I keep my blogs in a notebook (let's just say that outside of class participation I'm not the best at sharing my thoughts), and I do apologize for them being late, but here they are, including their original dates:
(Written: 8/29/07)
Though the course just started, I did want to write a bit of a ‘what I hope to glean from this’ entry.
I debated between this course and a couple of other electives being offered this semester, all of which I felt would be deeper exploration into things in which I am already interested, but I eventually decided on this because it subject material that I feel is best experienced as part of a group--where people of multiple backgrounds can come together and actually discuss information that many of us may not have studied.
Another reason for wanting to take this course, is that I have thought a lot about joining the Peace Corps in the next year or two. While I know there is a huge variance in Peace Corps placements and the religions experienced by those nations, I would like to learn as much as I can about non-westernized, and especially non-industrialized cultures as I can, to better understand their histories and beliefs before I undergo such a journey.
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(Written: 9/15/07)
Theosophy is something I always want to study as much as I can...I have read a bit about it online, and I have a book on it, but it seems really fascinating...it seems like something I will really need to read a lot on to truly understand, but one of the things I like about it the best is idea that everything is related by the same sort of spirit energy...that we should not look at the world around us in relation to ourselves as an individual, but rather see ourselves as just another piece of a much greater world.
I think this possibly derived from some of the more primal schools of thought...instead of being focused on what the world can do for us...shouldn’t we be more focused on what we can do for the world?
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(Written: 9/30/07)
May of last year I went to Pennsylvania on vacation, and while I was up there visited a friend I met at a convention a few months before--the reason he and I continued speaking was because we were both interested in discussing many of the same things--particularly the nature of human existence. He’s a few years older than me, and began thinking about such things long before I did, so it was nice to be able to bounce some of my thoughts off of somebody who has already gone through beginning stages of this sort of speculation.
Among our conversations, I remember saying to him that I was often saddened by the fact that I would never be able to perform magic (both of us understanding that by ‘magic’ I did not mean sleight of hand or card tricks), and his response was “why not?”
And I suppose he is right...why not? Magic in the sense that I mean it was and is still performed by cultures not inundated by industry, technology, and science, and who were never subject to witch trials of any kind. Magic, in a sense, is performed even in some modern societies through alternative medicines such as herblore and acupuncture. Magic does still exist...so really, why not?
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(Written: 10/01/07)
One of the musicians I work with right now is also a therapist, which is what I ultimately think I wish to be, and sometimes through conversations with him, I feel like I can relate arguments in therapy and psychology to some of the practices of the primal religions we’ve looked at.
Mainly I find this comparison in terms of medicating personality...you can give someone medication to decrease their anxiety or depression, but the medicine isn’t going to solve the problem--it just solves the symptoms. It’s kind of how cultures who practice magic see Western medicine--taking a pill or having surgery might make the symptoms go away, but if you’ve been cursed, the only way to truly remove it is by performing whatever counter-magic is necessary. Unless you cure whatever it is causing the symptoms, the ailment never truly goes away.
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(Written: 10/10/07)
This past Monday (the 8th) was my birthday, and for the first time in many, many years, I actually had the day off from both work and school...so when my mother asked me what I wanted to do, I asked if we could go camping.
I love camping, and since I started stage managing have had very little opportunity to do so, since I am usually booked solid from about March-November...but, we decided to make it work, and went to the Loft Mountain campground on Skyline Drive.
We arrived around 3pm, and after a rather stressful drive (we took rt. 33 to get there and continually ran into traffic caused by industrialization, and then had to wait to get into Skyline Drive as they had closed it down due to a drunk drive), after choosing a site, and after getting our equipment set up, I walked to the nearest overlook to our site...and just had to breathe everything in.
I do not consider myself a Christian, although it was my upbringing--though I feel a certain reverence pertaining to many of the stories and beliefs, I feel that there is often too much dogma involved, and that there are so many other belief systems out there I do not want to commit myself to any single one.
However, there is a feeling that I get when standing on a mountain, overlooking a world of nature, that is...transcendent. I do not often feel a strong spiritual connection to churches or other such man-made “holy” places, but in the middle of nature, to me even the wind itself just sparkles with with power of a higher being. Just standing there, overlooking a valley and the mountains beyond it, it truly felt like there was a power rushing through me, cleansing me of all negative energy.
Also somewhat remarkable, is that while I stood there, two deer, a buck and a doe, walked past me heading into the woods. The buck went first, with the doe about 30 yard behind, and as she passed me she stopped and watched me, and I her, and it felt like we might be able to communicate somehow, until a van drove up and frightened her away.
It felt like a statement of what I feel when I go into places of nature such as that--I can exist alongside the natural world without the addition of technology, but with the approach of the van--the approach of industry--that bond was severed, and I once again had to return to the world of man.
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(Written: 10/13/07)
In speaking of patterns that exist in our society, when I was in high school, I always used to wonder what an alien species would think if they just dropped into your average public high school--students would sit in rooms for 90 minutes, and then at the sound of a bell they would all leave together, move in the hallways for 4 minutes, and then at the sound of another bell, move into a new classroom and sit for another 90 minutes until the process could be repeated.
This, I do not believe, would be ritual--it’s monotonous, and I doubt most students feel a real connection to what they are doing--they move in that way because it is the rule, or the norm--to do otherwise would result in a punishment of some sort, and it is organized in such a way to keep order in the school.
However I think during lunchtime, students do develop more of a ritual than a pattern--each clique has its own section of the cafeteria, and certain patterns that each individual employes to maximize lunchtime. Being a theater nerd, I would always eat in the auditorium with the other theater nerds, and in a way that was ritualistic for us. Days we had to eat in the cafeteria were strange--we didn’t really know where to sit or who to sit with, and it was noisy and smelly. I think people from another group could say the same thing if they ate where we did--that it was too quiet, and too musty. For us though, it was soothing, and something we needed to do each day to reconnect, and make it through our afternoon classes.
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(Written: 10/16/07)
To amend to the last entry, I think certain work-related habits could also be added to the question of ritual vs. pattern. On jobs where I have had shorter drives (shorter by my standards, at least), the drive was really just a way from getting from home to work and back...but when I worked further away, it was almost meditative. I worked in Chesapeake for awhile, which is quite a drive from Newport News, especially in morning rush hour through the HRBT, but I actually really liked my drive (that is, on days I was not running late!). It gave me an hour before work and an hour after work that I was completely alone with my thoughts, listening to music. In the morning, it gave me the time I needed to really wake up and be ready for work. On the way home, I had an hour to decompress...it was like I was driving to and from a different mindframe...I could leave my office self on the other side of the water, and keep my home self here, and the drive gave me the time and space I needed to separate myself.
I think this is true in a lot of getting ready/getting home habits. My roommate for instance, every morning wakes up early enough to have a bowl of cereal, and read an email from her father (who sends her a morning email every morning when *he* wakes up). If she does not do this, her morning is thrown off, and she usually starts the day in a bad mood. When I get home from work, I like to go into my room with a glass of wine, and just have some time alone to check email and maybe do some reading, before I go into the living room to talk to my roommate. This is similar to the release I felt when driving home from work--with a shorter drive, I need the time by myself to transition from work to home.
So in a way, these are rituals--they are ways in which we connect ourselves to our world, and things we have elected to do, and are not doing simply because it is dictated to us.
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(Written: 10/25/07)
Another blog I am a bit late in writing, I wanted to talk about our “story-time” outside in front of the fountain, and about finding tricksters in current pop culture.
I really do stand by what I said before about Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean being a true trickster...for the most part, he really is on Jack’s side and no one else’s, but yet, he is still a good character at heart.
Also, in many creation myths, some great changed happened due to the actions of a trickster, and Jack Sparrow also fits into this characteristic, as several of the major changes in the plot (including the major ones which strongly influence the world of the story) come about as the result of his (failed) attempts at deceit.
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(Written: 11/10/07)
This was my first time participating in a drum circle, and I must say, it was an experience I was very happy to have, and I hope I shall get another opportunity some time.
I think the cold got to a lot of people, but in the duration of the circle, I honestly did not notice it--I was only aware of the cold when we were walking into and out of the circle, and I was actually using my feet. Well actually my hands were very cold the hold time which I was aware of whenever I hit my drums in a certain way, but even then I would just find a new way to hit the drum and the cold would go away for awhile.
The most remarkable part of the circle for me I think had to do with the position that I was in...I was facing the setting sun, and sitting so that I could actually see its angle of descent between two trees...and for me, it really felt like our music was helping the sun to set...especially since, right before the very edge of the sun disappeared behind the trees on the southern river bank, our circle sped up...like our momentum was connected to the momentum of the sun.
Overall the experienced just made me feel very connected to the natural world around us...as though we had truly bonded with it and our fates were intertwined.
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(Written: 11/20/07)
Though it is a side of myself I do not freely reveal, I am a big nerd--I love video games (particularly Final Fantasy), and there are even a few animes I am very fond of. Something I am even less open about, is that I go to video game/anime conferences--in costume.
We mentioned these at the beginning of class, but I’ve waited to post about them, knowing I would be attending one in November. I went as planned this past weekend, and I am glad I waited, as posting with certain thoughts in mind has made this even more relevant to this class.
Though these conventions are perhaps not consider communitas, as there are, in a sense, a set of established rules, there are new social norms that are forms at these conventions (known as “cons”). The biggest of these social norms would have to be the dress code, which is what I plan to talk about.
All of the cons I have been to, have taken place in major cities--this one was no exception, and was held at the Hyatt in the Crystal City area of Washington D.C. Approaching the hotel, it is possibly like going to any other convention or vacation--but from the front of the hotel on, it is a complete different world.
Costumes are the norm, at these conventions. And all manner of them--the character I usually dress as can almost blend in with a normal crowd--I only need a pink sundress and a red jacket--though my hairstyle is what sets me apart. And, it’s not always common to see girls wearing sundresses on a cold November weekend.
But my costume is nothing compared to many. Everyone is dressed as something different, and all of them are based on animated character--and most really look like it. Hairstyles ranging from bright pink spikes to flowing silver hair as long as a person’s knees, costumes comprised of leather, spandex, and even cardboard, and people carrying weapons from giant swords, to giant keys. When people see someone dressed as a character from the same game as themselves, a spontaneous bond is formed. As my character is extremely well-known, I frequently get into conversations anywhere from a merchant’s table to elevators to the ice machine outside of my hotel room about the game she is from--conversations that only happen because our appearances and environment create completely different social relationships.
Very interesting to explore, is the almost tangible difference between the atmosphere inside the hotel/convention, and the world outside.
While at this particular con, on the Saturday I went to meet a friend for lunch at a food court about 7 blocks away from the hotel. As she had our room key I could not change out of my costume, and since the distance was so short I decided to walk instead of taking a cab or bus, and there is distinct feeling you get the further away from the convention you go.
There is of course the different in appearances. Within a block of the hotel, the bright colors, strange hairstyles, and handcrafted weapons are gone, replaced with what one might expect from a busy area of the nation’s capitol--suits and cells phone. Instead of people approaching me and asking to take my photo (as is common for people to do, particularly with either well-made costumes or well-known characters), I get raised eyebrows, and expressions that very clearly want to ask a question but aren’t sure how. On the rare occasion a con-goer spots a fellow on the streets, there is another moment of bonding, for sticking together in the “real world.”
Because that is what the difference is. For two and a half days, we are no longer participants in the real world. We become our characters, and participate in a world where it is common for the villain to laugh with the heroine, for the hero to follow the side-kick, and for people of unrelated backgrounds, and unrelated personalities to see each other as comrades.
In other words, a complete re-establishment of social norms.
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(Written: 11/21/07)
This kind of goes more towards magic than it does to religion, but I kind of relate it to my own personal spirituality, so I think it counts.
I have a talisman in my car. Its origins are nothing special--I like reading about eastern philosophy, and especially a lot of the ideas that have recently become popularized in the West such as feng shui and energy crystals and the like, and in reading about this, I read that both jade crystals and Chinese coins are good luck, and that they can be either worn on ones person, or kept in whatever area of the room you feel needs more luck. As this was right before I was going to move into a new apartment, and knowing that it would be difficult for me to find Chinese coins locally, I began browsing around eBay for some, and in my search, found a charm with both a Chinese coin and jade with a Bagua emblem engraved into it. I bought it, intending to cut the pieces off the charm and use them separately, but when it arrived in the mail I was leaving my parents’ house for Newport News. While in my car, waiting at a red light, I opened the package, and casually hung it over my rearview mirror so it wouldn’t get lost amidst the boxes and bags I had in my car for the move...and it remains there today.
It’s luck, for me. Even though it was never officially sanctioned as something lucky, and it never had a real personal connection for me other than I once intended to use the pieces for something else, it has truly become a lucky charm. Whether there there is any causation or even correlation, since placing it in my car I have been very fortunate in traffic, including several narrow misses in car accidents, one of which could have been fatal.
Why does it work? Does it work at all? I don’t really care if it is a mind over matter thing or not, because by now, it has become a safety net--when I got a new car, it was the first thing I moved. While driving with my roommate once she took it off to untagle it from something and I felt a slight panic until she put it back on. Whether or not it had any magical properties in the beginning, it does now, if for no reason other than the words I speak to it when I know I am heading into a dangerous situation, and the energy that flows from my hand into the jade in thanks whenever I have a near miss.
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(Written: 11/29/07)
One of my best friends recently became a vegetarian, and it is a topic she and I have spoken of frequently. I do not eat pork or ham, but I do eat seafood, and occasionally other meats, and up until recently she ate all meats *except* for seafood, and it is something we like to discuss.
She used to say, before she stopped eating meat all together, that “humans are meant to be omnivores,” though now she’s started to look at it as meat production requiring more energy to produce than vegetable production, and she was living with a vegetarian for awhile and got used to cooking that way and just lost the taste for it--but I still pretty much stick by her old viewpoint as to why, while I generally choose the vegetarian options out of preference, I have not cut out meat completely We *are* meant to be omnivores.
Plus, there is the thought of what went into the preparation of food. I have another friend who does not eat meat, but she also does not often eat fresh fruits and vegetables--she sticks mainly to starches and soy products, and any number of frozen, easy-to-prepare meatless foods...and, to relate to what we spoke of in class--what is that really saying? While no, she does not eat meat, nor does she eat anything that required time and care...essentially, food is sustenance and nothing else. Friend A on the other hand has a small garden, and cooks nearly all of her meals--for her, eating actually is bonding with the food she has prepared.
I just feel caught in between. I cannot have a garden where I live, but I do try and cook most of my meals for myself...and even though I eat meat and friend B does not, I feel like I am more connected to what it is that I am eating...she can’t eat steak without thinking of what it was before it was killed, but that is what I think of...and while many people may thank God for their food, I personally thank the cow for giving its life to me... :)
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(Written: 11/30/07)
This entry relates again to our talk of food and a connection to food, and to something Andrew mentioned in class--about his girlfriend being able to grow such a huge basil plant indoors.
There have been a lot of experiments done on human-plant relationships...whether official, financed experiments by educated scientists, or simply by grade-school science-fair projects, there is enough mystery involved in this relationship for it to be worth exploring.
I think there is a relationship...it is a strange thing that happens sometimes, that two plants who receive equal water, sunlight, and soil, may grow at completely different rates. Though it may not always be the case, in my experience plants which are loved and cared for beyond basic necessities tend to grow more. I know my own plants fluctuate sometimes in health depending upon how much I am able to be around them and talk to them, and if they are drooping or waning in health, usually if I take extra effort in caring for them (including touching the leaves themselves), I can kind of bring them back, so to speak.
I actually have a book entitled “The Secret Life of Plants,” which is about the connection plants and humans have on each other, though I have only read the first few pages of it...I look forward to reading it and seeing what official studies may have been done on this topic.
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(Written: 12/5/07)
Though I have not yet finished reading Bruchko, there is an element about it I find interesting.
To begin, one of my former roommates is Mormon. While I have absolutely nothing against her or the Mormon faith, one thing that did always strike a nerve with me was how she often justified her lifestyle--many of the behaviors and actions from which she withheld herself, she frequently demonstrated a longing for, and often frustrations with her abstinence. It is something I never quite understood--how could someone devote themselves so utterly to something that made them unhappy? Why do people act (or refrain from acting) in a certain way because they are told to, even if they don’t necessarily understand it? We no longer live together, because she left for a Mission for her church, something that slightly puzzled me, as there seemed to be so many elements of her faith she might not have followed under different circumstances.
The opening of Bruchko helped to give me a new insight into Missions. I’ll admit that in many ways, I view Missions as one faith trying to impose its beliefs on another--especially in terms of the attempts to Christianize indigenous cultures.
While I understand that it is done from the perspective of trying to help others...religion is sacred, and it just seems closed-minded to me to argue that one set of beliefs is more “right” than another.
However in this novel, at least from the opening of it, I do not get that impression. When Bruce described his first encounter with Jesus, it was actually very powerful to me...further, his reasons for wanting to share his experience and encourage others to share in it was actually very selflessly motivated--he did not feel the need to show Jesus to other people to reconfirm his own faith, or because he felt *obligated,* but because his experience had changed his life, and himself, in such a truly positive way, he wanted to share that experience with others--to help them feel the same warmth and light that he felt.
I still don’t always agree with Missions, but the experience described by Olson is definitely different than the previous associations I had with them, and I found it very uplifting and honest.
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(Written: 12/9/07)
Since this is the end of the class, for my last blog I just want to thank everybody in the class...I love the discussion nature of classes such as this, and the ability that it gives people of so many different worldviews to share their opinions...even though I am graduating, I hope that I have many more opportunities in the future to learn in such an environment, and with so many others who also are eager to learn...thanks to everyone for a great semester!
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