The wisdom of a mad fool...

Introducing people of all ages to mythology... in pre-college educational curricula, youth orgs, the media, etc. Share your knowledge, stories, unit and lesson plans, techniques, and more.

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Post by Guest »

Has anyone heard of the Homeless Soccer World Cup? It's currently taking place in Cape Town.
Quite a neat way of bringing up the people's spirits.

Waka
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Location: somewere lost

Post by Waka »

Hey Shamin I have read Gaiman's Neerwhere. It was a good book. And one book that I hope to read, I just have so many to read, is Orwell's Donw and Out in Paris and London. Its about a person that is poor and tries to get throuht life each day at a time. I can;t wait.
Better than a thousand useless words is one word that gives peace.- Buddha<br>Let yourself be free. :-)

Guest

Post by Guest »

Hey Waka.

I haven't read Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London." But I would really like to get my hands on that book. Thanks for mentioning it Waka.
Like you say, there's just so much to read out there, there's so much to learn.
I was sharing the same sentiments with a friend of mine when we were travelling by train from Johannesburg to Cape Town.
What is just as encouraging to know is that there are so many people out there who are willing to philosophise and discuss the same topics as you and I do.
Just look at the JCF forums. We are all willing to learn from one another, I often find that discussin certain topics with the associates is just as enriching as reading a good book. The power of discussion is phenomenal. So my advice would be to look out for like-minded people as you would look for a particular book.

By the way, here's a link to the Orwell book online. But personally, I prefer to be holding a book in my hand and read it.
Enjoy!

http://www.george-orwell.org/Down_and_O ... index.html
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Shamin on 2006-09-22 05:44 ]</font>

deadphish
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Post by deadphish »

Hello All,

I am new to this forum and was reading through some of the posts and noticed a Grateful Dead reference to ME & BOBBY MCGEE (originally performed by Janis Joplin - words and music by Kris Kristofferson later covered by The Grateful Dead)and was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on this song by the Dead

Ripple
Garcia/Hunter

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come thru the music,
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

Its a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps theyre better left unsung.
I dont know, dont really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.

Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

But if you fall you fall alone,
If you should stand then whos to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.

La dee da da da, la da da da da, da da da, da da, da da da da da
La da da da, la da da, da da, la da da da, la da, da da.



bodhibliss
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Post by bodhibliss »

On 2006-10-06 16:59, deadphish wrote:

Ripple
Garcia/Hunter

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come thru the music,
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

Its a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps they're better left unsung.
I dont know, dont really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.
The poetic paradox - tunes played on a harp unstrung - suggests to me the language of mysticism - oxymoron hinting at what is beyond language, attempting to express the inexpressible.
Now this classical rhetorical term, "oxymoron," is defined in Webster's dictionary as "a combination for epigrammatic effect of contradictory or incongruous words (cruel kindness, laborious idleness)." It is a term derived from the Greek [for] "pointedly foolish," and denotes a mode of speech commonly found in Oriental religious texts, where it is used as a device to point past those pairs of opposites by which all logical thought is limited, to a "sphere that is no sphere," beyond "names and forms"; as when in the Upanishads we read of the "Manifest-Hidden, called 'Moving-in-secret,' which is known as 'Being and Non-being'":
There the eye goes not;
Speech goes not, nor the mind:
or when we open a Zen Buddhist work called The Gateless Gate and there read of "the endless moment" and "the full void" ...

(Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, Vol. IV: Creative Mythology, p.188
This mytho-poetic device appears elsewhere in the song - e.g., a fountain not made by the hands of men - which right out the gate sets a mystical tone.

But the key line for me is the chorus:
Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.
This image resonates with the description of kundalini yoga, in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. Campbell describes it thus:
The goal of this yoga is to make the mind stand still. Why should you want to do that? We're coming to a basic idea in this perennial philosophy - namely, that everything is experienced through the mind. This is maya. The mind is in an active state. The image is given of a pond rippled by the wind. The rippling pond with its waves reflect images that are broken. They come and go, come and go. In the Book of Genesis, the wind, the breath, the spirit of God blew over the waters. That's the creation of the world. You start this excitement going.

Now comes the point. What we do is identify ourselves with one of those broken images, one of those broken reflections on the surface of the pond. Here I come: There I go. That links us to the temporal flow, time and space - maya. Make the pond stand still, one image. What was broken and reflected is now seen in still perfection, and that's your true being. But that's everybody else's true being also. This is the goal of yoga, to find that reality of consciousness which is of you and of everybody else.

(Campbell, Transformations of Myth Through Time, p.133
Like most motifs threaded through myth and dream, there's not exactly a one-to-one identity between the images of song and sutra - but both evoke a similar "feeling tone," to borrow a phrase from Campbell's Creative Mythology where he discusses the congruence between myth and art.

Of course what counts, whether in myth or a Grateful Dead song, is how the image is experienced. This will differ from one Deadhead to the next, but many claim to experience transcendence in the music, in the confluence of word, rhythm, and presentation

... much the same as the dramatic epiphanies presented in ancient mystery rites (e.g., Eleusis).

Joseph Campbell notes this resonance in both written and oral reveries on the contribution of the Grateful Dead (see The Hero's Journey, p.220-225, and the essay "Creativity" in The Mythic Dimension, p.152).

I don't think this was consciously planned - I doubt Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter asked "What would Joseph Campbell do?" before writing a song - but they were drawn to the same mythic material

(as reflected in their name, taken from a motif recurring in multiple myths and faery tales, that of a discarded, neglected corpse whose burial is paid for by the poor hero - usually a naive, compassionate, poverty-stricken "fool" - who is later rewarded or aided in an impossible task by the spirit of the corpse - hence the "grateful dead"),

and small wonder Joseph Campbell and the Dead appreciated each other's work.
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.
A Cup, a Fountain, and an individual quest ("that path is for your steps alone"); this evokes for me the Grail Quest and Campbell's reference to the Knights of the Round Table, who
"...thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group, so each entered the forest" - the forest of the adventure - "at a point that he, himself, had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path"

...If there is a path, it is someone else's path, and you are not on the adventure.

ibid, p.211-212
Of course, long before i knew any of the mythic references, i loved the song - something in the lyrical and musical images spoke to me ... we hear the "aha!" in our hearts before the head ...

keep on truckin'
bodhibliss

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bodhi_Bliss on 2006-10-06 20:41 ]</font>

Waka
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Location: somewere lost

Post by Waka »

Bodhi, you're so great to me. I get so much from your post. I love the message behind oxymorons. -Ripple in a still pond.- It says so much. And one thing that I have found that I love is yoga. First it helps me physically but most of all ist really centers me mentally. At the end where you just sit down relaxed and streched, you are perfectly still. I love it. Another thing that I get a lot out of is the maya, which was just recently introduced to me. Oh you just find so many things and just put them together perfectly. Thank you.
Better than a thousand useless words is one word that gives peace.- Buddha<br>Let yourself be free. :-)

bodhibliss
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Posts: 1659
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2003 5:00 am

Post by bodhibliss »

Thanks, Waka

but we all put it together - in myth and song and poem and image - every form of human imagination, including science as well as art, expresses the song of nature we all are.

We're drawn to myth or art or even depth psychology because we hear that song - Campbell just offers clues that help us to recognize the pattern, consciously participate in that song

... but we are the ones who hear it, each stringing the notes together into our own unique melody, in harmony with the collective refrain.

mitakuye oyasin
bodhi


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