five fine lines

Through all the stories I find my self very drawn to Pythagoras’ speech. His forwardness addressing the issue of metamorphoses is quite literally a moving piece of literature. In college years I fell that most students are in period of transformation themselves, many of us are searching for spiritual enlightenment or at least a sense of direction. Before reading Ovid, I held some belief in reincarnation, I had always liked to believe that I was true but could never quite bring to words a way of describing it, nor had I ever heard the words put as poetically as done in Ovid. The 5 (5 ½) lines that portray the meaning most directly in my opinion are as follows:
For all things change, but no thing dies.
The spirit wanders: here and there, at will,
The soul can journey from an animal
Into a human body, and from us to beasts;
It occupies a body, but it never perishes.

Now I don’t know if these lines might be overplayed, Pythagoras itself might be overplayed but there is no other passage that I found that directly, and beautifully spoke of the essence of metamorphoses itself.

When I began reading to find “my story” I found it very hard, many if not all of the stories deal with some of the most extremes of humanity thought of. Gruesome stories, the likes of which I have never experienced anything close to. I’ve never been cooked into a stew because I resemble my father, I’ve never been beaten over the head because I’m a skilled weaver. I had never had almost any of these things happen to me, I knew to interpret these as metaphors for life and I did my best with that, still though I could never quite place one story as MY story. After several frustrated nights I simply decided to go back to the beginning and start from there, where I came upon not only my story, but our story. Society as I see it, the world I feel we have come to.
While reading THE FOUR AGES I was awestruck at how closely it resembled our own societies history and present, the first I felt represented the native American way of life, no law was needed, no penalties hung over the heads of man scaring people into a way of life. Now, there are some differences many of the tribes did in fact need warriors and such other things but general idea is still present, as the ages went on Man manifested into creatures of want, we soon gave value to objects of no use, things like gold which is only an artifact of desire, greed and jealousy came about and the murder of men and the rape of woman became common place. None of these things had previously existed until material objects appeared, man’s progress became and is becoming the man’s demise. There was even a movie made in the late 80’s dealing with this idea, “The God’s Must Be Crazy” dealt with a tribe in Africa, who had never experienced greed or violence until the God cast down from the heavens a class Coke bottle. I feel as though that this is OUR story as society where once we lived in harmonies peace, we now have become a breed of creature hell bent of “life improvement” we create machines to make life easier, we create weapons to make us safer but in the recent years we’ve brought to the table microwaves that give us brain tumors, GMO food that is unknowing poisoning us (ironically brought to us by the same company that made DDT-yeah that was safe) and nuclear weapons which divide nations with fear of their use, and if used will undoubtedly kill us all-this, this is our progress on safety.
In the story of Icaurs we see the future of our progress, the wings which men build out of hope and aspiration will soon fail us and send our son’s to die, this is our story, the progress of man proceeds only to man’s demise.

-Now piety lies vanquished; and the maid Astaea, last of the immortals

leaves the blood-soaked earth.-

–welcome to the machine-

When beginning Ovid, I was immediately overcome with the beauty and fluidness of the writing and imagery, interpreting the text at first was some what difficult and I found myself trying to draw meaning out of the words instead of the meaning manifesting itself on the pages before my eyes.
At first, after reading the Creation I was disappointed, although a beautiful story I felt as though I had been duped, tricked by the translator into reading the bible masked as Ovid. I originally felt as if this entire book would describe how high above us God is watching, as we his creations scramble and suffer below. It was only after completing Pythagoras’ speech (which I admittedly skipped ahead to after only a few chapters) but it was only after this did the true beauty of Ovid, the essence of the Gods themselves manifest in my mind. It absolutely was not that the Gods watch from above, instead that the Gods are within, not only within ourselves but within everything, everyone around us. The spirit that leaves us when we pass is in fact the spirit of God, as we die our soul does not die with the vessel instead it transforms. Pythagoras put it (p.s. these are not my five chosen lines I just think it sounds cool and is a good way of describing this transformation.) “You’ll see that any corpse which- through long lapse of time or else because of liquefying heat- has decomposed, is transformed into tin animals. If, after precious bulls are sacrificed, you set their carcasses within a ditch, you’ll see (it’s a familiar happening) that everywhere among the rotting guts, the pollen-gathering bees will soon spring up.”
Even though this is some what a gruesome sight there is still beauty in the knowledge that it is the transformation, the metamorphoses of spirit, of soul, of god most importantly to another being. The connection is never ending the transfiguration is constant, like this Salvador Dali painting we see not only depiction of a gods presences in the clouds and mountains, but we also are exposed to the infinity of the spiritual movement from one begin to another, in the painting we cannont clearly see where man and woman separate, where one begins and one ends. Instead we see a connection, one that is alltogether sexual, beautiful and alluring, but also frightening and somewhat beyond our mental bounds.

back up and running

I just recently got my pasword back so i am now up and running, my blogs might be in and out of order as i am behind. sooner or later they will all be posted but as far as chronological order, readers might need to skip around.

As Dr. Sexson has asked us to read, and comment on one page of Stiener, it came to mind that i should probably search for a passage the really Intrigued me. To be honest however, I jut randomly opened up the book and started reading. I was lucky though, to have found a passage the reflected an idea that I often consider, especially with our current government. Steiner comments (while relating Antigone to the French Revolution), “In Antigone the dialectic of intimacy and of exposure, of the ‘housed’ and of the most public, is made explicit. The play turns on the enforced politics of the private spirit, on the necessary violence which political-social change visits on the unspeaking inwardness of being.” Now, the book does not underline this, I have just chosen to do so to highlight the point of interest. From this reading, are we to understand that for revolutionary change violence is nessacary? For if we are to read into the eternities, and if Antigun is the quintessential classic, is it not absolutely necessary for all revolutions proceeding that of Antigone’s must contain within it the ingrained violence of which Stiener speaks? I myself feel that yes they must. Although violence is often seen upfront as gruesome and vicious, I still feel it is necessary to use to combat the even greater violence which we oppose. As we have seen there is a strong voice against our current system, the Patriot Act and agencies such as the NSA are literally revoking our “god-given liberties” as we the citizens accept this somewhat apathetically. While there are others however, who do actively oppose the government, they fail to read into the eternities and use the one tool that has historically been the back-bone of revolution: violence. In demonstrations, the people are afraid to stand up to the henchmen-cops of our government for we fear that using violence is wrong. We should however be reminded of Antigone, her fearlessness, the cowered ness of her sister Ismene, and then place ourselves in the shoes of one of the two.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”- Thomas Jefferson

Hymn to Hermes

While re-reading the Hymn to Hermes, I was soon struck with a flood of various other texts representing the same story of brotherly competition. Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion, soon came to mind, as the main focus of the story deals with a power struggle between Leland and Hank Stamper, the two sons of the great Henry Stamper. Although Kesey’s story is far more comical and far less God like, the characters remain the same. Hank, the strong, well-know, well respected older brother, represents that of Apollo who we see as a hard-willed, extremely masculine character. We can also relate the sly cunning of Hermes, to the intellectual educated younger brother Leland Stamper, who through a series of planned, organized events overtakes his older, more powerful brother. Although the connection is some what loose, and far more variables are involved with each story, the theme remains the same.

Homeric Hymnys and class notes

I’m not quite sure as to what exactly we are expected to post on our daily blogs so I suppose I’ll just take a shot in the dark-
In both texts Antigone as well as the Homeric Hymns, we can see examples of the five different struggles as well as human nature in general.
Man v Woman
Young v Old
Individual v society
Living v dead
Man v Gods

In Antigone we clearly see the struggle she suffers being a woman in a Patriarchal judicial system, Her actions against the expected ones set in place by society as we have read to understand it. Obviously we also see her struggle coping with the loss of her brother. Antigone also matches her will against the will of the Gods.

I found it interesting in the Homeric Hymns how fitting the Female and Male Gods, Demeter and Hermes, represent the general actions of men and woman today. We see the treatment of the mortal-masked Demeter amongst the mortal woman as extreamly helpful and kind: Characteristics of almost all woman. We also get a view of a darker side of woman that many of us have been exposed to; their propensity to be withholding. In day to day life/ relationship with a woman, often times we see them withhold love, emotions, contact, communication and various other humanly interactions when upset. We see these examples of withholding in the Hymns when Demeter buries the seed of the earth and withholds all nourishment and fertility. As the story progesses, Demeter, enlightened with joy returns to her benevolent ways, similar to almost all woman who, in my opinion are the greatest givers of love and nourishment in this world, (when happy of course).
In the Hymn to Hermes, we are reminded of the nature of men, the nature of boys, children constantly fighting and feuding, struggling for acceptance and approval. Like many young men, Hermes is sly, cunning and caviler. Although a liar, Hermes is skillful and innovative. As the fighting subsides, the two brothers become close. The camaraderie between the two can be found in almost all brotherly connections, related by blood or otherwise the connection remains the same.