I've really been a lazy blogger. I could make up excuses for why my blog is lacking but that doesn't help anyone, it just causes me to look a little more like an ass.
So I have to backtrack and think about the group presentations. I thought they were good, and ours was OK... I'm just sorry ours wasn't more theatrical like so many of the others.
The truth of the matter is that Kane is not an easy read. He has very dense academic writing that forces the us to re-read ever single sentence before we can get anything out of it, and then the next time we read it we get something entirely different out of it. My section on "Things and States" quite frankly told me something different every time I read it, but I think that's one of the beauties of Kane: I think certain aspects of the oral tradition have been absorbed into his work. I think that one of the reasons he's so hard for me to understand sometimes is that since Wisdom of the Mythtellers is a book I end up trying to read it when I should be listening.
That sounds weird and I'm still trying to figure out how to listen to a book, but I'm confident that Sean Kane is writing to someone that will think like a listener rather than a reader.
As for my term paper... I'm working on final touches this evening, but I'm nervous about it. I had a very difficult time thinking of a topic I truly wanted to write on, but as I read Kane and Ong and noticed the features they pointed out that belonged to an Oral tradition I realised what I really wanted to do: I wanted to write my own myth!
So that is what I've done is my best to write a myth in a form that might even fool Ong or Kane, and here is what I've got:
Raven and the Light
Once Earth was bare and sunken into the abyss. The light had not yet come to warm Earth and the animals wandered in darkness and the ice was never to melt and the animals were sad because of this. The light was guarded by Mole and Mole kept it and would not share it. The other animals asked Mole to share the light but the greedy digger did not want it to shine for his eyes were sensitive. “I will keep the light buried and hidden,” said Mole, “because it hurts my eyes I will keep it hidden.” Even though the other animals asked and pleaded mole would not let the light out so that he might share it and the Earth remained dark. Such was the nature of the world before the first Father of men.
In these times there was Mother Pelican and there was Father Osprey and they met in the darkness. And Mother Pelican did not know that Father Osprey was not a pelican because it was dark, but she loved him and Father Osprey loved her and they had a child who was black as night because he was conceived in darkness. Thus came about their child who was Raven and Raven was full of wit and tricks, but his heart was good. Since Father Osprey was of the land and the plains and the mountains, and Mother Pelican was of the seas and oceans, Raven was able to travel between them and be all places. This the other birds could not do, for while they were people of the sky they were still tied to the ocean or tied to the land.
Then one day noble Bear came to Mother Pelican and Father Osprey. Bear was the most noble of the animals for he was strong and brave, and he too wanted Mole to share the light so he came to Pelican and Osprey so that he might meet Raven. He said “Raven, you are full of wit and tricks, but your heart is good. You can trick Mole, I think, and free the light for all the animals to enjoy.” Raven pondered these things in his head. He was not an adventurer like the wolf, or a traveler like the goose, but his heart was good and he wanted to help so he said to bear “I am not strong but I am smart, and Mole is made stupid by his selfishness. I am not fearless, but my heart is strong, and Mole is fearful because he cannot love. I think that I can defeat Mole and free the light, but I will need help.”
Bear was glad about this acceptance. “Paint faced Salmon has left the stream, and gone to the sea, but she knows well how to find Mole,” Bear told Raven. “You must go to the sea and speak to her.” Then Bear began to sing:
“Over the waters
The secrets will lie
And to paint-faced Salmon
You Raven must fly!
Learn you the secrets
And the light you will find
And free from selfish Mole
To share with all kind.
So fly you now Raven,
Your heart it is strong
And teach the greedy digger
His selfishness is wrong”
At the end of the song Raven took off toward the sea to find paint-faced Salmon. Raven flew over the flat lands and over the mountains and over the forests and over the valleys until he came to the land of the cliffs where the ocean met the land. There he met Turtle who was wise. Raven asked of turtle “Turtle, you are old and you are wise, and you know the ways of both the land and the sea. Can you help me?”
Turtle who was wise spoke slowly, for his mind was ancient and knew many things. “I know that you seek paint faced salmon so that you may seek the greedy mole who is hoarding the light. I lay still all day and the winds have told me such things. Fly along the coast, over the water. Paint faced Salmon will be on the current, so fallow the current to where she is.” With thanks Raven took off from Turtle’s place on the cliffs in search of the current where he would find paint faced salmon. He flew and fallowed the shoreline passing both cliff and beach until he came across the current of which Turtle had spoken. He then continued to fallow the current until finally he came across a place where there were many fish and they feared him because he appeared as though he were fishing.
“Fear not!” said Raven, “I am Raven and I seek paint faced Salmon for she knows where I may find the light. I am not a fisher, but I am trying to free the light and seek the help of paint faced Salmon!”
Then paint faced Salmon came forward and spoke. “Indeed I can show you where Mole is, but only Mole knows where it is that he has hidden the light. To find Mole you must go to a mountain that no longer has a top. Near the mountain there is a tree that has no leaves and it has had no leaves since the mountain lost its top, and there is a pond by the tree that has been black with the soot of the Mountain. It is a land of darkness and of fire and it is where you will find the greedy Mole.”
Raven bowed and said to paint faced Salmon, “Both the Pelican and the Osprey are fishers and they hunt the fish, but in thanks to you I, Raven, shall never hunt for the salmon or the trout.”
Salmon thanked him saying “Raven, you are full of wit and tricks, but your heart is truly good. I thank you on behalf of my kind.” With that Raven took off in search of a Mountain that no longer had a top. He soon came to such a place. The cap of the mountain was white, but flat for it no longer had a top and the forest had fled many miles from the base of the mountain. Only one tree remained and it no longer had leaves and it was on the edge of a pond that had been made black by the soot of the mountain. Here on this pond it was said that Mole lived and Raven circled the banks of the pond until he came across the opening of Mole’s hole. Raven sang:
“Come forth greedy Mole
And share all your light.
You’ve hidden the brightness
But this darkness is not right!
Tell me greedy Mole
Where you keep the light
And share with all kind
So the days may be bright!”
Mole came forth and looked at Raven and said “Raven, the light is mine and it should not be released into the sky. It hurts my eyes! In huts my eyes and so it must not be in the sky. I have hidden it below the earth and below the earth it will stay every day!”
All these things Mole told to Raven, but Raven was full of wit and tricks and he planned to trick the light away from Mole. “Mole, I spoke wrongly! I too want to keep the light hidden, but your hiding spot is not good enough! I found it right away!”
Mole was shocked and he stammered “I know not how you found my hiding spot, but we will go there to see if indeed you know where the light is hidden. Then if we must we may hide it again.” And so Mole led the way to a hidden place at the bottom of the mountain that no longer had a top. “Here is the place where I hid the light Raven, but it does not seem that you have taken it.”
Raven answered “But Mole, how can you know unless you dig to see if it is still under the earth where you put the light?” Mole knew this to be true so he began to dig where he had hidden the light under the earth, but when he scraped away enough soil a radiant light came forth from the earth and shone in his eyes. Mole was blinded by the brightness, and he cried loudly and called Raven a trickster. Raven knew that Mole could not be allowed to get the light back, so he took the light in his beak and carried it into the sky and placed it in the heavens where Mole could not reach because he was tied to the ground.
And so today we still see the light in the sky where only Raven can reach it, and we sing songs of Raven who was full of wit and tricks, but his heart was good and he shared the light, and we sing of Mole, who was greedy and selfish and is now blind.
My paper doesn't actually end there. There is explanation for why it has been written in this fashion as well as some academic reflection in the light of Ong and Kane, but this part of the paper needs work.
Anyway....
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