Beginnings

"The first crown was a gift from Zeus to Prometheus. It thus came from the gods as homage to a man whose relationship with them was anything but clear, at once a threat and a means of salvation (109)"
For my presentation, I chose a Melanasian myth about the origins of death called The Cast Skin. I read several myths concerning the origins of death and most of them treated death as a punishment. I chose this particular myth because it treats the orgins of death as a self-less act of love; a testament to the importance and depth of the mother-child relationship.  In class many of the presentations, although unique, contained many common elements; the concept of the 'earth diver', creation from thought or speech, creation through division, or creation by dismemberment were often repeated.
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony begins with a girl being carried of by a bull. But this girl wasn't the first to be carried off by a bull, in the beginning bulls were forever abducting beautiful young girls. When they weren't carrying off women, women were going through great lengths to copulate with them. Obviously these were some very handsome bulls. The image of the bull, the turtle, the duck, and various other animals are ever present in origin myths.  I think this suggests that many cultures acknowledge that animals came before humans.  Which is interesting because modern science agrees with this concept. i also find the creation myths that i read having to do with the concept of an egg to be terribly interesting since many life forms DO come from an egg. What does this prove? That it is ALL TRUE!
 Mythos Logos

Origins

Merkin Vineyards, Arizona. Makers of Caduceus wine



  "No other god, let alone Athena with her sober olive oil, or Demeter with her nourishing bread, had ever had anything that could vie with that liquor.  It was exactly what had been missing from life, what life had been waiting for:  intoxication (36)."

Dionysus the god of wine, vegetation, pleasure, and festivity; "revealed the secret of wine to man (37)."  Dionysus like most of the gods exhibits a duality that is ever present in humans and in life.  Although he gives humans the secrets of wine and pleasure, as well as the uniting practice of festivity, he was also murderous and a rapist. Dionysus longs to posses the unattainable, but once he has it he becomes easily bored and often casts women aside like a spoiled child that has tired of his toy. Grapes and the wine that is produced from them are an important part of our origins.  Wheat and grapes are central to origins of agriculture and civilized life. Wine is familiar to most of us for its role in celebration and ritual.  Wine is recurrent theme throughout several cultural mythologies including Christian mythology. The documentary "Blood Into Wine" explores the origins of Merkin Vineyards in Arizona.  Winemaker Eric Glomski describes the wine making process as one that is complex and brings humans back to nature.  His passion for wine has led him to develop his sense of smell as ninety percent of tasting wine is smelling wine.  For Eric and his partner Maynard Keenan wine is a connection to the Earth and to our collective origins.  Wine making is a hugely complex process where everything is a factor the soil, the slopes, the rain fall; all of these wonderful elements come together to create a divine beverage that is used in celebration and deception. Wine both enhances and dulls the senses.  A dualistic drink, from a dualistic god, for dualistic beings.
 "Dionysus decided that only one of his weapons could work: wine (31)."  Wine produces great merriment, occasional sorrow, or can be used as a weapon of revenge.  Dionysus rapes Aura by drugging her with wine so that Artemis can have her revenge.  Why would such a good time party guy do such a thing? Because Artemis had delivered death to many of Dionysus' women at his request. Dionysus has a dark side and by revealing wine to mortals he revealed pleasure and pain, by combining the two into an intoxicating drink that is capable of producing both of these primal sensations.
The origins of a vineyard, the origins of wine, the origins of pleasure, of pain, of the gods themselves; all this talk of origins has me thinking of my own origins.  My mother has always insisted that i was found under a rock.  All my father has ever said was that the night I was born the radio played nothing but great songs.  Zeppelin, Skynard, Sabbath, and Cream poured out of his speakers as if Orpheus himself had seized the airwaves to announce my birth.  The wine flowed freely and Dionysus nodded his approval.  For it was he, with his wine and festivity, that led my parents to each other in the first place.  My youth was filled with barbecues, holiday feasts, and always always music. I don't remember when I stopped believing in Santa Claus, but i do remember that at 8 years old I was given to Orpheus body and soul through a ritual know as ones first concert.

I know I believed in Santa Claus, but I honestly don't remember when or why i stopped. My grandfather had a beard of ZZ Top proportions and when i was little the other little kids would walk up to my grandfather and accuse him of being Santa Claus. I always thought this was silly surely my grandfather couldn't be THE Santa Claus.  The REAL Santa Claus lived in the North Pole not in Wyoming.

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I'm a little over half done with "Cadmus and Harmony". Calasso is intoxicating, this book is amazing, a real page turner. It's poetic, beautiful; full of life, death, perversion, and revenge.  It truly does explain why we are the way we are and answers questions we dare not ask.

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Class Notes 9/6:

Origins of music start when Hermes gives the lyre to Apollo

Homeric Greeks- believed that 'only the gods can be the causes' of desire, suffering, & reflection

Diamon = Demon

Ate = infatuation, you are no longer in control of the situation

Enthusiasm- comes from Theos, means possessed by the gods

Alchemy- perfection of the human spirit

9/8:

Etiology- explanation of how something came to be- 2 levels simple and complex- etiological myth explains origins of practice, natural phenomena, and proper names

Mythology is a system of total explanation that answers all questions

Myth- is the model for imitation

Anamnesis- innate knowledge, you already know everything you need to know you just forgot the role of the teacher is to awaken our recollection and help us remember

Test:  Homeric hymns, Classic dramas, Hesiod, Trojan War, Exodus

everyday mythology

"No sooner have you grabbed hold of it than myth opens out into a fan of a thousand segments.  Here the variant is the origin (147)."
Myth is around us everyday. It gets stuck in our heads and sung in our cars. Music is in myth and myths are in the music we hear everyday.  In Led Zeppelin's "Achilles Last Stand, Robert Plant sings "Wandering and wandering, What place to rest the search, The mighty arms of Atlas, Hold the Heavens from the Earth." the mythologies of several different cultures are a central theme in Classic Rock and modern Metal music.  Robert Plant sings of Valhalla, Odin's Hall of the Slain, in their classic "Immigrant Song." Valhalla proves to be recurring theme in Metal music. Manowar's "Gates Of Valhalla," is a great example; "Sworn by the sacred blood of Odin onward ride,Valhalla thy gods await me, Open wide thy gates embrace me, Great hall of the battle slain." 3 Inches of Blood use myth in their lyrics, "Onward to Valhalla" and the "The Hydra's Teeth" just to name a few. Iron Maiden often references Egyptian mythology in their lyrics and even Marilyn Manson gets a little mythological from time to time. Folk, Indie, Tribal music, and I'm not well versed on the subject but i would imagine there are a few symphonies/operas that are myth related. "Myth opens out into a fan of a thousand segments," Maynard James Keenan of Tool started a vineyard in Arizona which produces Caduceus brand wine..from music to wine and then back to the gods.
 Myth is in movies, advertising, company logos, cartoons, art, many tattoos are of mythic creatures and symbols. Myth is in the music that fills our ears and the wine that passes over our lips. I am surrounded by myth i hear it, i sing it, i feel it, and i have ingested it. The Bacchus Pub in downtown Bozeman is the sort of eatery Dionysus himself would frequent.  Orpheus would approve of our talented local musicians that make every genre of music imaginable in our beautiful tree filled town.  When I look at my hometown, my friends, and myself I see myth twisting its way through every aspect of life; similar to the way i have always seen music twisting its way through every moment of my own life.
There used to be a show on HBO fifteen years ago that retold many familiar myths.  In this T.V. version of Orpheus and Eurydice; the beautiful Eurydice was born from a tree.  Trees are central to myth, central to life, and to origin (the concept on ancestry is symbolized by the tree).  Trees, myth, music, and art flow in and out of one another and often times blend. The image above is of a girl motionless amongst the isolation of the trees and the night. She herself turns into roots at the bottom of the piece and is surrounded by several trees not pictured;this tattoo inspired by a song, a work of art, a book of trees, and a myth of sorts.  Of course all this talk of trees only reminds me of another song: "firelight was an offering to the god that runs through the bark of the trees I believe, that by gods above us we wont live to see it end, let us not pretend that it could have been any other way" written by Dax Riggs the so-called Orpheus of the underground. i think in many of the myths i 've read so far the abductors of these young girls are silently repeating: My dear, "lets us not pretend that it could have been any other way."
Cultural myths are like genres of music, varied and complex.  Our personal experience and understanding of myths are also varied and complex. While looking for myth in everyday, I discovered myth in overwhelming abundance in music, art, poetry, food/drink, even in my own community.  These are the things i am most passionate about in life so i can't help but think that i have discovered an unconcious passion for myth within myself.
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I love Cadmus & Harmony. Although i find it a little confusing and at times overwhelming. I'm making a list of names, places, and relationships to try to keep it all straight.
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CLASS NOTES 9-1-11

Mnemosynein = memory
     -mother of the 9 muses: Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomeni, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Ourania, and Calliope.

-abduction of women is a repeating theme