"Sometimes the embargo laid on personal names is not permanent; it is conditional on circumstances, and when these change it ceases to operate. Thus when the Nandi men are away on a foray, nobody at home may pronounce the names of the absent warriors; they must be referred to as birds. Should a child so far forget itself as to mention one of the distant ones by name, the mother would rebuke it, saying, “Don’t talk of the birds who are in the heavens.”" -James G. Frazer; The Golden Bough
We have been greatly exposed to the concept of anamnesis this semester and how it would be such a great joy to have complete recollection and remembrance, as we have often discussed through Eliot's Four Quartets. How wonderful would it be to remember all you have endured. The knowledge, the experiences, the life and rebirth. How would we react to such an event? Would it truly be a joyous one? It makes me curious as to why forgetting is linked with the River Lethe and why to forget is paralleled with a death. Does the human mind forget as coping mechanism? A way to protect itself from the times of pain and suffering. It is said that time heals all wounds, but perhaps it it just the act of forgetting that in fact is the true savior. Although I can relate and honor the argument that "which does not kill only makes you stronger", and maybe we are taking the easy way out as to just forget the times pain and suffering, but I cannot help but be as least partially thankful for the lethal water that we are forced to consume. Even if it is only for self preservation and to find an inner strength to endure.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
We laughed until we cried
"Another beneficent use of homeopathic magic is to heal or prevent sickness. The ancient Hindus performed an elaborate ceremony, based on homeopathic magic, for the cure of jaundice. Its main drift was to banish the yellow color to yellow creatures and yellow things, such as the sun, to which it properly belongs, and to procure for the patient a healthy red color from a living, vigorous source, namely, a red bull."
In conjunction with the concept of using natural substances to heal like with homeopathy, it has always been said that one of the best "cure-all" remedies has been to release intense emotions with crying or laughter. Often, counselors and therapists will encourage sobbing when clients open up about troubling experiences. Physiologically, laughing and crying both reduce cortisol, a stress hormone, while raising endorphin and serotonin levels, both feel good hormones. Although they seems dichotomous, laughter and sobbing are remarkably similar which has lead to the common behaviors of laughing until crying or crying until it morphs into belly-shaking laughter.
This concept captured me during lecture and how applicable it is to everyday life. Emotions are timeless as we've seen countless times in Ovid and it has reached me through my bad day.
I believe my bad day began on a Monday (go figure) over the summer. I was sitting in a coffee shop explaining my upcoming fall class schedule to my brother and was excitedly telling him how I would only need to take 15 credits fall semester and 12 credits in the spring in order to graduate. It was then he gave me a deep, puzzled look and told me there was no way I had taken enough credits over the last 3 years in order to 'slack' senior year. Determined he was wrong about this, I printed off my transcript and showed him I had fulfilled all my requirements. WRONG! He informed me I was about 47 credits shy of my graduating target. Definitely too many to complete over 2 semesters. This also informed me that all my plans post-graduation would also be postponed. Plans like moving across the country and beginning graduate school, doing extensive traveling and having a blast. I'd be stuck in Bozeman another year. Crying commenced. In all of my research of trying to figure out how to counter this bad news I lost track of time and realized I was late for work. I scrambled to pack up my computer and books, ran out of the coffee shop, threw my stuff in my car and proceeded to speed down the road toward work. I made it to the corner of 19th and Main Street when my car died. I panicked and tried to restart it. Nothing. The light turned green and the line up of cars were itching to move, nearing closer and closer to my bumper encouraging me to move. Thankfully, a man next to me saw my car stalled out and helped me to push it out of the way. Crying commenced. I called my work to let them know I wouldn't be able to make it into work. And although my boss understood, she had a new edge to her voice than she did before and I could tell she was frustrated. I hung up then called a tow company to pick me up. Crying commenced. Finally, after 2 hours of sitting alone on a busy corner, I was rescued by the tow company. By the end of the day, I was completely overwhelmed and had exhausted my tears. That was when I began to laugh. Everything went so completely wrong that all I could do was chuckle about the day's events. It was almost a relief after feeling so drained from all the crying to finally laugh.
Its easy to slip into despair when I feels like everything goes pear-shaped, but I think that this idea that crying and laughter can occur simultaneously is important. It helps to realize that the journey to happiness isn't really a journey at all. Getting caught up in 'what needs to be done' and always looking forward to something new and exciting can blind you from the fact that your life isn't going to start sometime down the road. Life is happening now.
In conjunction with the concept of using natural substances to heal like with homeopathy, it has always been said that one of the best "cure-all" remedies has been to release intense emotions with crying or laughter. Often, counselors and therapists will encourage sobbing when clients open up about troubling experiences. Physiologically, laughing and crying both reduce cortisol, a stress hormone, while raising endorphin and serotonin levels, both feel good hormones. Although they seems dichotomous, laughter and sobbing are remarkably similar which has lead to the common behaviors of laughing until crying or crying until it morphs into belly-shaking laughter.
This concept captured me during lecture and how applicable it is to everyday life. Emotions are timeless as we've seen countless times in Ovid and it has reached me through my bad day.
I believe my bad day began on a Monday (go figure) over the summer. I was sitting in a coffee shop explaining my upcoming fall class schedule to my brother and was excitedly telling him how I would only need to take 15 credits fall semester and 12 credits in the spring in order to graduate. It was then he gave me a deep, puzzled look and told me there was no way I had taken enough credits over the last 3 years in order to 'slack' senior year. Determined he was wrong about this, I printed off my transcript and showed him I had fulfilled all my requirements. WRONG! He informed me I was about 47 credits shy of my graduating target. Definitely too many to complete over 2 semesters. This also informed me that all my plans post-graduation would also be postponed. Plans like moving across the country and beginning graduate school, doing extensive traveling and having a blast. I'd be stuck in Bozeman another year. Crying commenced. In all of my research of trying to figure out how to counter this bad news I lost track of time and realized I was late for work. I scrambled to pack up my computer and books, ran out of the coffee shop, threw my stuff in my car and proceeded to speed down the road toward work. I made it to the corner of 19th and Main Street when my car died. I panicked and tried to restart it. Nothing. The light turned green and the line up of cars were itching to move, nearing closer and closer to my bumper encouraging me to move. Thankfully, a man next to me saw my car stalled out and helped me to push it out of the way. Crying commenced. I called my work to let them know I wouldn't be able to make it into work. And although my boss understood, she had a new edge to her voice than she did before and I could tell she was frustrated. I hung up then called a tow company to pick me up. Crying commenced. Finally, after 2 hours of sitting alone on a busy corner, I was rescued by the tow company. By the end of the day, I was completely overwhelmed and had exhausted my tears. That was when I began to laugh. Everything went so completely wrong that all I could do was chuckle about the day's events. It was almost a relief after feeling so drained from all the crying to finally laugh.
Its easy to slip into despair when I feels like everything goes pear-shaped, but I think that this idea that crying and laughter can occur simultaneously is important. It helps to realize that the journey to happiness isn't really a journey at all. Getting caught up in 'what needs to be done' and always looking forward to something new and exciting can blind you from the fact that your life isn't going to start sometime down the road. Life is happening now.
October 28 Lecture Notes
October 28 Myth lecture notes
The End
“We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.” –T.S. Eliot, the Four Quartets
**Remember that life is cyclical**
James Joyce: Finnigan’s Wake
The weariness of life, you’ve got to deal with the situation
-Best thing to do is talk to them and begin to understand
-It is up to the woman to remember everything, and she becomes very sad at the end because she can remember and her lover (men) cannot
-The world is not only going to come to an end, but it’s already the end and it repeats over and over again
-I.e. The Notebook
-“How do you know what you think until you think what you say?”
Ch. 4-Eliade, pg. 54
Eschatology-doctrine to the end of the world
Ontogeny-life of an individual is the same as the life of a culture; the development or developmental history of an individual organism
The Seven Ages of Man
- birth-the infant mulling and puking in the nurse’s arms
- kids
- fancy young adult
- soldiers
- middle aged merchant
- advanced middle age
- the end, “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”
Doesn’t it make you happy to know that you can have such a deep feeling to feel sad?
-The tear jerker movies!
-Why? Because it is so artful, it is the artist who helps us deal with sadness so artfully
-Sublimated sadness into beauty like Adonis and his transformation into a flower
Catharsis-the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.
Freud- “We laugh in order to keep from crying, if we couldn’t laugh, we would be crying all the time”
Laugh until we cry? Or do we cry until we laugh?
Dacrygelosis- alternating laughing and weeping
-Don’t take life so seriously because you’re not going to get out alive anyways!
Apocalypicists:
1. Literal-there is a time and place for the end of the world
2. Metaphorical-end of the world has already occurred, we just have not noticed, we aren’t smart enough to see the cyclical ending of the world
-We must wait to see the curtain lifted to see truth
Pythagoras:
A man who says its preferred not to eat meat because you don’t know its source-could be your grandma? Yikes.
Watch: Zed and Two Noughts
-Movie about decomposition
Children’s death tunes:
“The worms crawl in, “Ring around the rosy
The worms crawl out, a pocket full of posies
The worms play pea-knuckle Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!”
On your snout”
Another version of the worm song:
The Worms Crawl In,The Worms Crawl Out,
Into your stomach,
And out your mouth.
They eat your intestines,
They scramble your heart.
Now you feel like
you’re all apart.
This is how
it is to die
you end up looking
like apple pie!
Ovid explains the transformation from decomposition of death to something graceful and beautiful:
What happens to your spinal cord when you die? It turns into a snake
Pg. 519: Ovid is talking about the vegetarian Pathegoras, “for all things change, but no thing dies, the spirit wanders: here and there, at will, the soul can journey from and animal into a human body”
Overcomes the doctrine of tragedy, a sophisticated version of reincarnation
If what you write down remains, then you shall remain
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