Cultural Mythology: Myth, culture, and consciousness

High Desert Mythological RoundTable (R) Group

Tuesday October 25th, 7-9PM at the Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree

 

"The Cauldron of Inspiration and the Birth of Taliesin"

Our Halloween holiday originated with the Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain is a time when the veil between the worlds of the seen and unseen is especially thin. Learn about this notion of "thin places" and "thin times" and hear the story of the goddess Cerridwen (who may have been the first Halloween witch) and the hero Taliesin. Might give you some new ideas for the coming Hallows Eve.

The High Desert Mythological RoundTable meets the last Tuesday of every month at the Red Arrow Gallery. All open-minded adults who enjoy a good story are welcome to join our thought-provoking conversation. Bring cookies or other goodies to share. Donations for the storyteller and Transmission Creative Empowerment Workshops are much appreciated.

Special this month: We'll be gathering smack dab in the middle of the 10th annual Hwy 62 Open Studio Tours. There are many fine artists participating and extra events are planned to celebrate the arts in the broadest sense of the word. For more info, visit Hwy 62 Art Tours.

Shared Visions: Bill Dahl & Cynthia Anderson

Tecopa Artists Group Presents: SHARED VISIONS

Photography by Bill Dahl and Poetry by Cynthia Anderson

  Bombay Beach by Bill Dahl

January 15 – February 24, Opening reception Saturday, January 15,2-5pm

Come celebrate fine art with fine food and conversation. Pastel’s Bistro will be open for dinner  at 6pm. Spontaneous poetry reading and acoustic music will be encoraged.

TBAG Gallery located at the Historic Tecopa Hot Springs Resort Open Daily 10am – 8pm and by appointment. Located at 860 Tecopa Hot Springs Road Tel: 760 852 4420.

Bill and Cynthia are wonderful artists and dear friends here in the high desert. Their work is worth a visit, and if you can make it to Tecopa this weekend, the reception is certain to be a great, great time. For more information about Cynthia and Bill, or to order a copy of Shared Visions, visit www.rainbear. com. For more info about Tecopa and the resort, visit tecopahotsprings.org.

"Myth must be kept alive. The people who keep it alive are artists of one kind or another. The function of the artist is the mythologization of the environment and of the world."---Joseph Campbell

 

High Desert Mythological RoundTable (R) Group

Just a reminder that the roundtable is not meeting in July, due to vacations to cooler places and other projects. We'll meet at the same place (Joshua Tree Retreat Center), same time (7-9PM) on Tuesday August 31st. The theme is the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus. In the meantime, slow down and savor the long summer nights, take a bath in the light of the full moon, and make something beautiful.

Here are a few collage images that came to me in response to the week I spent with family in Gold Beach, OR. Hope you enjoy them.

 "How can one learn to live through the ebb-tides of one's existence?... It is easier to understand here on the beach, where the breathlessly still ebb-tides reveal another life below the level which mortals usually reach..." Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Beyond conscious purposes

"It takes a long time to learn that nothing is wasted. It takes a long time, and a lot of suffering usually, to understand that there is more to life and more to poetry than our conscious purposes."--M.C. Richards

from Centering: In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person. Based on emails and comments that I received about some of the poetry posted here, I think some of you would really like this book.

Some pots I threw eighteen years ago that are all still in use as far as I know. I eat half of my meals from the flat brown one (actually, it's coil constructed). The small cup is raku glazed, which is a lot of fun if you ever get the chance to try it.

Achille's Heel

You know the phrase, "Achille's heel?" It's a metaphor for a special vulnerability or blind spot. Mine's been stabbed, poked, squeezed, and rubbed raw over the last couple of weeks. So I've been thinking about Achille's and his story and how it might overlap with my own. Achilles was the greatest of the Greek heros because he was half human, half god. Thetis, his mother, was one of the ancient Titan goddesses, very wise and powerful. She tried to protect her son from his inherited mortality by dipping him the River Styx when he was just an infant. This baptism made him invincible everywhere expect for his heel. One heel didn't get wet because that's where Thetis held onto him.

Doesn't seem like much does it? Here's this huge warrior, a big man with only one small mortal spot. And how likely did it seem that he would be wounded there? This is a guy who took body blows, a warrior of superior strength, courage speed, and ferocity.

Achilles was killed after the Trojan War by Paris, the same man who set the war into motion with the theft of Helen. Paris was not Achille's equal by a long shot. In fact, he was known to be a coward. But he shot the fateful arrow (some say it was guided by the god Apollo) that struck Achilles in the heel. (This image is Achilles on a Greek vase from around 530 BCE).

Achilles went down and no one could save him. Somehow you know that it had to happen, but Paris and the arrow never seems quite fair. So what can we glean from this myth? That no human is invincible, that our weakness is part of our fate, and it's a seemingly small detail, probably not one of the personal imperfections that's routinely noticed, tended, or covered up. So what's my Achille's heel, you ask? We're not going to go there today folks, and I may not even know. Did Achille's? The myth is unclear.

He has inspired some wonderful art. Note the one exposed heel in the big painting to the left, Achilles and Priam, by Bastien Lepage Jules. My favorite is the Abstract expressionist work by Barnett Newman (below), Achilles, 1952. It's going to be featured on a postage stamp. I think I'll buy a roll.

The wines of immortality are heady fare

Dionysus and mystical union and madness are deep (and heady) stuff. You might think that the ancient Greeks (and their gods) would have found the limericks I recently posted disrespectful. Well, there's no accounting for taste and some of them might have rolled their eyes or refused to carve them in stone, but the Greeks were human too and had a sense of humor. Perusing Joseph Campbell's compendium of art and myth, Mythic Image, I came across a photo of this ancient Greek oinochoe (pitcher) with this commentary from Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928), that supports the old adage, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Harrison writes:

"No one but a Greek could have conceived this lovely little vase painting from an oinochoe in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. . . . A beautiful maiden is the center of the scene. She is a worshipper of Dionysos. In her left hand is a tall thyrsos (staff twined in ivy) and she holds a cup of Dionysos, the kantharos, in her right. It is empty, and she seems to ask the Satyr who stands before her to refill it from his oinochoe. But he will not, she has had too much already. Over her beautiful head, slightly inclined as if in weariness, is inscribed---and who but a Greek would have dared to write it?--- her name 'Kraipale' (Drunken Headache). Behind her comes a kindly sober friend bearing in her hand a hot drink, smoking still, to cure her sickness."

Pass the aspirin.

Oinochoe
Greek, about 380 B.C., Athens, Attica, Greece, 31.7 cm (12 1/2 in.), Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Mythological Limericks

Lest you think that mythology is all serious navel gazing and philosophizing. . . Thanks to Robert Morris (a photographer and member of the High Desert Mythological RoundTable) for these gems. I tried and tried to match his wit but without success, so if his limericks inspire you to test the form please post a comment and share the results.

The Bacchae

The Bacchae, quite mentally sick,
Will do anything for a kick;
One day for a laugh
They tear Penthy in half,
And bring home his head on a stick.

Oedipus the King

In Sophocles' powerful drama,
Young Oedipus had a great trauma;
He did, it is said,
Kill his papa quite dead,
And then went and married his mama.


      Medusa

Medusa, delightful and fair,
Possessed a mysterious air;
She had charm and grace,
A great figure and face,
But too many snakes in her hair!

Medusa, by Caravaggio

Prometheus Bound

When Prometheus in bindings was placed,
A vulture pecked right through his waist.
Said the bird, it's a treat
This liver to eat,
But some onions would add to the taste.

The Judgment of Paris

Three goddesses stripped themselves bare
And asked Paris to choose the most fair.
Said Paris, it's Venus
Who stiffens my penis;
The victory's hers, I declare!

Peter Paul Rubens. The Judgment of Paris. c.1639. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

Moon- Solo Dance by Yang LiPing

(Thanks to Doc Tripp for sharing this lovely performance. Could she be Chang'e, the woman in the moon?)

Night Paddle

There is vitality, a life force, a quickening

That is translated through you into action,

And because there is only one of you in all time,

This expression is unique.  

And if you block it,

It will never exist through any other medium

And be lost.

The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is;

Nor how valuable it is;

nor how it compares with other expressions.

It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,

To keep the channel open.  

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.

You have to keep open and aware directly

To the urges that motivate you.  

Keep the channel open,

No artist is ever pleased

There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.

There is only a queer, divine satisfaction,

A blessed unrest that keeps us marching

And makes us more alive than the others.

 ---Martha Graham.

Thanks to Larry H for sharing the long version of this great piece by Martha Graham. I've taken inspiration from her words for a number of years (hush now, inner critic) and love the connection between Graham's demand that we do what we are called to do  and Paul Hawken (green entrepreneur and activist) who  catalogues the efforts of millions of people working for social justice and ecological sustainability around the globe his NY Times best seller titled Blessed Unrest, What makes you more alive than the others? Could this be bliss?

The Holy Longing

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

by Wolfgang von Goethe, Translated from the German by Robert Bly. The artwork is a computer generated fractal derived from fire. If you're interested in fractals, check out this video explanation, "The Colors of Infinity," by Arthur C Clarke, author of the book 2001 Space Odyssey.