Walking through a parking lot today with one of my housemates, we spotted a car with a really big sticker on the back window: “Team Edward” with a big pink kiss-mark. After a moment to realize it’s associated with Twilight (which only the housemate, much to his subsequent disgust, had bothered to read), the housemate…
Source material that is simply bad To be fair to Armstrong, I would assume much of her previously mentioned double standards arose from her source material. I do not know why she chose to lean so heavily on such dated and inaccurate material for a book written in 2006. I do not refer here to…
This darkly pessimistic view on goddesses is most exemplified in Armstrong’s version of the myths of Inanna. I’ve had the pleasure of reading some rather good translations of these myths, translations which scholars themselves laud. Inanna, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Love and War, is clearly a goddess of life, death, and rebirth, moving…
Blatant and inaccurate double standards As I’ve previously noted, I was not happy with how the second chapter was progressing. To my increasing dismay, things only got worse: we are introduced to the so-called original “High God” or “Sky God” of the “ancient Mesopotamians, Vedic Indians, Greeks and Canaanites,” which is a “primitive monotheism” Armstrong…
The first book by Karen Armstrong which I read was A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It was absolutely amazing to me — chock-full of new ideas, fascinating religious philosophy, and beautiful writing. Since then I have read a few others as well by Armstrong, and I was delighted…
(another of the very short papers for the class on the spirituality of creativity) I know of several works of art with a mythic element which I find inspiring — I even created some of them. For this assignment, however, I picked the one I’ve known and loved the longest: Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries….
On Saturday I was very pleased to get to go to the ballet again, with my delightful companion, to see “Carmen.” It was danced by the wonderful Ballet San Jose, with the marvelous orchestration performed by Symphony Silicon Valley. “Carmen” was preceded by the unfortunately titled short piece “Who Cares?” by George Balanchine (e.g. “What…
This was a quick one-page paper written for one of my classes, which has a wonderful name: “Tree of Brilliant Fruit: Finding Spiritual Wisdom Through the Arts.” I’m sharing the paper here because the book was interesting, I’m open to other folks’ interpretations, it’s fun, and I like sharing writing. I can probably come up…
The weather is absolutely gorgeous today! I am so pleased to have sunshine and warmth now, instead of constantly gray and rainy days. Consequently, here are some more quietly happy random thoughts… of no particular seriousness or order. :) ———- My hair is growing longer! When I let it down, the longest ends now brush…
I just finished listening to an utterly fascinating interview on a blogradio with a man named Allan Johnson. I’m very interested in hearing what others think of it as well. Rarely have I heard a man with such patience and empathy so clear in his very voice, let alone his words; he actually had me…