musings…

Ahh–to write the final blog for Oral Traditions, to reflect on a final class by our professor, is, well…. poignant.

I clearly recall my very first Sexson class. I hadn’t been in school for 30 years, drove to MSU with fear and trembling (why am I so nervous?), found Wilson Hall room 126, and sat down amid a classroom of much younger students. I felt out of place, had no idea what to expect. In walked the teacher (his flashing eyes, his floating hair) immediately expounding on ‘what would be required.’ He mentioned Finnegans Wake, had a lovely young student stand up and, from memory, perform what must have been pages of   that text(lowly, longly, a wail went forth). And not a word of it made sense. But everything faded away, until the words came alive, floating in the air. And they were beautiful. 

He spoke in esoteric terms, some of which I actually had to look up(and I have a good vocabulary). But not that first day. That first day, I sat in my chair and imagined my hair, blowing back with the force of his words. It felt just like that. When he said ‘if you complain or ‘don’t like’ or are unwilling to attempt to understand Finnegans Wake, get out now,” I was stunned. What kind of teacher was this? I couldn’t believe he said that. I had imagined coming back to school, imagined that I would be revered for having life experience, for my literary prowess. I imagined that I would feel welcomed. But I felt like a scared, tired fourth-grader. This was not what I expected.

What was I in for?  Suddenly, I had serious doubts about going back to school.  I remember going home, crawling in bed, and sleeping for hours. But then, I woke up, I came out of my cocoon. I dove into reading, taking notes, paying close attention, trying to understand the things that mystified me, I created a blog, for Pete’s sake. After being called a Ludite (another shock), I determined to join the 21st century.

And so my adventure began. Dorothy-like. I attended my next class, intimidated, not knowing what to expect.

But I knew one thing: the literary part of myself, the part that understood symbol and sign, the part that drank deeply from metaphor and story, well, that part, that was sleeping, woke up.

Reading our texts, having class discussions, writing blog entries, it all began to come together into a Tale. The Tale of me, waking.

But still I wondered about this teacher. Bigger than life, his manner unsettled me. Who did he think he was? Who was he?

Then one day, I had a glimpse. The corner of a curtain pulled back, and I saw him, fumbling with the knobs, projecting his voice into the loudspeaker, pushing buttons so smoke and images would appear. And I knew.

He was the man behind the curtain.           

And I knew I could learn from him.

And I did, so much.

More than words can convey.

And some of the learning, well, all of the learning, was really remembering.

I remembered that my voice was not the voice of any other person. That when I spoke of dreams and visions, someone would lean in and say, “Tell me more.”

That when I wrote of those old stirrings, others would resonate, and the sound would pick up all the tellings of story from the very beginning.

I could say so much more. My notebooks of all my Sexson classes are treasured volumes. I will save them, going back over my notes, especially the things I wrote in the margins. Movies to watch. Books to read. Jewels of inspiration, connection.

Literature, reading, writing, reciting, they call us to the ‘waking life.’

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”  That’s what these classes have been, a call to self-examination. A call to discovery.

To what purpose? Personal and spiritual growth. In researching for my novel, Mikelby Sharpe and the Memory Palace, I came across this quote:  “The goal of fantasy literature is ultimately spiritual maturation.”  

I believe that. I think it’s the goal of most literature. At least the literature I want to be involved with…

So whether it’s hi-brow or lo-brow Lit, Shakespeare, mythology, or the oral traditions, they’re all in service of growth. They call to us, the words, the image, the sound–“Wake up! Change your shoes. We are going on a journey. It will be a long one, though good. There will be danger, and heartache, and laughter. We’ll go far. And when we arrive, finally, back where we started, we’ll be different. You’ll see. Come on.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poof!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we wake.

Narrative Embedded in Time

What does it really mean to say narrative is embedded in time? I think it means that story always occurs within a particular setting, at a particular time. In my novel, I want to suspend time, to have the characters exist outside time, hence they will become lost in the Memory Palace. I didn’t spend much time on my Musey Room Poster, and I actually spent a lot of time on it, so here’s a few pics:

 

 

 

And that last quote is the most important of all, because this story does indeed pick up the ‘vibrations’ of all the other stories that have ever been, all the Sexson classes, all the myths, legends, and oral traditions…

Musey-room–Mikelby Sharpe and the Memory Palace

One of the main themes of my memory palace is contained in the idea that every ‘story’ echoes all the other stories that have ever been. I find this to be fundamentally true, and that is how my novella, Mikelby Sharpe and the Memory Palace is a musey room. It contains everything, my college experience, my English and writing classes, Abnormal Psychology, my Sexson classes, plus all the fairy tales from my childhood, and yes, even the story I am living now.

I enjoyed immensely today’s presentations, Louis’ Lego Castle, Angela’s Lullian slot machine, and Spencer’s Golfing/Kubla Khan Adventure, which are as unique as the people giving them. And the final one, Shelby, just beautiful. I am so glad you did it in the way you did. No shame in tears, they are the silent words of deep conviction, written on the soul. Thanks for sharing that with us, and I know many have the same feelings about Prof. M.S. It was a fitting tribute.

A note on my presentation: Please don’t take offense if you find yourself in my novel. Things aren’t exactly as they are in real life, as you can tell. For instance, Louis’ arms are just fine, I just made the character Louis quite thin, which is not true, and quite brilliant, which is. And Seth, I’ve made you much more problematic than you are. The ‘Seth’ in the book is the antagonist, you understand. Many of you will appear, sometimes seeming vaguely similar to your real selves, sometimes, not so much. Remember, it’s  just a fairy tale…

Mwah, hah hah.

j.t.

Sound Incorporates

As I listened to the cacophonous sound of the Context group performing the modern rap of the Birth of Hermes, I couldn’t help thinking how proud Walter Ong would be. He’d nod and say, “See, it’s like I said, sound incorporates.” We saw context at it’s finest, with the amazing similarity in each persons part of the story.

The Traditions group treated us to a hilarious rendition of the Banquet of Odysseus and ensuing battle, replete with Trojan horse. The setting was quite detailed and definitely took some planning and work. I laughed the entire time. If you missed this one, you really missed an enjoyable performnce, especially the ending where the entire class was slain by sword yielding warriors. Kudos to both groups. I’ve gained insight into Kane from the adaptations of all groups, and had great fun to boot.

On Chaos and Peace

Well, Cameron the Terminator makes the claim that in order to have peace, we have to first embrace chaos. That gives me hope! Because chaos abounds.

Lots of things are not making much sense. In every life there are dark times. Or Seasons of darkness. They can seem to go on and on. And the only way out is through.

We all know the references to God and light. But there are actually more saying that God is in the darkness.

1 Kg.8:12, 2 Chronicles 6:1

The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.

Psalm 18:11He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

Psalm 97:2Clouds and darkness are round about him.

I know a lot of people longing for peace right now, me included. The image that comes to mind is the Milk River, lazy, sunny afternoon. I’m sitting on the sun dappled banks. The air is too hot for mosquitoes, so even they are quiet. Cotton drifts down from the cathedral of trees, lighting on the river’s milky surface,reflecting back a mossy green. I can feel the sun, see it’s bright aura behind my closed lids. The stillness is broken only by the occasional plop of a jumping fish. 

I have a sort of memory palace of peaceful, tranquil places. Are they real? It doesn’t matter.

After reading an article Nick mentioned in another class, I am thinking about how we record memory. The author claims that the brain does not record like a video camera. Nope. It’s more like a filing system, with certain places in the brain storing varying types of memory.

Negative emotions are stored in the amygdala. Memory itself is created by the connections being made between different parts of the brain, an intricate network of firings. And amazingly, when we remember something, the very act of remembering alters that memory. Memories are not stored in a static manner like video tape(or a wax tablet either), they are more like plays, which change and flow each time they are performed. It explains a lot. Like why family members remember different things, or why a memory alters over the years, even within one person’s mind. Because remembering the incident, has actually, literally altered that memory. So recollection is transient, even when we think we recall exactly how things were. It’s a little unsettling.

But back to peace.

John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Raven Travelling

            Mythic Centers: Maps are a way to control the world. The idea that there can be a physical representation of the land showing boundaries, mountains, rivers, and specific places, helps us to somehow claim the ground beneath our feet. It gives a local habitation and a name to what Native people considered un-ownable: the earth, the sky.

Kane asks, what if the invisible could be mapped? What if the places where mystery could be felt, were identified on a flat surface, with marker and pen? In some sense, they are. Local oral tradition paints a map of our own valley.

“There was an early tradition among the Indians of Montana that Gallatin Valley, called by them the “Valley of Flowers” was neutral ground. The name seems appropriate because of the great variety of wild flowers found on the mountainsides as well as in the valley. According to the tradition told to early pioneers by John Richau, a half breed Indian: In ages past, a band of Sioux and a band of Nez Perces, deadly enemies, met in Bridger Canyon and spent two days fighting.

While they were in deadly combat the third day, darkness over-spread the sun, and a strange noise seemed to come from the heavens. The contending warriors stood spellbound as a sweet voice was heard singing and a white flame appeared on top of the mountain, since called Mount Bridger. The flame settled on “Maiden Rock,” where the figure of a maiden was seen as the darkness disappeared. In a strange language all seemed to understand, she said, in part: “Warriors, children of the Great Spirit, sheath the hatchet and unstring the bow. Shed not the blood of your brothers here lest it mingle with yonder foaming water and defile the Valley of Flowers below. There must be no war in the Valley of Flowers, all must be peace, rest and love. The Spirit Maiden has spoken the words of the Great Spirit.” According to Mr. Richau, the truce of that day has been sacredly observed by the Indians: (Montana Geneology).

Kane mentions “regional mythic centers where power wells up like vapor from subterranean hot springs.” We are fortunate to live in a place where there are literal hot springs, also considered to be sacred by native people. Curiously, Norris Hot Springs is advertised as ‘the waters of the Gods.’ When early explorers stood before hot springs and geysers in Yellowstone, they understood that surely this was a sacred place.

Cave paintings in France, Australia, and other places world wide, were a method of mapping the customs and culture of people. The Aborigine’s have redrawn their cave paintings for many thousands of years, thus maintaining a map of many aspects of their culture. While it may not contain everything, “the forgotten parts are held up by the remembered parts in the incalculably complex  interweaving that is Aboriginal narrative in Australia. What holds the whole elaborate structure of stories fresh in memory is the likeness of the patterns of story to the life of the land” (Kane, 64).  Everywhere, people interact with the land—feeling its wonder and mystery. Inspired by the power and beauty that flows from mythic centers, we create paintings, poetry, prose, lyrics. And this is the voice of the land, singing.

Overall theme of Maps: The landscape maps itself.

Ashley Wouldn’t Kick a Puppy

I agree with Swift Footed Seth, in the need to reconfigure Ashley’s name.

She’s just not the puppy kicking type.

And comparing our professor to Andy Rooney, well, yes, I can see it in the eyebrows…ha ha, just kidding. Rooney’s eyebrows are legendary, epic, tangled growths that hover over his hawklike eyes. Well, maybe they are a little similar.

I liked Seth’s body analogy. But I think Highbrow is the perfect word for esoteric lit. After all, it makes one raise their eyebrows.   

I find my eyebrow permanently raised when I read Finnigans Wake.

Megan’s Musings on a Passover Seder reminded me of a Seder meal I attended. I was completely swept up in it, noting each tradition, each meaningful act. The lamb was tasty too, mmm….mint jelly(though that part was not traditional).

“Seder participants recall the slavery that reigned during the first half of the night by eating matzo (the “poor person’s bread”), maror (bitter herbs which symbolize the bitterness of slavery), and charoset (a sweet paste representing the mortar which the Jewish slaves used to cement bricks). Recalling the freedom of the second half of the night, they eat the matzo (the “bread of freedom” and also the “bread of affliction”) and ‘afikoman’, and drink the four cups of wine, in a reclining position, and dip vegetables into salt water (the dipping being a sign of royalty and freedom, while the salt water recalls the tears the Jews shed during their servitude”(Wikipedia).

The Seder is a meal steeped in oral tradition.

The Israelites were on the move, often. They left most things behind. And Megan’s right, it’s the people we carry with us. One of the first things I would grab are the photo albums, not because I have to save printed pieces of paper, but because they are mementoes of relationship.     

 

Final Test Questions– May 1, 8:00 a.m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. What was the English creation which Fludd used for his memory theatre? The Globe Theatre

2. What animal was Camillo reputed to be attacked by and spared? A Lion

3. What are singers remembering when they sing? Song is the remembrance of songs sung.

4. What is the name for an object with magical powers? Talisman.

5. What are the 7 titles in Kane’s book? Pattern, Maps, Boundaries, Dreams, Complementarity, Traditions, Context

6. Western thought refers to language as __________ while oral traditions refers to language as ___________. structure, memory

7. What field of academic study was not considered a serious subject until the 20th century? English Literature

8. What are the five time periods mentioned by Kane in the prologue? Paleolithic, neolithic, mesolithic, modernity, bronze

9. Modern writing uses the words of the __________characters, whereas primary orality uses _______characters.   Round, Flat

10. Ong believes that literature was orally based, while Derridaw believes it was textually based.

11. What image and words on Bruno’s memory wheel represented Simonides? The image of a man, the words: Melicus in Memorium. Bruno listed him as the inventor of memory.

12. Myths are not only about the gods, they are about ________? Nature.

13. What term does Levi Strauss suggest we replace the term ‘primitive’ with? “without writing.”

14. Which letters of the alphabet are in Lull’s memory system? The letters B-K.

15. How does laughter function in situations that are not funny? It is transformative.

16. How did the myth dwellers dwell on the earth? I have no idea…WALTER????Something on pg. 15. It appears to be the question Kane is trying to answer in this book, but how to sum that up in a nutshell?

17. Kane’s definition of myth: The song the earth sings to itself.

18. Memorize your classmate’s epithets:

Angel of the Meandering Pages
Ashley Kicker of Puppies
Atypical Angela
Autumn of the Tragedies
Breanna of the Fidgeting Whales
Cameron the Terminator
Cassidy Euterpe
Copious Kyle
Craig the Grump
Down the Rabbit Hole Jacky
Downtown Abby
Grace the Epithetless
Huckleberry Gage
Jennifer the Charmed
Levi of the Lost Marbles
Megan Mother of the Muses
Nate the Enigma
Nick of the Poptarts
Patient Parker
Quentin the Inquisitor
Rio Man Behind the Curtain
Spencer the Softspoken Shaker
Sweet and Spicy Shelby
Swift Footed Seth
Tearful Tristan
Tia Of the Crawling Ants
Walter the Ghetto Prophet

Bruno’s Shadows

In reading Chapter Nine in Yates, I was blown away by the intricacy of Bruno’s machinations and the complexity of his mind. And, Francis Yate’s mind for undertaking this explanation. I am sure I grasped a mere fraction of what he intended in his memory wheels. He made use of Lullism and Camillo’s ideas, but put his own spin on them, a spin that created many ‘shadows’ and ultimately got him burned at the stake.

Possible Chapter 9 test questions:

Q.  Who invited Bruno to Venice, and for what purpose?

A.  The French king, Henry III, who wanted to learn the art of memory

Q.  On Bruno’s Inventor’s wheel, there is an image of a man and beneath it the words Melicus in Memorium. Who does this represent, and what did he invent?

A.  Simonides,  inventor of the art of memory.

Q. Bruno was obsessed with what number?

A. The number 30.

Q. “Both Camillo’s and Bruno’s memory ideas exhibit a profound conviction that man, the image of the greater world, can grasp, hold and understand the greater world through the power of _________________________.”

A.  His imagination.

I find it interesting that Bruno admired Thomas Aquinas, but not as a religious leader, as a Magus. Oh that Bruno, always picking and choosing what he wants, and bending it around for his purposes. Perhaps we all do that to some degree.

 Pg.225 Bruno begins the ‘thirty intentions of the shadows’ with a quotation from The Canticle: “I sat down under the shadow of him whom I desired.”  This would seem to be God, or a god-like being. He rejected the Trinity, however. But I find it curious he was obsessed with the number 30, it being a multiple of three, sort of like 3 magnified.

Yates says, ‘Ideas are the principal forms of things, so we should form in us the shadows of ideas.”

I’m not sure if I completely grasp Bruno’s shadows,

but it makes me think of the scripture,

We see through a glass, darkly.”

Random Thoughts

Ong ch.7: “Formalism and the new criticism showed a shift toward text.” That the style of women authors was less formal(and more creative?) than the more formally educated men, is quite intriguing to me. It’s probably what made their writing real. You know, less puffed up with posing and being concerned about how things are ‘supposed’ to look in acadamia.

Virginia Woolf was envious of the education her brothers had at Cambridge, but if you ask me, she was the better writer for her sideways literary education. She engaged in the verbal articulation of self.  Ong states that orality echoes in Hawthorne, Winston Churchill, the Founding Fathers. What about the women?  How did the orality shift affect them? I couldn’t find much on this, which makes me think it’s a good topic for research.

A few Ong One Liners:

Ong: Speech is primary, writing is secondary. Writing is a ‘sign of a sign.’

Ong: “Oral utterance is always embedded in non-verbal existence.” This is an explanation for why good writing, shows(action based) instead of tells(word based.) Good writing accesses its oral roots.

“Orality is not an ideal, and never was. To approach it positively is not to advocate it as a permanent state for any culture”(Ong 171).

Role of the oral in religion is deeply rooted in an oral past. God speaks the word, He does not inscribe it(well, except for the ten commandments..) These are the two senses of The Word, 1. the spoken word, that was Jesus, and 2. the written word, the bible.

Lullism: Wow, Lull takes a really different approach, much more mathematical and nearly devoid of images. I rather like Lull and his preoccupation with the spiritual. The Franciscans were attracted to his methods, and cite the Dignitates Dei, or Divine attributes of God:

Bonitas–Goodness

Magnitudo–Greatness

Eternitas–Eternity

Potestas–Power

Sapientia–Wisdom

Voluntas–Will

Virtus–Virtue

Veritas–Truth

Gloria–Glory

Pg. 181 “The idea of the ‘Book of Nature’ as a road to God was present in the traditions of Christian mysticism, particularly the Franciscan tradition. I think of Gerard Manley Hopkins, favorite poet, who says that the earth is ‘charged with the grandeur of God.. shining like shook foil…” We don’t have to look far to see it.