deja vu

Call me weird but I occasionally think about our mythologies class and remember who I'm sitting next to and the subject of conversation. Not even 2 weeks later does the exact situation I described happens. Definitely deja vu!

clues

clue that is covering up creation-imitation, god-man, master-pupil mythological background around me - daughters are trying to grow up and be like their mothers (young trying to outdo or be better than mother) might think of your mother as god- never being able to compare....

HRTK final paper

     This is the tale of Eugene Henderson and his quest for a sense of adventure and fulfillment. Henderson is a giant of a man who has been in search of a sense of completion all his life. He is a man who struggles to change his ways and find out his true calling. Henderson was born into a rich family, and his sense of emptiness can at times be seen as the boring of the rich. Henderson is a surprisingly complicated character. His deep philosophical debates and questions are offset by occasional acts of violence and anger. His maid dies from listening to him argue with his wife. Constantly egged on by a voice that cries "I want, I want!” Henderson goes to great lengths to suppress it. He thinks that if he plays his dead father's violin he will be able to contact him. He then begins raising pigs. At various times throughout the novel Henderson compares himself to an animal, the fact that he seems to be constantly in their company and more fit for that than to be with other humans. The pestering voice eventually causes him to travel to Africa in search of something he can't exactly find. He promises his guide, Romilayu a Jeep to take him into the deepest parts of the country and they set off. After causing a disaster in one village, nearly destroying it in an attempt to rid their watering hole of frogs, he moves on to another area in Africa. The next tribe helps Henderson the most on his quest. Henderson encounters the Wariri and their king, Dahfu. King Dahfu is college educated and is almost a doctor, and Henderson is almost a little crestfallen to find such signs of civility in the wildest place on earth. He unknowingly participates in a ritual to bring rain to the tribe, the success of which leads to his acclamation as Sungo, or Rain King. This experience with the tribe helps him to realize that his true destiny is as a healer. Because of his ponderous strength, Henderson is appointed Rain King of the Wariri. He becomes closer and closer to Dahfu, and begins to arrive to the sense of completion he has desired for so long. Dahfu is killed in a ritual involving the capture of a lion, and Henderson fears the tribe will not put up with him for long. One of his dilemmas was: Is it a good thing to live in a palace married to dozens of beautiful intelligent half-naked women who are also trained in massage; and if you are too weak at any given time to have sex with them satisfactorily, you were killed. To hell with that, I wanna live. He and his guide escape from the tribe, though Henderson becomes sick and nearly dies. It was perhaps this near-death experience that finally "brings him around", in a sense. Henderson flies back home with his lion cub and an orphan child, and a new sense of self-awareness.

            Henderson’s trip to Africa seemed very similar to my experience. You see, I went there a mere 10 years ago, when I was only 15 years old. I went there on a medical mission’s trip with my family, as my dad is a doctor and volunteering. We ended up staying on the grounds of the hospital he worked at. We all worked at, actually. I worked in what they called the Operating Room, which to us is known as the Emergency Room. Like Henderson there was this voice that kept pestering me to find what I want to do in life and embrace it. Africa offers you peace and understanding. There is not a lot of wealth in Africa, moneywise, but there is wealth in making friends with the villagers or tribes of the area you are in. They have an abundance of knowledge that you would never know without knowing them. The natives that I met in Africa had hunger pains and untreated wounds, but amidst all of their troubles they would still reach out to others to try and make the other person a better one. They made me a better person and taught me to be thankful above all for everything that I have, and that if they can dare to dream and complete their dreams, then damnit, I can do the same.
            Eugene Henderson starts off the book as an unpredictable man, with little conscious to guide him. It seems as though he almost intentionally hurts those closest to him. After telling his wife that he has had enough of everything, and that he was going to "blow his brains out," he explains that this hurt his wife for more than one reason. Perhaps the most apparent reason was that "Her father had committed suicide in the same way, with a pistol (11)." Throwing tantrums like these cause him to be very unlikable in the beginning of the novel. Once he has arrived in Africa, you start to see a different side of him. Then after leaving the first tribe and staying with the second one for a while, his personality really begins to grow on you. He explains that, "At one time, much earlier in this life of mine, suffering had a certain spice (263)." I feel that this shows how he is growing as a person and being able to find out more about who he really is.
Towards the end of the novel, the change that has come over him becomes really apparent. After a conversation with the king, he says, "For his sake I accepted the discipline of being like a lion. Yes, I thought, I believed that I could change; I was willing to overcome my old self; yes, to do that a man had to adopt some new standards; he must even force himself into a part; maybe he must deceive himself for a while, until it begins to take. I would never make a lion, I knew that; but I might pick up a small gain there in the attempt" (250). I feel that quote was a quaint example of how he was able to really grow as a character. When introduced to Eugene Henderson, you meet a man filled with bitterness and greed, however upon following him on his journey you learn what it really means "to understand all is to forgive all", and how sometimes we can all change for the better.

The Fall of Troy short story

Achilles was well aware that his death was near. A prince from Ethiopia reinforced the Trojans and the Greeks suffered until Achilles killed him. Achilles only weak spot was near the ankles, where his mother had held him when she dipped him into the river Styx. Paris hit him in this spot and he died. Ajax wanted his arms but Odysseus received them. He went into a fit and tried to kill Menelaus and Agamemnon, but instead slayed a group of cattle and eventually killed himself (Athena made him insane).
The Greeks were dismayed because they could still not defeat Troy. A prophet told them that they would need to use the arms of Hercules to defeat the great city. They look for them and Diomedes and Odysseus come back with them. Then they learned that they would have to steal the image of Athena from a temple in the city before it would fall. Odysseus and Diomedes accomplished this task one night. Finally, they realized that they would have to get the army within the city to be victorious. With the help of Athena, Odysseus devised the plan of the wooden horse. He filled it with armed men and left a single Greek behind to convince the Trojans to admit the horse.
When the Greek fleet left, the Trojans came out to find the wooden horse. Some believed it was a trick, and others wanted to take it into the city. The Greek left behind convinced them that the horse was a peace offering. The priest who opposed the horse being brought into the city was killed on his altar by twin snakes. The people took this as an omen that they should bring it into the city.

You will have to be in class to find out the rest of the story. There will be a one minute presentation about this and hopefully it should follow pretty close to everything that you have read about the fall of Troy. Let me know how I do after the presentation. This is only the partial story...

Mythic Clues Within My Life

Have you heard of something called the Oedipus complex? Here's the story:

There was this guy named Oedipus who, at birth, was destined by fate to kill his father (who also happened to be the King of Thebes) and marry his mother. The people in Thebes thought that this was a pretty big deal, so when Oedipus was an infant, he was sent away. As an adult, Oedipus returns to Thebes only to, you guessed it, kill his dad and marry his mom. For Freud over the next few years, as witnessed by the following remarks from The Interpretation of Dreams : "It is as though—to put it bluntly—a sexual preference were making itself felt at an early age: as though boys regarded their fathers and girls their mothers as rivals in love, whose elimination could not fail to be to their advantage" (Freud, 1900a, p. 256), and "it is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so. King Oedipus, who slew his father Laïus and married his mother Jocasta, merely shows us the fulfillment of our own childhood wishes" (p. 262).

Pandora's Box - Pandora was the first woman and had good relationship with the gods. The told her not to open the box, but she did anyways. This in return caused, pain, war, illness and all other evils, the only thing left inside the box was hope. Moral of this story is even when you have good intentions, it doesn't always pan out to be something good, can bring something negative. An example of this situation is when I was younger, I wanted to do my dad a favor by washing his truck real good for him. While he was at work I got a bucket, some cold hose water and some bleach. I proceeded to go ahead and scrub down his truck, all of it. He had one of those trucks that had a bed with the hard plastic ripples in it, to keep it from getting rusty and so it was easy to clean. When I was just finishing up, he called and told me that he was on his way. I ended up going inside the house and waiting for him to get home. When he got there, he asked me what happened to his truck. I told him that I cleaned it for him, because it was really dirty. He asked me what I used to clean it with. I simply told him, "Bleach." He freaked out and demanded I rinse it off right away. I did as he asked me to do, but his truck was never the same again. I no longer wash vehicles with bleach, I take them through the car wash. This has been one of my Pandora's Box experiences.

Achilles' Heel - Achilles was born to a goddess mother, Thetis, and a human father, Peleus. Thetis did not like the fact that her son was part mortal, so she was told to dip him into the River Styx to cleanse him of his mortality and render him invincible. She did this, but held him by his heel as she dipped. His heel was left untouched by the water, so it remained the only part of him that was not invincible. Years later, when he was in battle in the Trojan War, Achilles' enemies took advantage of his weak spot and shot a poisonous arrow directly into his heel, and he died. Something that seems as real as this has happened to me. In this day and age a car, or transportation is pretty important. I don't mean a bicycle or just walking, because God gave us legs to walk, but like something that you can transport other people or belongings in. It just so happens that all of my life, since I was 12 I've had something to drive. In the last 6 weeks my car has decided to give me a multitude of problems. I put over $1800 into it, and it was good for about 2 days. I've had to rent a car for almost 3 weeks, which is not cheap. They wanted my blood and that of my firstborn for just a couple of days worth. Anyways ended up paying out the ass for rentals plus the retainer that they keep while you drive it. Plus right when they say ,"Oh, yeah, you get your deposit back (between $150-$300) when you return the car." That is such bullshit. At least this time it was for me. So we found out what was wrong with the car. It was a $3 part. We ordered it, it came in the day I had to bring the rental back, we installed the part, and my car still did not end up working. It sat in the driveway for about 2 more weeks until a neighbor got tired of looking at it and said that one of his mechanic friends would help us fix it. The timing had to be reset and something had to be done with the computer in it. We did not have the tools for that. The mechanic fixed the timing and then checked the motor and said that the valves were gone, and need a new motor. Now the problem is no money. I got laid off my job about 30 days ago and haven't seen a paycheck, so without money coming in, there is no way that I can fix my car. This puts me in a very vulnerable and a constant of "being without" circumstances. I rely completely on others right now to help me, and persay I do something to piss them off, they know that my weakness is that I don't have a ride. They could then just say that they wouldn't give me a ride, which would be cutting my Achilles Heel. It would cut me out of life.

 

Links used for information

http://www.ehow.com/how-to_4845374_4_basics-greek-mythology.html

http://www.enotes.com/psychoanalysis-encyclopedia/oedipus-complex

 

 

the sky is crying tears of sadness

This weekend was cold and wet. My husband and I have an RV, which we live in with our 2 boys. Since they were gone this weekend, we decided to go ahead and cover the RV for winter. We don't want any cool air coming in through the vents, windows, or the A/C box. We set out to go and cover it, and wouldn't you know that as soon as we were getting coats and boots on to go outside, we heard a little bit of a pitter-patter on the roof. It sounded like a lot of rain was coming down. Of course, we could've done this all of the week before when it was nice and sunny outside, but no, we decided to wait until it was pouring with rain. On our metal roof it sounded like millions of raindrops were coming down, but as soon as we stepped outside, we were met with little balls of what seemed to be like hail. There were so many!
We ended up getting the tarp on in about one hour. It was all tightened down and bungeed tight and squared up so we could have a mud-room. It looked really nice.

Now come today, the landlady looked at it, after approving the project before we even put it up, and said that it looked too tacky, so had to take it down. Had I known this yesterday, I would've told Eric that we would need to come up with a different plan. But all good things come to an end. And now you know the rest of the story.

Book 1 pg. 3 The Creation

A god – and nature, now become benign-ended this strife.

Book 2 pg. 47 Phaeton

The corpses of sea-calves float on their backs.

Book 3 pg. 85 Actaeon

That pack is keen for prey: along the crags and cliffs and rocks so hard to cross, where paths are rouch and where there is no path at all, they rush.

Book 4 pg. 115 Mars, Venus, Vulcan & the Sun

She recognized her own shawl and his dagger’s ivory sheath.

Book 5 pg. 167 Ceres and Proserpina

We should not be ashamed of Pluto as a son-in-law—if only you, goddess, would consent to that.

Book 6 pg. 177 Arachne

Arachne was renowned – but certainly not for her birthplace or for her family.

Book 7 pg. 210 Medea and Jason

The fate of Jason-life or death-depends on the gods.

Book 8 pg. 253 Scylla, Nisus, Minos

And it was in this labyrinth of Crete that Minos jailed the monstrous Minotaur, the biform bull and man.

Book 9 pg. 287 Achelous and Hercules

And Theseus, Hero dear to Neptune, how asked Achelous why he groaned and how his brow had lost a horn.

Book 10 pg. 326 Orpheus & Eurydice

But Love has won; to him I must submit.

Book 11 pg. 375 Daedalion – The Wolf

The shore, the shallow water, and the swamp were loud with bellowing and red with blood.

Book 12 pg. 397 Iphigenia

In that tree top stood a nest that held eight fledgling birds.

Book 13 pg. 487 Ulysses and Achilles’ armor

It still was full of might warriors.

Book 14 pg. 487 Picus and Carens

Picus bore two javelins in his left hand and wore a purple cloak that, at the top, was closed by a gold brooch.

Book 15 pg. 522 Pythagoras

Not even things that we call elements persist. (water, earth, air, fire)

Romulus

**There is a picture coming, I just haven't figured out how to add one with my post yet..**
When Tatius died, the Romans and the Sabines shared one same ruler, romulus; both tribes were treated equally. Mars laid aside his helmet; to the Father of both gods and men, he said: "O Father, it is time: the power of Rome is firm; it does not hang upon the might of just one man. then grant the prize you promised me and Ilia's son, your worthy grandson, Romulus: It's come, the time to snatch him up from earth and set this Roman in the heavens. Once you said, with all the gods in council (I recall your gracious words-inscribed upong my sould): 'There will be one you'll bear to the gray-blue of heaven.' Let your promise now prove true." Jove nodded in assent; he hid the sky  with his encumbering clouds; he terrified the earth with thunder and with lightning bolts.
Book XIV pg. 507
Latin [797-822]
The Metamorphoses of Ovid, a new verse translation, by Allen Mandelbaum.

Reading Others Dreams

So I read Curtis' dream that he has that is reoccuring. It was about his lego's or building blocks that he had a lot of, and he used to build a lot when he was younger and do a lot of stuff with building. So, in turn, wouldn't it make sense that you dream about what you do all day long? To me, that makes sense.

My Earliest Childhood Memory

The first memory that I can remember is that my sister and I got a white bunny rabbit for a gift. This is when I was smaller, like about 5 or 6. We lived in Biloxi, Mississippi where it was always hot and muggy. Not to complain! My sister, Alexis, tried to make this white bunny drink out of our turtle pool. She literally held him firm in her hands and then shoved his head into the water. She thought that he was thirsty and needed a drink. She didn't think that he could get any water since he was so low to the ground. He did have a water bottle in his cage, but she didn't know. She was only 2, maybe 3. I was standing next to the swingset and when I saw her do this to our bunny, I went over to her immediately and pulled the bunnies head out of from under the water. He was gasping for air, and he coughed a little. Needless to say, that bunny no longer longed to be held by my sister.

A Child's True Feelings Through A Window

We, my husband and 2 boys, were all in our house when my husband noticed a spider on a window. It just so happened that that is where, our son Kimahri, sleeps; but was awake at the time. He immediately wanted to touch it, but we told him that it could bite him. Now, he understands this concept of 'bite' because we have a german shepherd puppy who is only now four months old. We tell, this puppy, Luther, not to bite all the time. So when we said to him that the spider could bite him, he immediately backed up. We looked at it a little bit closer and found that it was outside the window. So we told Kimahri that it was outside and couldn't hurt him. When we weren't looking he tried to smash the spider against the window. He cried out just seconds later saying that the spider bit him, and was crying out profusely. He was holding his foot and tears were streaming down his face. We comforted him and made sure that he was okay, really. But all in all, this reality of the spider being able to bite and Kimahri knowing that a bite would hurt, took this from a child's view and thought that the spider really bit him through the window. He later did calm down. He still looks at the window to see if the spider is there. We don't know, because we can't see him anymore. But, everytime that he looks at that window, he gets a little scowl and fear in his face.

Amberly McDonald

A Roaring Lion Dream

I keep on having this reoccuring dream, for as long as I can remember. I picture myself as about a 12 or 13 year old girl trying to hide under this rocking chair, so that this roaring lion can't eat me. I hide there for as long as I can hold my breath and try not to breathe, for him to hear. I try to peek out, just a little bit, to see if he has gone away yet. But, no, he is still circling the chair, waiting for me to come out. This is always where the dream ends. I am too scared to come out, so I stay underneath the chair until I wake up in the morning.

Amberly McDonald

Is life just a tragic practice?

"Such fables contain a deeper philosophy of the relation of the life of man to the life of nature—a sad philosophy which gave birth to a tragic practice."

This came from chapter 2,"Artemis and Hippolytus", from the ebook of Sir James George Frazer.

This myth to me was saying that there will always be a circle of life, there is nothing that we can do to change that. Obviously others have tried to change this "morality" issue that we live, but has not changed thus far. In this myth, Hippolytus, dies at a young and handsome age for a love of a goddess that does not last. Huh...funny how life repeats itself...not just for those of a god or a goddess, but for those that love at last, then die and don't get to experience the pleasures of the love you had.

As an old saying goes, "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

Amberly McDonald

Movie of Myths

Weren't those shots from the film amazing...very graphic...much like us in our everyday language