Into The Sublime

"Often the soul is conceived as a bird ready to take flight."-Frazer , The Perils of  the Soul page 218

I should not like to say that sublime experiences are rare, for I know that both myself and a small circle of friends experience the sublime many times a week, sometimes every day of the week. It is an experience that invites awe and disgust, wondrous joy and petrifying fear;  there are stunning landscapes with characters right out of the storybooks and buildings the imagination can only play at. The experience I speak of not only encompasses myth, but has surely aided in the creation of a great many myths. Yes indeed, the experience I speak of is that brief and terrible moment between sleep and awakening, that sublime moment where dreams just might be a reality.

No one is bereft of this sublime experience, every soul under the sun has had some memorable nightmare or dream. Hasn't everyone woke in a cold sweat thinking  that monster lying in wait under their bed was very much real? Hasn't everyone touched the mysterious and the vexing while in sleep, only to stir into wakefulness to find that the "real world" has no patience for their wonderlands? Most people I know have experienced such, and most will agree that the moment between dream and reality is indeed as frightening as it is supreme. 

What I find to be the most sublime part of that half minuet in bed is the possibility of the impossible. For just that awful, intoxicating moment, myth has free range. I can clearly see Europa being carried off by Jove into the waves, I can hear her soft pleas and reach out to drag her bag with my own hand, I can feel fear and concern for the poor girl as she disappears off to the horizon, and for the moment, it is all real. The demons and evils that plague my nightmares reside alongside the Gods and virtues that languidly roam my dreamscapes. And for that 30 second interval between dream and reality, the world becomes a richer place. 

"The soul of a sleeper is supposed to wander away from his body and actually visit the places, to see the persons, and to perform the acts of which he dreams."-Frazer, page 218. If what Frazer states above is true to any extent, then we need not concern ourselves with sorrow over the reduction of the mythic, for the mythic lives within us, emerging into the "real world" in that ever-so sublime moment when we come to wake to the day.   

Can there possibly be a more sublime experience then being caught between myth and reality? Where the "glitches in the matrix" need not be seen out of the corner of your eye,and where mythic clues are mythic tomes. 

Book V sentances

"When Basutos of the mountains have  killed a very brave foe, they immediately cut out the heart and eat it, because this is supposed to give them his courage and strength in battle." -Homeopathic Magic Of A Flesh Diet, Frazer-page 597

Proetus: All the arms of his conquest could not save poor Proteus from the gaze of a most "bewitching" lady.

Polydectes: Another skeptic struck still as a statue in the face of proof.

Minerva, The Muses, Pegasus: The Muses finally win a compliment from Minerva herself.

Pyreneus: A man who would dare to take the Muses by force aught to have his dreams "toppled".

Ceres & Proserpina: Though much can be said on this story, I would like to note the appearance of the very real phenomenon, the earthquake that drew Pluto out of his underground lair.

A few mythic clues and a very bad day...

Over the weekend and spilling into Monday, I kept my eyes peeled for the "glitch in the matrix". And I must say I did not need to look very far indeed....

The first mythic clue came to me in the form of my roommate. It was a Saturday night and a couple of friends and I were taking my roommate out for a bit of dancing, as it was her birthday. The moment we entered the dance hall my roommate was coated with male attention, and at first she very much enjoyed this, but as the night persisted, so did one particular young man. It came to the point where my roommate actually took flight in order to escape the young man's attentions, she ran out the dance hall and onto the street before my friends and I were able to catch up to her. What image came to my mind as we escorted my roommate back to the dorm was that of Apollo and Daphne, one poor girl running from a powerfully unwanted partner.

The second clue arrived in the form of a spider, not some feeble thing that lazed about on the wall, no, this was a spider to remember. The arachnid has poised itself in the corner of my dorm hall, a small web near my shoe as I walked past. I accidentally tore part of the web from the wall and the spider bolted for me. It was quite the large, angry creature, and very persistent in its pursuit of me. After a bit of swatting and foul language, the spider retreated to a higher corner of the wall and fixed its eyes on me in the most unnerving way. I have never seen, nor do I think I ever will again, such utter hatred displayed in a spider. Therefore, I came to think of this particular menace as one of Arachne's get; a furious little stub of her progeny that was angry with me for destroying all of its hard spinning.

The third clue came to me on Monday, which also happened to a very bad day...

I was walking back to my dorm at about 4 in the morning when I stopped to catch my breath quickly. It between my harried breaths and my footsteps that I came to notice how quiet it was. No dogs barking, no people talking, no bikes or longboards, not even the whisper of the wind. I think that perhaps this was the most important mythic clue I had encountered, the silence. When the din of modern society faded, all that was left was what was in Illo Tempore. Only the echo of the beginning could be heard, and in that soft resonating silence, I could hear every myth known to man.
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On another, more disgusting note, I bring you the tale of one very bad Monday....
It all began with a morning snack of beef jerky, (purchased at a gas station I might add) my roommates and I enjoyed those meaty tidbits up until around 11 in the morning, when our stomachs announced their displeasure. Lunch was forgone, and the afternoon was spent by all in a great deal of pain. Eventually the pain ceased and we moved on towards the Library in order to study. One roommate, let's call her "Wendy", was still in a bit of pain, and as we went out to hunt down a table, she complained that the pain was growing worse. When tears began to run down her eyes, I suggested we visit the ER. Wendy and "Kate" journeyed towards the dorm to fetch a few items whilst I fetched my car. When I got to the dorm Wendy was howling in pain and Kate was shoving her into my frontseat. I sped away only to find that Kate had not grabbed a GPS, I didn't know where the hospital was located, Wendy cursed my stupidity and commanded that I drive forward into the unknown. I eventually found my way to the hospital when Wendy began to scream into my ear and howl obscenities towards both myself and Kate, this must have upset her stomach for she emptied it on both my frontseat and myself. Stinking like a cur, I hauled Wendy into the ER and then left to park the car. Half an hour later, Wendy was situated in a stylish hospital gown and still screaming in the most foul language available. One more hour passed before Wendy was hooked up to a lovely IV full of morphine and was quieted.

We got to that hospital at 8:30 at night, and we didn't leave until 4 in the morning. I dropped Kate and Wendy(who was fine by now, having a body pumped full of painkillers) off at the door and left to park my fouled car. Of course there were no spots near the dorm, and of course I had to park on the opposite side of campus, coated in my friend's stomach acid. The smell of my car was nightmare-inducing, but what could be done? So I left it for another hour's concern and walked towards my dorm, alone, jacket-less, and smelling like I'd just enjoyed a long stay in the 2nd circle of Hell.

Reflections

Did you happen to know you are blind?
Did you happen to know you are deaf?
Did you happen to know that your precious tongue can't taste or that your wonderfully sensitive fingertips can't feel?

You don't believe me? But of course you don't, as you have full capacity of your senses.Though I must ask you, just how much faith do you put in your own perceptions?

• Rattlesnakes are able to detect heat signatures in the dead of night.
• Owls can see up to 150 yards by candlelight.
• Dolphins can hear sounds up to 100,000 HZ.
• Honeybees have iron oxide strips that help them to detect the Earth's magnetic fields,
• Crayfish have hairs that can detect movement up to.1 microns,
• Sharks have electrosensensing receptors along their bodies.
• Ants can see polarized light

In our last class lecture the subject of the "real world" was brought up, along with the frame stories we all live in. Ashley Arcel posted a highly enlightening blog that served to inspire this one, it is her perception of the "real world" that I find most intriguing and I would like to jump on her bandwagon(from a slightly differing perspective however). In her blog, Ashley stated the following:

“I think we need to learn to just let things be. Stop picking so much, stop trying to understand everything down to the last infinitesimal speck of matter. Stop taking things so literally. And most of all, stop entertaining the notion that there's a 'real' world out there that we need to become a part of. We're wrong, I think, to ever hold that idea - this is the real world, or at least - it's as real as it's ever going to get.”

The notion of the "real world" is indeed not something we can entertain. How can we dare to say the we, who's senses fall spectacularly short in the great order of organisms, understand and are able to construct the actual world around us? We squint with our poor eyes and fumble with our sticky, numb fingers for the truth in the universe. And with those half -seen hazy results, we declare that myths are child's folly, helpful to those primitive societies denied to scientific facts. Spiders do not count their origin to poor Arachne, Leda was never visited by a swan and the Laurel tree has no claim to romance.

And yet, what does the honeybee see when it nears a flower? What lies hidden in that spectrum of light we are not privy to? Who's to say the wolf didn't once try to serve the gods human flesh? What, I ask, lies in the half-light of our vision and consciousness?

The world, my friends, is one devoted to science, as it should. But myths cannot simply be relegated to childish rubbish. If the world finds truth in accurate perception, cannot dreams of the fantastic and stories of the mythic be real and truthful? Feel fear and it is real, bite back the sting of pain, and it is real, gaze lovingly towards the thing you care for, and it is real. So if myth and dream inspire those very real emotions, why can't there be truth and "real world" meaning to them?

So yes, as Ashley said; stop picking, stop trying to stop trying to understand everything down to the last infinitesimal speck of matter. "As long as it persists, we can say that modern man preserves at least some residues of "mythological behavior". Traces of such a mythological behavior can also be deciphered in the desire to rediscover the intensity with which one experienced something for the first time; and also in the desire to recover the distant past, the blissful period of "beginnings." -Mircea Eliade, page 193. Myth, then, according to Eliade, is in our scientific pursuits, in our very truths. See paleontologists, psychologists, teachers and lawyers, all in the business of truth.

To see myth, we need only to view life in a different light. The "real world" is only as real and as factual as we make it to be. So the next time you see that flicker in the corner of your eye, or hear a song on the wind, think, if only for a moment, what the honeybee would see.
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Believing what cannot be seen, I think they call this "faith" correct? So then, have faith in the mythic, I know I soon will.

Book IV and a Little more

"If you don't know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don't know the stories you may be lost in life."  
-Siberian Elder

I chose to deviate from Frazer in this post simply due to the powerfully mythological weekend I and a few friends experienced. The above quote struck me as quite appropriate, as my friends and I did indeed get lost in the forest.

The mythical journey began with a 6 hour car ride to Devil's Tower in Wyoming, which in and of itself is an active mythological locale. Before arriving at our destination, we passed through the town of Laurel, which of course prompted me to think of poor Apollo and Daphne. Upon reaching Wyoming, I took particular notice of the red soil in the area, reminding me of the giant's blood that painted the earth in Illo Tempore. Come nightfall, we reached Devil's Tower, but had little idea where we were in the great forest. It was eventually decided that we should stop alongside the road and spend the night in the car(not the most comfortable idea in the world). As it was still young in the night, yet late enough to discourage any exploring, the group ruled that we would stay in and do as most girls do; talk. But no mere gossip did my friends want, no, they wanted a story. And so it came to be that I engaged myself with that time old fashion of storytelling and managed to scare my companions with the story of the red-eyed demon who lived in the deepest parts of the forest whose blood turned the rocks in the area red. In the light of day this tale would not be so frightening, but at night, in the inky blackness, I can say that the demon was alive and well.

Book IV



Pyramus & Thisbe: Why must it always fall to plant life to preserve the sorrows of lovers?

Mars, Venus, Vulcan, The Sun: I must stop to admire the humor and humanity Ovid instills within the gods, who so often act in the extreme of poor behavior.

Salmacis & Hermaphroditus: The first intersexed individual, how I dearly wish I could get hir view on the contemporary issues in today's world.

Cadmus & Harmonia: Proof that serpents, too, can hold warm love in their cold-blooded bodies.

Perseus & Andromeda: Though there are many interesting points in this tale, I find the etiology concerning coral to be of a particular note.

Book III

"Often the bride destined for the god is not a log or a clod, but a living woman of flesh and blood. The Indians of a village in Peru have been known to marry a beautiful girl, about fourteen years of age, to a stone shaped like a human being, which they regarded as a god(huaca)." (Frazer, 173-The Marriage of the Gods)

Seeing as the topic of god-human relationships has popped up in the class discussion a few times now, I thought the above quote to be somewhat related. It is easy to see why intercourse or marriage to a god would be well-received, it is a direct and undiluted line back to the power of the origin. Children that result from such a union often times have not only heroic futures in front of them, but also intensely cosmogonic futures that replay portions of their divine parent's past.                                  

 

Now then, onto book three of the Metamorphoses...

Actaeon: Peeping Toms reap little more than what they see, and at times pay a dearer price then a new-found sense of modesty.

Semele: A gift of the divine given, a gift of the divine taken away,and so a life is lost to amorous glory.

Tiresias: I have a question for Tiresias as well, what was the greater price to pay; male for female, or sight for foresight?

Narcissus & Echo: What a powerful thing it is to love something you cannot hope to possess, is it the elusive quality of that desired object that seduces, or simply the result of the narcissism within all that dictates we must get what we desire?

Pentheus: How great is a mother's love is she subjects her offspring to the workings of sparagmos?