Our Darkling Way

It must have been some time ago, before I grew old and started forgetting, that I sat down one night and listened to nothing. And I will tell you now that this was a very dangerous activity, because if you listen to silence long enough, you start to hear something. I say something rather than "some things" because it really is only one sort of sound. To me silence rumbles, almost like thunder. On that night and never since have I argued that it is a particularly clear sound, nor have I been able to determine if others can always hear it. As I said, listening to silence is a dangerous activity, it is a paradox after all. But perhaps the real danger lies in the fact that when the rumble makes itself present, you open yourself up to the plight of Princess Shahrazad. 


In listening to the rumble of silence, I doomed myself to the same trial Shahrazad endured, and I fear my dear classmates, that you've suffered the same fate. It was asked of us, at one point, to determine which myth we are snared in and while individuals in the class have their personal myths, it is with Sharazad we all follow. Our personal myths are simply swamped by the fact that by being students of the mythic, we've opened ourselves to the entirety of the mythic. A Thousand and One Nights utilizes the frame story, and it is the frame story in which we find ourselves trapped. 

To say the sun rises begs to retell the myth of Phaethon, and that in turns would require the myth of Phoebus and later on the myth of Jove's creation leading all the way back to the creation of the Universe. It is an exhausting endeavor to unroll the extent of everyday mythology, because everything has a story to tell, and a story behind that story and so on and so forth into infinity. By studying the mythological we've stumbled down the rabbit's hole, and it is a hole which simply refuses to end. Luckily the hole can be taken step by step, we need not fall so helplessly. By knowing a myth we can control our fall, and as Mircea Eliade explained, knowing the origin of something allows us that control. "For knowing the origin of an object, an animal, a plant, and so on is equivalent to acquiring a magical power over them by which they can be controlled, multiplied, or reproduced at will." Except in the case of listening to silence.


Perhaps I have beaten this topic to death, but to me silence represents something quite religious, and at times very holy. Because silence ultimately represents nothing, and nothingness preceded our universe, in silence there lies a bit of Logos. With nothing to listen to, no myth to remember, it is an overwhelming connection to cosmogony. The fall down the rabbit hole becomes so unchecked in the presence of absolute quiet that it invites the remembrance of every myth. Before any story was ever told, and any word ever invented, nay, before any sound was ever uttered, there was silence.It is as much a part of our origin as planetary accretion, and perhaps just as powerful.In silence, there begs the memory of every myth and every action ever done on this earth. Silence allows us that precious moment to see what came before life and even time, it allows us to see our Golden Age, our Eden. Therefore, I consider it to be the first myth and our direct connection to the bliss of the beginning. 

"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 or knew something for the first time; and also in the desire to recover the distant past, the blissful period of "beginnings." A quote I've used before, but one that retains its importance. For the sublime first experience is one that is rarely repeated, though often not without trying. Mythology allows us to play at both finding and keeping our origins.Mircea Eliade along with Ovid and James Frazer were all caught up in Shahrazad's way of life as well. It was through their retelling, analyzing, and interpreting the endless and has helped sustain mythology. As so too do we now help sustain it, by looking past the many frames of the everyday myth, we continue to follow that curious white rabbit ever deeper into his hole, trying to move closer and closer to our wonderland. Perhaps it is a sad thing to say that we will never each it, for of course all ends are merely beginnings. 

As the class has run its course, so has my blog, I can continue in no further way that might inspire enlightenment or intrigue. In many respects I've failed to do as I should have in this course, and it is only through the valuable gifts of the class that I was actually able to get much of anywhere. When you spent more than a few hours trying to hear past the quiet in your childhood, you can become preoccupied with the simple things. And Mythology, (while powerful in its own simplicity) has a certain flare for the outlandish. So I would like to thank you, my classmates, for helping me to see more than simplicity in myth. You've all acted as wonderful teachers, and it has been an absolute pleasure learning alongside you. Ashley Arcel, Jon Orsi, Dustin Dallman, your blogs in particular were valuable learning tools. I both envy and appreciate your abilities to analyze, connect, and eloquently express the power of myth, thank you for sharing what you had to teach the class. Kari, MaryShaun, Mayan, and other wonderful notetakers, I thank you because of your jaw-dropping ability to summarize and intelligently display our various classroom adventures, with this class that takes an abnormal amount of talent. And finally to those of you like Sarah Knox, Steven Shepherd and Melinda Pierce, your quirky and engaging blogs always had a fresh perspective to add to any topic, the class would have been all the poorer without you. And finally I'd like to Thank Dr. Sexson, the white rabbit who led us all on this bizarre but ultimately sublime adventure. It shall be quite interesting to see where this rabbit hole goes in the coming years. 




And so, I do not say goodbye, for according to mythology we are all doomed to meet again, but rather I leave you with parting wave and a quote from one of my favorite movies.


"It is written among the limitless constellations of the celestial heavens, and in the depths of the emerald seas, and upon every grain of sand in the vast deserts, that the world which we see is an outward and visible dream of an inward and invisible reality." -Quote from Richard William's The Thief and The Cobbler