Finding Oz

The first thing I have written down for Thursday's class is Bozeman with the "oz" circled, and an arrow pointing to a note saying "mythical place". We spoke of the collapse of the cosmic scaffolding, and how that has lead to the decent of the ages. How life is more bouyant, but also lonely. There is oneshot at life (unless of course you're Hindu, then you just keep going around through reincarnation). Axis Mundi, or connected earth, where earth and the heavens (omphalos) were connected by a large tree that the people of earth could climb to speak with the gods. Something happened to this tree, and it is now gone, and we can no longer speak to the gods as we once did. Rape became the main means of interaction between the gods and man after the collapse of the cosmic scaffolding. We spoke of the phases that Calasso tells of in The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. The phases are: 1) conviviality- out going, friendly, 2) rape-sudden invasion, plucking away of thought, 3) indiference- on all sides. We then jumped to Xenophases(spelling?), who posed the question of if cattle and horses could draw their gods, what would they look like? Cattle and horses, because that's what they know. This lead to a discussion of The Planet of the Apes. Initiation means giving up certain beliefs, and change occurs. The beginning is characterized by nostalgia. Nostos, being the root word of nostalgia, meaning homecoming. How fitting since this is MSU's homecoming week, go figure. These phases (beginning, middle, and transformation) are not things we go through in sequence. We are constantly experiencing all of them. We spoke of the Italian philosopher Vico who stated that the ages are circular. Starting with the gods, then the heros, then man, and finally chaos before the gods return. We are currently either in the age of man, or chaos. Dr. Sexson read (for the most part) the Greek creation story which can be found in the Elaide book.
"Whenever their lives were set aflame, through desire or suffering, or even reflection, the Homeric heros knew that a god was at work." p.93
We've spoken of that quote in class before. I recognized it when I finally got there myself. Normally I'm a fast reader, but I find that speed doesn't come to me if I can't engage into the story. I'm also focusng a lot of my attention on trying to get into The Magus because we have a strict time limit on that and I'm not a third of the way through it yet. We all know desire, be it a physical desire or a mental one. We are also used to suffering, or at least we should be because rising above suffering is what gives us strength in life. Reflection can be harder to define though. There is a reflection in glass or still water, but that is merely the image of the gazer. There is self-reflection, which is the likely definition in this quote, it can be dangerous though because of what my lurk in the darker corners of one's mind. I once heard, or read somewhere, that a reason we hate certain people is that they embrace parts of their personalities that we despise in ourselves. We become friends with those who embrace the parts of their personalities that we also embrace.