R.I.P. Heath Ledger

Reading notes: Mapping the Characteristics of Mythic Tricksters
1. fundamentally abiguous and anomalous
   - associated with death, life, and fertility; impedance, society, and nature
2. deciever (trick player)
   - e.g. Br'er Rabbit and his tar baby
3. shaper shifter
   - elements, other people, genders, animals
   - e.g. Tibetan trickster Agu Tompa, puts on robes of a nun so he can invade and make love with all the nuns.
   - e.g. hymn to hermes: infant hermes steals Apollo's cattle, returns home and transforms into mist, slides under door so he can be honest when he says he never crossed the threshold
4. situation-inverter
   - ability to overturn any person, place, or belief, no matter how prestigious; often turns a place of safety into place of danger (and vice versa).
   - e.g. Yoruba tale: West African trickster sets fire to farmer's house, helps family get all their possessions out safely, then gives the goods to a passerby on the road.
   - the official ritual profaner of beliefs. Profaning/inverting social beliefs brings into sharp relief just how much a society values these beliefs.
   - often a psychopomp (mediator who crosses and resets the lines between life and death).
5. messenger and imitator of the gods
   - regularly brings gifts essential to human culture, usually by breaking a central taboo established in the divine order.
   - position midway between gods and humans allows him to function as a cultural transformer (subject to parody)
   - status among gods is equally unstable.
6. sacred and lewd bricoleur
   - DIY, can do thing other gods can't, not constrained by rules, creates things either good or bad
   - closely associated with the most profane of lewd profanations (exretement)
   - e.g. winnebago tradition: trickster nearly blown to bits by stomach gas, finally being pushed rapidly toward the sky on ever-increasing pile of his own feces.... ew.


The first example of a trickster that comes to mind is the Joker (from Batman, more specifically The Dark Night's verson):

1. Ambiguous in that his motifs are frequently questioned. Money? Power? This question is eventually (partially) answered by Batman's trusty butler, Alfred, who says "some (villians) just want to see the world burn", or something very similar to this.
2. How is the Joker a deciever and trick player? I think his name should suffice...
3. He appears to maintain the same morbid, clown-esque appearance throughout the film. However, he uses a few costumes. In one scene, he neglects his make-up and is disguised as a police officer. In another, he's dressed as a nurse in Gotham's hospital. I wonder if this turned anyone off of sexy nurse costumes for a while...

4. Situation-inverter is, in my opinion, his specialty. When he trades his duties for Gotham criminals' money, he burns all the money they give him while explaining why money is a negative thing. He focuses on corruption of Gotham's morals, saying to Batman that he's won the "battle for Gotham's soul".
5. I couldn't find why the Joker might be a 'messenger of the gods', but he definately 'plays god'.

6. How is he a bricoleur? Simple: he appears to make his own bombs. There's probably a better example for this sixth characteristic, but I favor this one.

MORE ARCHER

In a previous post, I breifly mentioned a similarity between the god Apollo and FX's animated charcter Archer. This post's purpose is to do Archer justice and dig deeper into his mythological connections.

For those who haven't seen Archer (shame on you), here's what Wikipedia says:

"Set at the International Secret Intelligence Service (ISIS) in New York City, suave master spy Sterling Archer deals with global espionage; a domineering, hypersexual, late middle-aged mother/boss, Malory Archer; his ex-girlfriend, Agent Lana Kane; her ISIS accountant boyfriend (later ex) Cyril Figgis; and a less-than-masculine code name—"Duchess".

Archer is considered the world's most dangerous secret agent. He appears to command his small world almost effortlessly (being wealthy, manipulative, and a womanizer often seen with hookers or random women). He's tall, dark, and handsome with a youthful (wreckless and spoiled) demeanor. He is "equally likely to kill a room full of enemy agents as he is to accidentally cause international disaster".

Apollo, the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle, is the "Delphian", the "Far Shooter", the "Archer" (connection: Archer's name). He represents a youthful, commanding, effortless divinity beyond our reach (connection: Archer's personality, youthfulness). He is associated with medicine and healing, but also seen as a god who could bring illness and plague (connection: Archer's ability to save or accidentally cause disaster).

There's also a slight connection with their mothers: Archer's mother, Malory, is seen to have given birth to Archer in a bar while escaping American enemies (she was a top secret agent in her prime as well). There is some sense of illegitimacy and Malory is seen as an outsider during the time of her son's birth. In Apollo's case, his mother, Leto concieved with Zeus. Leto stuggles to find a place to give birth. Once she has given birth, her role in Greek mythology is completed. Malory's role isn't remotely close to being over, but, despite being Archer's boss, he seems to only see her as his mother; there are few signs of any professional relationship between the two.

Perhaps I've taken this too far, perhaps these connections have been stretched too thinly... I just really like Archer.

"Ooooooohhhhhmmm"

The most interesting thing I've learned in this class so far is about "omphalos", which translates to "navel".
This is where we get "om", that murmuring sound of meditation. This meditation, navel gazing, represents going back to the center of all things ("finding your center", being "centered"). At a pilates class I attended, the instructor told us to keep our eyes on our belly button. Also, a few running friends told me to keep eye contact with my belly button in order to get the most out of my crunches. Hmmm...
Lets divulge into this a bit further.
This act of going back to the center of things refers to a connection to the mother. To return to the mother is to find a more simple state of mind. Perhaps this is why unconsciousness is feminine, while consciousness is dubbed masculine.
In my architecture class, we've recently been assigned to design a yoga hut. According to this mythology class, a good yoga hut should give one a strong connection to maternal things and allow for a simple state of mind. Maybe I should just line the walls with squishy material and crank up the heat. Instant womb!


Class Notes:
Rocks and Lakes:
Axis mundi - meetin place between divine and mortal world (the mundane). e.g. Lake in King Arthur, beyond human abilities to produce sword.
Lake - feminine (womb ness), unconscious
Rocks - marker for axis mundi
- churches, piles of stone, bobcat statue
- the want to mark an axis mundi
- "sacred site (sight)"
Mountains - easy to recognize as axis mundi, just a large rock.
- piling of rocks is immitation of a mountain
- many cities bult around mountains (Jerusalem, Babylon)
Cities - become new center of the world, new 'rocks'
- e.g. Babylon, literally translates to "door of the gods"
Omphalos: literally "navel"
- "om" - navel gazing, meditation, going back to the center of all things
- connection to mother
- to return to that state of connection to the mother, you go to the navel, find a more simple state of mind.
Vine Deloria: author of God is Red
- classifies sacred spaces
- spectrum:   
                  gettysburg     burning bush
      human ----^-----_-----------^------------------------_----------divine
                       Jordan River                          New Revelation

Theophany: visible manifestation of god.
Stone as pillow: dreams of latter to heaven, angels, got at top
- God tells him the land he's sleeping on is now his
- Bethel "house of god"
- rock is marker for where God came down
- continuous axis mundi

Not very inspired today... so just notes

Class Notes:
Hero: cultural, extraordinary, purpose, share knowledge
Monomyth: universally shared stories

1871 - Taylor             1909 - Rank                   1949 - Campbell
Babies ---------------> distinguished parents       collective
Exposed ------------->
Raised return ------->
                                prophecy
                                returns and kills father

departure - familiar world
initiation - journal temptation
return - boon killing father

Archetype: very typical example of a person or thing; outline of a hero
Heracles: Acheles - rivergod
               man/river, birth, unconsciousness
               snake - force associated with his childhood
               bull - grain, Inanna sent bull to Gilgamesh because he refused her
              fertility - trasition from goddess in charge to god in charge

That is all for today... sigh.

Quiz cram

Quiz coming up! Cram time...

Stages o' hero:
I. Departure
1. call to adventure
2. refusal
3. supernatural aid
4. crossing 1st threshold
5. belly o' whale

II. Trials
1. road o' trials
2. meeting w/ goddess
3. woman as tempty tempty temptress
4. atonement of father
5. climax (apotheosis)
6. ultimate boon

III. Return
1. refusal
2. magic flight
3. rescue from w/o
4. crossing 2nd threshold
5. master o' 2 worlds
6. freedom to live

Stages of Goddess:
Sky - moon: waxing, full, waning
Earth - summer, spring, winter
Underworld - birth, maturity, death

2 types of heroes:
1. those who establish order & share knowledge
2. those who establish dynasty or a people

People to remember:
Jung - collective unconsciousness
Campbell - journey
Freud - expression of personal experience
Rank - family romance

Heroes don't have kids

Notes from class:

Lady of the Lake:
- Nimue/Vivienna
- Ceridwen
- Mnemosyne
^mneumonic

sword and stone:

- stone is feminine (goddess), part of the earth.

- lake is also feminine

- sword is male (god), falic symbol (for obvious reasons...)

- also, upwards triangle shape is another male symbol

King has conquered, public image; however he cannot conquer home, his wife might be sleeping with another man; end of Camelot.

Obvious signs of a threshold: sleep/death, guardians, transition from one world to another.

Tid bid on heroes: most heroes don't have children; if the do, they die. Sad... but look at Heracles - he killed both his children in a fit of insanity that was brought on by Hera.

Furthermore, look at any superhero movie...

Superman - no children. Except in Superman Returns. Apparently he has a child with Lois Lane, maybe...

Spiderman - perhaps he's just too young to be thinking about children right now... then again, I never saw his third film.

Ironman - he's way too irresponsible and narcissistic to have a kid.

But it doesn't have to be a story about a literal superhero. In any case where the protagonist has a kid (or kids), things become more complicated for the hero. Example: Weeds' Nancy Botwin has three children by the fourth (fifth?) season and her children have given her indescribable amounts of greif and worry. However, they've also been helpful and a shoulder for her to lean on. Don't be so quick to negate the little people in your family. ...I guess that's today's lesson.

Grooming thy animal

Class notes:
Animal Groom Stories:
- female usually believes her husband is beastial/monstrous
- marriage, trials, epiphany

animus - male, masculine side of herself / her sexuality; individualization
anima - feminine; communal
^social aspects of a person; every person has both within themselves.


In class, we breezed over the topic of animal groom stories. The most common example is the tale of Beauty and the Beast, a folk tale version of Cupid and Psyche. The village girl believes her husband to be a beast. The Beast must find true love to break his curse, so he keeps the girl in his castle. The two go through trials together. Some sort of epiphany is had in the end, love is realized and embraced. Viola!

Another example: East of the Sun, West of the Moon, a story I brought up in blogs past... so you're going to have to look though those....

Yet another example (I spoil you): The Frog Prince. Boy is made into animal by curse. Girl meets animal-boy. Girl believes boy to be bestial, or however bestial a frog can possibly be... Boy is saved by girl after trials, love, and epiphany stuff.

The end.