First of all, I'd like to say congratulations to everyone for a job well done with the individual presentations. You guys really thought about what you had to say and presented some really good material. Here are a few topics that certainly grabbed my attention:
Misaki's use of props with her presentation was incredibly creative. I don't think I've seen it done quite that way before, where visual aids folded out. It was very interactive, like a graphic presentation more than a show-and-tell, point and shoot approach.
Heather's analysis of love and death was interesting as well. Some phrases she said that caught my eye (or ears, rather): "even death needs to be loved" and "death is the tool to keep people together".
Erica's argument, "if catharsis is so effective, why do we need to suffer in life at all?" is arresting in its simplicity. What a question!
Of all the presentations, however, a few were more personal than others. It requires a lot of courage to speak openly and truthfully about oneself, one's own life, especially with thirty or so kids staring at you in breathless expectation. I admire the people who took that on. Nick made us laugh with his "i'm terrified that you're all looking at me right now" comment. Kris spoke to a personal battle and ongoing tragedy. Zach Morris told us the touching story of his mother and the lullaby she sings. Each momentary presentation spoke volumes about the person behind it, and it was nice to see so much attention to detail in their execution.
Thank you all for doing a great job! I'm looking forward to the upcoming group presentations.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Absolute Man: The Pursuit of Transformation
Truly, we like to think of ourselves as entirely individual and isolated entities, following solitary paths of pain and love imperceptible to the average passerby. We devise new ways of conceptually cutting ourselves off from the world and its masses by defining our role within that greater continuum in terms of differences alone. Yet, there exists a struggle in us between this fascination with total autonomy from the unknown forces of this world and our ultimate need to let go and be wholly encompassed by those same forces. We remake ourselves again and again, following the shifting shapes of serial transformations in order to achieve one or both of these ideals. For Ovid in David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life, these transformations of self occur through the power of imagination as he walks through waking dreams more real than any life restricted by the bonds of place or time.
In the first of five parts of Malouf’s work, the character of Ovid struggles to transcend his circumstantially bound identity in order to achieve some sense of peace in exile. The novel opens with Ovid’s lonely isolation and with two dreams of great significance. In the first dream, Ovid travels across a vast and terrible valley in order to dig into the earth itself only to find wolves digging alongside him with increasing fervor. The dream stems from Ovid’s fear of death and brings to light his attachment to the world as he knows it. In the second dream, hordes of centaurs gallop towards a meeting with Ovid, frightening him enough so as to wake him abruptly. “Let us into your lives. Believe in us” they call, and something of a divine, animal nature rises up in Ovid to converse with the centaurs; the world of myth demands this recognition if only in dreams (24). Ovid grapples with this fear of relinquishing control even until the final words of this passage when suddenly, he finds some revelation. In the form of the poppy, he sees the path to true awakening, a way to, as he states, “work the spring” within himself (32). In naming there is becoming. By letting go of his former self, Ovid can define and awaken the forces within him needed to fuel the transformation of self and achieve ultimate transcendence of this physical world. “You will be separated from yourself and yet be alive” (33). These are the words he reflects upon in this passage, the words he dedicates to the beginning of a journey.
The second portion of the novel then continues, building on this initial revelation. Now, rather than thinking only of his superiority over the rural people he has come to live with, Ovid tries to understand the forces of nature, and of the divine, inherent in them. Speaking of Ryzak, the clan leader, he says “believing in nothing I couldn’t see [. . .]—what can I know of the forces that have made this man, this tamer of horses, whose animal nature he somehow takes into himself and gentles” (40). In this reference to Hector of Troy, we gain new insight into the dream of the centaurs in the previous section. In the centaur, the melding of horse and man into one being, we see the natural world and the world of the mind working in absolute harmony with one another. Ovid wonders as to how Ryzak is able to retain his humanity, his individuality, while simultaneously embracing the unknown, the uncontrollable in nature. Rather than completely surrendering himself to the unknown, Ovid still desires to maintain some sort of control over forces too great and too subtle for him to define in concrete terms. This desire to retain some sense of ultimate individuality or sovereignty over himself can be seen in the dream he has deep in the woods in the presence of the Child. “We have all been transformed,” he dreams, “the whole group of us, and become part of the woods [. . .] I am a pool of water” (61). This pool of water does not fear the deer or the Child drinking it up; he fears the wolf gorging himself on the sweet liquid just as the waking Ovid fears the violence of passions he cannot control, the violence of falling completely away into seeming nothingness. In this same passage, Ovid’s eventual death is foreshadowed in the brief words, “I sleep. I wake” (62). The sleep of death will be an awakening, though Ovid has not entirely reconciled himself to this concept in his waking consciousness.
The revelation in this passage comes with the identification of “some power in us that knows its own ends” (64). Ovid realizes that every version of himself that he could possibly become, all aspects of the universe are contained within him. “We have only to find the spring and release it,” he says (64). By embracing the entirety of the world, one does not lose oneself, for the entirety of the world is contained within that self. Though the passage ends with the shockingly violent capture of the Child, the vital weight of this realization cannot be subdued.
The violence inherent in the physical bonds used to restrain the Child does not last long, however, in the third and fourth sections of the novel. A shift begins to occur from the physical bonds, representative of place or time, to the figurative bonds of attachment similar to that of perceived nationality, family ties, or possession. Ovid teaches the Child ownership by giving him a ball to play with, creating, as Ovid describes, “the web of feeling that is this room [. . .] I feel, even in darkness, the invisible twitching of strings” (82). Here lies Ovid’s final attempt, through the person of the Child to control nature, to define that nature, human or otherwise, in terms of circumstantially bound definitions of place. Aptly, he uses the word web, a trap, to define this state of being.
By wondering at the ancestry of the Child, Ovid betrays his lingering fear of complete abandonment of the restricted self he has known, yet he also wonders “does not knowing make him free?” (89). Because the Child is not rooted to the physicality of life contained in concepts such as time and place, he is free and completely his own being. When he imitates birds and other creatures, Ovid says, “he is not, like our mimics, copying [. . .] He is allowing it to speak out of him” (92). Here again we see the child as the ultimate form of individuality enmeshed in the greater web of life. He exists completely unto himself yet enfolding all things; all forms of life live in him, in the singular aspect of his body, his soul. Perhaps paradoxically, by being all things, the Child finds a wholeness in his singular identity more original than any other. Finally, Ovid begins to achieve a transcendence of self, saying, “I must drive out my old self and let the universe in. [. . .] The spirit of things will migrate back into us. We shall be whole. Only then will we have some vision of our true body as men” (96).
In the final section of the novel, in a world beyond metamorphoses, beyond even imagination, Ovid achieves true wholeness of self and everlasting peace. The chapters begin with “No more dreams” (141). No longer needing to remake himself because he has achieved the entirety of his awakening, dreams and the imagination are needless as well. They are but agents of change between transformations.
Malouf ends his novel with Ovid’s final transformation and the words, “I am there” (152). Our Ovid has achieved the ultimate level of awareness, a state of being in which he encapsulates all that ever went before him and all there is to come, the fullness of man as he was meant to be. This man exists wholly unto himself and wholly within the world. The Child and his natural fire and spirit fade away upon the breeze just as the mind of Ovid sinks into the earth, into the sky. Somehow, he exists even then in all things.
While reading Malouf’s work, perhaps we recognize some silent force within us, some ancient spring that will trigger a change of consciousness. As we fully succumb to this next great transformation, perhaps we will glimpse a bit of ourselves in all things and feel wholly connected with all of life, past and present. Perhaps, we will see, rising within us, the birth of a new man, a god that breathes in tandem with the beating of our hearts. In this, and in all aspects of awakening, we are reborn.
In the first of five parts of Malouf’s work, the character of Ovid struggles to transcend his circumstantially bound identity in order to achieve some sense of peace in exile. The novel opens with Ovid’s lonely isolation and with two dreams of great significance. In the first dream, Ovid travels across a vast and terrible valley in order to dig into the earth itself only to find wolves digging alongside him with increasing fervor. The dream stems from Ovid’s fear of death and brings to light his attachment to the world as he knows it. In the second dream, hordes of centaurs gallop towards a meeting with Ovid, frightening him enough so as to wake him abruptly. “Let us into your lives. Believe in us” they call, and something of a divine, animal nature rises up in Ovid to converse with the centaurs; the world of myth demands this recognition if only in dreams (24). Ovid grapples with this fear of relinquishing control even until the final words of this passage when suddenly, he finds some revelation. In the form of the poppy, he sees the path to true awakening, a way to, as he states, “work the spring” within himself (32). In naming there is becoming. By letting go of his former self, Ovid can define and awaken the forces within him needed to fuel the transformation of self and achieve ultimate transcendence of this physical world. “You will be separated from yourself and yet be alive” (33). These are the words he reflects upon in this passage, the words he dedicates to the beginning of a journey.
The second portion of the novel then continues, building on this initial revelation. Now, rather than thinking only of his superiority over the rural people he has come to live with, Ovid tries to understand the forces of nature, and of the divine, inherent in them. Speaking of Ryzak, the clan leader, he says “believing in nothing I couldn’t see [. . .]—what can I know of the forces that have made this man, this tamer of horses, whose animal nature he somehow takes into himself and gentles” (40). In this reference to Hector of Troy, we gain new insight into the dream of the centaurs in the previous section. In the centaur, the melding of horse and man into one being, we see the natural world and the world of the mind working in absolute harmony with one another. Ovid wonders as to how Ryzak is able to retain his humanity, his individuality, while simultaneously embracing the unknown, the uncontrollable in nature. Rather than completely surrendering himself to the unknown, Ovid still desires to maintain some sort of control over forces too great and too subtle for him to define in concrete terms. This desire to retain some sense of ultimate individuality or sovereignty over himself can be seen in the dream he has deep in the woods in the presence of the Child. “We have all been transformed,” he dreams, “the whole group of us, and become part of the woods [. . .] I am a pool of water” (61). This pool of water does not fear the deer or the Child drinking it up; he fears the wolf gorging himself on the sweet liquid just as the waking Ovid fears the violence of passions he cannot control, the violence of falling completely away into seeming nothingness. In this same passage, Ovid’s eventual death is foreshadowed in the brief words, “I sleep. I wake” (62). The sleep of death will be an awakening, though Ovid has not entirely reconciled himself to this concept in his waking consciousness.
The revelation in this passage comes with the identification of “some power in us that knows its own ends” (64). Ovid realizes that every version of himself that he could possibly become, all aspects of the universe are contained within him. “We have only to find the spring and release it,” he says (64). By embracing the entirety of the world, one does not lose oneself, for the entirety of the world is contained within that self. Though the passage ends with the shockingly violent capture of the Child, the vital weight of this realization cannot be subdued.
The violence inherent in the physical bonds used to restrain the Child does not last long, however, in the third and fourth sections of the novel. A shift begins to occur from the physical bonds, representative of place or time, to the figurative bonds of attachment similar to that of perceived nationality, family ties, or possession. Ovid teaches the Child ownership by giving him a ball to play with, creating, as Ovid describes, “the web of feeling that is this room [. . .] I feel, even in darkness, the invisible twitching of strings” (82). Here lies Ovid’s final attempt, through the person of the Child to control nature, to define that nature, human or otherwise, in terms of circumstantially bound definitions of place. Aptly, he uses the word web, a trap, to define this state of being.
By wondering at the ancestry of the Child, Ovid betrays his lingering fear of complete abandonment of the restricted self he has known, yet he also wonders “does not knowing make him free?” (89). Because the Child is not rooted to the physicality of life contained in concepts such as time and place, he is free and completely his own being. When he imitates birds and other creatures, Ovid says, “he is not, like our mimics, copying [. . .] He is allowing it to speak out of him” (92). Here again we see the child as the ultimate form of individuality enmeshed in the greater web of life. He exists completely unto himself yet enfolding all things; all forms of life live in him, in the singular aspect of his body, his soul. Perhaps paradoxically, by being all things, the Child finds a wholeness in his singular identity more original than any other. Finally, Ovid begins to achieve a transcendence of self, saying, “I must drive out my old self and let the universe in. [. . .] The spirit of things will migrate back into us. We shall be whole. Only then will we have some vision of our true body as men” (96).
In the final section of the novel, in a world beyond metamorphoses, beyond even imagination, Ovid achieves true wholeness of self and everlasting peace. The chapters begin with “No more dreams” (141). No longer needing to remake himself because he has achieved the entirety of his awakening, dreams and the imagination are needless as well. They are but agents of change between transformations.
Malouf ends his novel with Ovid’s final transformation and the words, “I am there” (152). Our Ovid has achieved the ultimate level of awareness, a state of being in which he encapsulates all that ever went before him and all there is to come, the fullness of man as he was meant to be. This man exists wholly unto himself and wholly within the world. The Child and his natural fire and spirit fade away upon the breeze just as the mind of Ovid sinks into the earth, into the sky. Somehow, he exists even then in all things.
While reading Malouf’s work, perhaps we recognize some silent force within us, some ancient spring that will trigger a change of consciousness. As we fully succumb to this next great transformation, perhaps we will glimpse a bit of ourselves in all things and feel wholly connected with all of life, past and present. Perhaps, we will see, rising within us, the birth of a new man, a god that breathes in tandem with the beating of our hearts. In this, and in all aspects of awakening, we are reborn.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Sterilized Lives.
Prof. Sexson made an offhand comment the other day on our modern day adaptation of the power of love in the form of Cupid. We have taken the god himself and transformed him into a "fat baby with wings" in Prof. Sexson's words. What an idea!
What role does love play in our society? In every part of the world, love is a mainstay of creative thought and the focus of most, if not all of our energies. Yet, we have no idea what it is or even how to truly define it. Love is something that shows itself in many forms, something ephemera,l and it defies our pitiful attempts to place it in some sort of sterilized box for safekeeping. It moves us....beyond the limits of acceptable conduct....and with only the slightest touch. By transforming the youthful god of tricks and dreamlike rapture into that of a commercialized baby figure with fat rolls and disproportionate wings, we attempt to create some distance from this power, the power of love. We like to fool ourselves into thinking that we actually succeed in this.
Few people would ever admit to being fools in love; those that do are rarely fools as they know more of the true nature of love than most who claim to retain some small semblance of control, yet that is what we all are. Simple fools. We say that love is blind. Rather, we cannot know this concept in its entirety. Anything we cannot explain we then qualify. With platitudes such as these we escape culpability for our choice of companion, our mirror in this life. "Love is blind," we say and say no more about it so as not to have to examine ourselves fully in the light of truth. But there is so much more that needs to be said! Love is not blind simply because we are blind to its meaning.
Sadly, we like to think of ourselves as truly modern, unable to be fooled by such silly, naive concepts of love and beauty, honor or integrity. Those are the dreams of bygone eras, the souls of greater men than us perished in the black abyss of time. I am taking another English class this semester, and what I have found in our class discussions on certain pieces of literature was a revelation to me. Every piece that affected me the most, for the author spoke of nobility, of integrity of spirit, every such piece was ridiculed and picked apart in class days after I had scanned the final lines. The knight is an antiquated, unrealistic concept. The love between brother knights is homoerotic and nothing more. The author seems narrow-minded. The hero is a wimp. The glorification of this hero is but the implementation of European ideals on the savage mind. He's not really that courageous, there's just no other way he can be.
These were some "insights" I gained from my peers during these sessions of outright skepticism and derisive criticism.
I leave these classes feeling worn and...disappointed.
Far from being naive, I have seen as well. I have witnessed the degradation of mankind in so many venues and in so many ways. Yet...somehow, I continue to believe in the heroic potential of the human spirit. I continue to believe in a version of man who lives with integrity and strength of self. I continue to believe in a passionate love that leaves one senseless to the condemnation of the world. I believe in ultimate truth, though it may not be conceivable as we are now. I believe...in man.
Yet these people, these masses, for I cannot term them truly individual when they lack the courage to embrace life itself, pitifully and regrettably seek to distance themselves from their own ideal. The best version of who they themselves could be stands directly before them, waiting to be recognized and sought after, yet they continue to deny, efface, and condemn him. With platitudes and off-color remarks, fat babies and sissy knights, they turn away from the power of that sight, the power of that other world. This world, devoid of qualifications and other injustices.
Psyche held the absolute power of love, devoid of such qualifications, in her very "soul". By seeking some sort of contextual definition in the form of a beautiful shape, she sought to gain some power over her situation, over love. For this she was punished, not because she saw Eros in his fullest form, but because she tried to distance herself from, to give a name to some great force that must only be embraced with wild abandon.
In the same way, we must embrace our lives without those self-imposed boundaries and petty fears. Give up fat babies and live in the glorious presence and power of something greater than yet contained in ourselves...in our souls.
The Art of Psyche
This video has many of the hundreds of representations of this story of Psyche. So many great works....
The Story of Psyche in Drawings and Film
Truth be told, I have neglected this blog of late. Call it an excess of things to do with little time to do it in, call it lack of inspiration...whatever it was, I am determined to circumvent my own procrastination. While googling slash youtubing Apuleius, I came across this video on the story of Psyche. There are three parts which combined make it rather long, but visually, this is absolutely worth your time. The drawings are phenomenal and the Greek culture comes across really well in the film. I hope you take the time to check it out.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Echoes of the Past: Classical Literature and David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life
At first glance, An Imaginary Life by David Malouf appeared to be merely the fanciful imaginings of the author of the work and not, as I would have hoped, the astounding literary account I had looked forward to. The work seemed short-sighted, even mundane at times; I found the piece as a whole entirely too “circumstantially bound” to the life of Ovid and to this one solitary occurrence in that life as a whole. Hoping against hope, however, I read on. It was then that I realized that I had, as Thoreau would say, been reading the times when I should have been reading eternities. Hereafter, as layer upon layer of meaning revealed itself, the astounding literary merit of Malouf’s work, especially in relation to the content of this particular class, became increasingly irrefutable.
Nearly all imagery in this little book harkens back to the act of transformation or metamorphoses, a theme thoroughly explored by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. One line begins quite simply the miraculous transformation of Ovid the cynic in exile to Ovid the spiritual being. That one line, “I love this poppy. I shall watch over it” parallels the short story we read earlier entitled “A tree. A rock. A cloud.” (32). In this same passage, Malouf makes direct reference to the myth of Persephone. Here we see the act of love as a transforming agent. By it, we become something more than what we appear to be; we actually change our mental or emotional makeup to become divine, as Ovid in effect becomes Persephone, that “flower-faced” girl.
Furthermore, through this fictionalized Ovid’s eyes, we witness the transformative powers of ritual practice and ceremony. Ovid recalls the ceremonies of his youth in which he “will have replaced him,” here speaking of his brother’s death merely by believing in the ceremony for an instant of time (87). Malouf then references Hector of Troy, that tamer of horses, in his description of the old man later identified as Ryzak and his relation to the ceremonies performed by the men to the dead and the gods themselves (40). Just as in the Eleusinian mysteries when a simple ear of corn is transformed into something awe-inspiring, through ritual, Ovid and this hunting party are transformed, themselves, becoming “part of the woods. We are mushrooms [. . .] I am a pool of water” Ovid dreams (61).
Perhaps the most astounding classical reference, however, is the recurrence of the five states of drama identified by Steiner in his analysis of the play Antigone. The men of the village and the women separate themselves from one another, struggle with, and against, each other keeping their sacred ceremonies and rituals completely private. Here, the concept of the ever-chaste Diana hiding her nakedness from the prying eyes of Actaeon comes to the foreground. Age and youth are at odds as can be seen in the interaction of the Child and his elders, and in the strained relationship between Ovid and his father. Ovid, himself, represents the individual striving against the will of state in his exiles, both decreed and self-imposed. The wild Child’s struggle to exist in Ovid’s world embodies this struggle as well. The fear and reverence inherent in the villagers to the dead brings to light yet another Steiner conflict This conflict presents itself most horrifically in the death ritual performed on Ryzak. Finally, the traditional rituals to appease the gods as well as Ovid’s previous skepticism of these beings true existence create the final parallel to the dramatic themes identified by Steiner.
In Malouf’s Imaginary Life we see a mother’s grief at the prospective loss of a child, so similar the tragedy of Andromache’s plight in The Trojan Women among countless other references to the great works we have studied in classical literature. The novel as a whole depicts a transformation. We ourselves are transformed in the reading. And out of the death of our previous existence comes yet another new and glorious beginning. In the words of Malouf himself, “What else should our lives be but a continual series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have not yet become” (135). Herein lies the myth of our lives, the ultimate convergence of past and present in wondrous unity. By letting go of our previous states, we are reborn. In this way every ending becomes merely a beginning and our first hesitant step on the path to ultimate oneness.
Nearly all imagery in this little book harkens back to the act of transformation or metamorphoses, a theme thoroughly explored by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. One line begins quite simply the miraculous transformation of Ovid the cynic in exile to Ovid the spiritual being. That one line, “I love this poppy. I shall watch over it” parallels the short story we read earlier entitled “A tree. A rock. A cloud.” (32). In this same passage, Malouf makes direct reference to the myth of Persephone. Here we see the act of love as a transforming agent. By it, we become something more than what we appear to be; we actually change our mental or emotional makeup to become divine, as Ovid in effect becomes Persephone, that “flower-faced” girl.
Furthermore, through this fictionalized Ovid’s eyes, we witness the transformative powers of ritual practice and ceremony. Ovid recalls the ceremonies of his youth in which he “will have replaced him,” here speaking of his brother’s death merely by believing in the ceremony for an instant of time (87). Malouf then references Hector of Troy, that tamer of horses, in his description of the old man later identified as Ryzak and his relation to the ceremonies performed by the men to the dead and the gods themselves (40). Just as in the Eleusinian mysteries when a simple ear of corn is transformed into something awe-inspiring, through ritual, Ovid and this hunting party are transformed, themselves, becoming “part of the woods. We are mushrooms [. . .] I am a pool of water” Ovid dreams (61).
Perhaps the most astounding classical reference, however, is the recurrence of the five states of drama identified by Steiner in his analysis of the play Antigone. The men of the village and the women separate themselves from one another, struggle with, and against, each other keeping their sacred ceremonies and rituals completely private. Here, the concept of the ever-chaste Diana hiding her nakedness from the prying eyes of Actaeon comes to the foreground. Age and youth are at odds as can be seen in the interaction of the Child and his elders, and in the strained relationship between Ovid and his father. Ovid, himself, represents the individual striving against the will of state in his exiles, both decreed and self-imposed. The wild Child’s struggle to exist in Ovid’s world embodies this struggle as well. The fear and reverence inherent in the villagers to the dead brings to light yet another Steiner conflict This conflict presents itself most horrifically in the death ritual performed on Ryzak. Finally, the traditional rituals to appease the gods as well as Ovid’s previous skepticism of these beings true existence create the final parallel to the dramatic themes identified by Steiner.
In Malouf’s Imaginary Life we see a mother’s grief at the prospective loss of a child, so similar the tragedy of Andromache’s plight in The Trojan Women among countless other references to the great works we have studied in classical literature. The novel as a whole depicts a transformation. We ourselves are transformed in the reading. And out of the death of our previous existence comes yet another new and glorious beginning. In the words of Malouf himself, “What else should our lives be but a continual series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have not yet become” (135). Herein lies the myth of our lives, the ultimate convergence of past and present in wondrous unity. By letting go of our previous states, we are reborn. In this way every ending becomes merely a beginning and our first hesitant step on the path to ultimate oneness.
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