Writing

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A Short History of Myth, part 3

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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…

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A Short History of Myth, part 2

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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…

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A Short History of Myth, part 1

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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…

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James Lord’s “A Giacometti Portrait”

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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…

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Spring Break

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It is the first day of my Spring Break as I write this — wheeeee! Of course, being the Wild Child I am, I’ll likely happily spend it curled up on the couch with my textbooks and laptop, working on midterms in front of a crackling fire as I sip a mug of hot tea…

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Les Guérillères (pt. 3)

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In effect, those two verses were where the author wrote Truth as she knew it, and that’s why those verses shone. Unfortunately, since we’ve not yet seen the end of this conflict, and she had to describe that ‘victory’ metaphorically, she couldn’t write a truth for that — it hasn’t happened yet. Here’s the second…

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Les Guérillères (pt. 2)

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Oppression & technology The previously mentioned example is not the only instance of the co-existence of both a lack of, and a distinct awareness of, knowledge regarding a particular object or subject. For example, there’s also how technology is treated in these prose tales. Initially there’s the occasional reference to commonplace technology, although sometimes the…

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Les Guérillères (pt. 1)

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(“The Warrior Women”) by Monique Wittig translated by David Le Vay (first reviewed April 2005) Wittig’s book, quite frankly, puzzles me — or perhaps it’s simply the hype which I find misplaced. I picked it up because I read it was, in 1969, one of the first appropriations of the Amazonian utopia legend by the…

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Truthseeker (part 2)

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I also understand the human psyche or spirit is sometimes baffling in its complexity. I have both read about, and experienced situations, where what seems like a simple and beneficial command to oneself (such as “stop being afraid of riding in elevators” or “lose 30lbs.”) can be unwittingly short-circuited by other equally strong internal desires…

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Truthseeker (part 1)

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This will be a quick review, I think. I’ve just finished reading a book by C. E. Murphy titled Truthseeker. On the whole, I enjoyed the book: Murphy writes well, with vividly described backgrounds, protagonists I can usually identify with on one level or another, and an often interesting fantasy/spiritual basis for the plot-producing strangeness…