you to the library and show you;)

III.
"Living a myth, one is seized by the sacred, exalting power of the events"

IV.
What is a dream if it isn't a personalized myth?

V.
And what is a myth if but an unpersonalized dream?

VI.
A Wonder full little Irony.

VII.
Is Myth a lie or the Truth?
Or....
what do you believe is truth? To find one is to know the other better.

VIII.
A Man is nothing without his Illusions!

IV.
Myth is Imitation!

" I just want to be Meeee!"

X.
Let's Pee differently

XI.
Myths are III Things
i. Sacred
ii. Exemplary
iii. Significant

XII.
A Year Living Biblically

XIII.
History is Bunk.
HIS STORY IS A LIE

XIV.
CEREMONIES

CERES MONIES

MONEY FOR CERES

XV.
3 people out of 45 know women give birth in pain.

XVI.

 Giving up childish things is to give up our illusions, not the text itself, but the illusions or tools/materials of the text that entrap and capture the spirit-that is to say, those "things" which affect our soul- and to truly reveal to ourselves the unspoken things, the origin of that which the human intellect wishes to identify and know within itself.

XVII.
i. Mystical
ii.Cosmological
ii.Sociological
iv. Psychological