Before I began I had to explain the path of speech. I had taught another the gift of pain. I showed them how to modify the body and initiate others into society. I was still suffering the after effects of teaching. But as this class has showed me, a little blood and a lot of pain must be spilt in order to fully grasp understanding in this life. I can truly say it is with a heavy heart that I leave this class and the "anti-google" teachings of Dr. Sexson......................................
The name is not important but the story. When it began it simply was. Every story has a version
of the beginning, my version is not special. I am unimportant. Yet it only exists because I made it so.
With all the stories I have learned everyone was special and everything the truth. Even the ones that
contradict the others. The thing that is undisputed is that the most important object is a grain of wheat.
I entered the world with violence and blind familiarity. I didn’t know that the whole world was in a grain
of wheat. That paintings I saw many times led to Hades and Egyptian era. I found that when I truly
opened my eyes I saw for the first time what was all around me. I could begin to remember the myths
that had been forgotten. I could see that everything new was old. That without a person to share the
stories life ceases to exist.
That anyway, is what I have learned.
When I walked into class I knew that sacrificing my finger would be worth it. The knowledge I
would find that I had lost. I could remember the stories of my beginning. The pains of the middle and
the terrible end that befell those before. I could begin to find the meaning in my life and the reason for
existence. How long could I go before I lost more than I gained without some grand intervention? Luckily
I won’t have to forget because all I can do is gain. I will find the memories that should have been passed
down that were left in the aftermath of the beginning. Myth is sad. Myth is hope and loss. Myth is
violent. All mortals should fear the gods because as entire text of Cadmus and Harmony taught us we
are merely puppets on string. When the gods were bored they cut some strings to see us flop around
without limbs, watching us squirm was the goal. Why would they do such a thing to someone who
would worship them? Simple. Because they can. With all the unlimited power and games boredom
drives them to push us and hurt us for sport. The only thing that seems to bind the gods is their word.
Whether it’s for the best or end of us when the god says something it is. There is so much to gain from
the stories of the beings that lived millennium and watches from the grand seats of the gods. If only they
came to teach not torture.
The story of IO was that of disguise and change. She was changed into a cow and not recognized
by the people who see her every day. This is back in ellio tempura, or back when things cost a nickel.
Back when things were a nickel we walked uphill both ways in the snow. People knew the values of
family and uncle Jon had just begun to fulfill his lineage. Before that was 5000 years ago and all we had
was government, soils, and darkness. When IO rode the white bull she had no clue that it began the
romans, muses and was not special. She was not the beginning. Merely a stepping stone in the story of
the gods.
The gods were vain. They believed themselves the best in certain fields, be it love, war, children,
pain, seeing, hunting, vengeance or weaving, they had to be the best. When challenged, the gods did
not handle the loss well. I remember the story of Arachne and her loom. She challenged the old woman
Demeter, secretly the goddess Athena, to a contest of weaving. When the two took to their craft Athena
finished first. She had woven a beautiful cloth but one depicting the treacherous acts mortals had
carried out against the gods. How dare them. Those damn kids. Athena looked to Arachne’s loom and
saw her brilliant weaving of scenes showing how the god’s used and vile atrocities they played on the
mortals. Of course the cloth had to be destroyed and death was to quick for Arachne, instead the life of
a spider, whom we see today was the punishment.
When stories of the beginning were told most of them involved the great white something
willing light to be. Others and the most agreed upon was a creature dove to the bottom of the ocean
and brought dirt to the top so we would have something dry. Sometimes it was gods ripping themselves
apart for shelter and animals. Either way here we are. First it was dark and then there was light. We are
born and ripped from the families. When we go through life the next phase is pain.
My multitude of scars has made me feel part of society. Many ways exist for us to enter the
society. To pull our weight sometimes we must sacrifice and endure pain. Sometimes a vision quest or
communicating with the dead is the only way to see our path and go forward in life. Sometimes we must
cut into our flesh and tear out parts of us to understand our focus and if we are even worthy to stay
alive. When and if we are lucky enough to pass these human tests we find out what we are made of.
Hearing what some tribes go through seems so intense and terrible to us. But to them it is tradition,
privilege, and honor. We would be so lucky to go through what they go through. To earn our way
sometimes a little blood must be spilt, parts left behind and possibly madajara.
That anyway, is what I have learned.
Blind familiarity is how things have been explained to me. American gothic is a painting that
dates back to pharaohs and hades. Everything down to the buttons and the buildings, to the pitchfork
and the sky point to the clues and stories of the past. It ties back to secret rituals that once were only
known to priests, now shared between class and I. The key to life, a grain of wheat. It seems so obvious
to look at now. How could I have missed such an important truth? This single grain connects us to the
future and holds us to the past. The most exciting object. Ordinary and vulgar, hiding in plain sight this
key to life is infinite with it’s secrets. Those of us lucky enough to see it for what it is should consider us
the privileged few. A secret protected to the death. The basis of the pyramids and the side that holds it
all together. Without all the sides the pyramid fails us. We would find ourselves without shelter and
starving.
Without pain we cannot flourish. What does this mean? Simply put, we must hurt to truly know
what we are capable of. I have been told I am strong, I have suffered more than most but less than
others. When the end is near and we are faced with our mortality we either stand strong and fight or fall
and crumble. Many empires have fallen under such embrace. Embers of once proud empires grace lands
where the god’s rolled the dice and the storyteller stopped walking. I believe that when the storytellers
stop talking the end of an era is there. Where the storytellers the first to know? Or were they the first to
go? If we stop walking and sharing there really is nothing left to go on. That is the beginning of the end.
When you think you know a story it is only because you know how it ends. To get to the heart of
the story you have to go to the beginning. The heart of the story could go on at length for longer than I
have time to tell. I feel that I have traveled to the beginning and gone from cover to cover in both books,
rereading many passages to understand but a glimpse of what I looked over. The knowledge of the past
evades me, but the beginning of the end and end of the story stays with me. Pushing me to look the
events of every day. Simple as they may be the events and tasks of the day hold the key to life and
survival. The stories I pass down to those whom walk behind me will be those whom walk in my place
one day. For you see everyone dies, but not everyone truly lives. Enjoy the heart of the story and take
time to fly away. Every day is myth, everyone lies and all lies are based in truth.
As I sit today in 285 today, I listen to my family speak to me of what they have learned. I am
moved. The bar is set high and the time is in the hourglass losing the last grains of sand. I do not enjoy
endings to thing that inspire. I can say I will miss my Tuesday, Thursdays immersed in myth with Dr.
Sexson. I gained more in my short time here, then from the whole of my semester. I wrote my final
words and threw them out after hearing one day of presentations. I learned from myth, you and me. I
remember what was once forgotten, You, me, myth. That’s how it started and how it will continue.
Because as it was so clearly stated the end is the beginning of something else. As this ends it begins to
show us the light at the end of another long tunnel. I guess it simply remains to be said but see you on
the other side. The flip side.
That anyway, is what I have learned.
