The ordinary world

"Every sudden heightening of intensity brought you into a god's sphere of influence." p. 95
We spent much of Tuesday's class going over Jennifer's blog and how she is connecting the dots between the readings and what we talk about. There was also Jerrod's story about running into the guy on the sidewalk because they both chose to change to the same direction at the same time. Thereby doing what they sought to avoid. This is reflected with Oedipus when he leaves Corinth to avoid the fate told to him by the Oracle at Delphi, but only making it actually happen. This is why people should tell their children if they are adopted, then they can make better decisions concerning their prophecies from the Oracle. We mentioned that in 1001 Nights Death is referred to as the destroyer of delights. Dr. Sexson told us the story of the appointment in Samarra. We got around to Scrion who is mentioned in The Magus and how he was a highwayman, or thief. Then we spoke of Procrusties and his hotel where everyone had to fit the beds, perfectly. If a person was too tall, he cut off their feet. If they were too short, he'd stretch them out, probably using some form of rack. This somehow got converted into a philosophical problem. We spoke of rewards, and how they don't come from things that are easy, but as a sign of victory over something difficult. We mentioned Jacob wrestling with the angel during the night, and how his reward was to become the father of Israel, which also became his name. We mentioned the fate/curse of man is to fall. We retold Humpty-Dumpty, in both the general nursery rhyme version, and Finnegan's Wake version. Somewhere about this point in the class, I had some minor revelation. I say minor, because when I failed to write it down, I forgot it. I remember the feeling, but not what caused that feeling. I was hoping it would come back to me when I looked over my notes, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Everything that happens in this ordinary plane, also occurs in the mythological plane. All hero's want to go home, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Oz is created out of what we know, our own worlds which are different from everyone else. Somehow we got around to sparagmos which is a Dionysian ritual, that involves a human sacrifice, and typically omophagia, or cannibalistic eating of the sacrifice. Which lead to a discussion on the Eucharist. Somehow it landed upon me (a Methodist) to explain what the Eucharist is. While the Methodist church doesn't keep with many of the Catholic teachings, we are not unfamiliar with them. For anyone not in class, the bread is the Body of Christ, and the wine (or grape juice) is the Blood of Christ. Most churches follow the tradition of eating the bread, and then drinking the wine. The Methodist church uses something called intiction which is nothing more than taking the bread, dipping it into the wine (juice), and consuming as one. The Catholic church, when my dad was one, considered the layman (nonclergy) to be too dirty to handle the Body of Christ themselves, and the priest would place the wafer into the mouth of the layman. The congregtions objected to this treatment, and eventually that got changed, the priest only hands over the wafer now. There is also an amusing side note involving what happens with leftovers from the Eucharist. The bread may be stored in a special container, but the wine cannot be stored. This probably has to do with the body can be preserved, but the blood is lost in this process. The wine must be completly consumed, so one can sometimes find drunk priests and nuns in the back of Catholic Parishes after Communion (the Eucharist) because they had to finish off the wine.

That was a really long paragraph, but I'm not too worried about my grammar in this. The content is much more important. I'll add an extra space between my paragraphs so we don't get too confused. When we went through the twenty-two points a hero must go through, which I didn't list above because we'll go over them again. The person I thought of immediately was Sigfried. Sigfried is the main character in Die Niebellungenleid which is the national epic poem of Germany. I speak German as a second language, and have read a watered down version in German during my senior year of high school. That was a lot harder than people might think. I then read the last half of it in an English class the same year, I was the only one in my class who could correctly pronounce Niebellungenleid. This is actually where my URL came from. My high school German teacher was pregnant my senior year. We (the 3rd and 4th year class) decided to name the baby. We liked the name Fafnir (the dragon that Sigfried kills) over Sigfried. Then we learned that our teacher was having a girl. We then altered the name to Fafnina so it was appropriate. She actually named the baby Sydney (like Australia, not Montana).

The quote above is reflective of my revelation, that I can't remember. There was a heightened sense of clarity about something that wandered across my mind. Considering the mentioning of the two planes, ordinary and mythological, "To tell a story meant to weave thoser two series of parallel events together, to make both worlds visible." is found at the end of the paragraph that my opening quote starts. Our ordinary world influences the events of the mythological world, and vice versa. This ordinary world seems so boring, but one must look beyond the surface, to find the references to richer, grander things than just a tree. The tree is alive, it is a nymph. The world makes itself complex, and then we see the simplicity in its design. Mythology shows us the simplicity through the complexity.