WanderingMind

Catching Up

2008-06-04T21:12:42Z

You can tell, probably, that my first quarter of grad school ended recently...May was a pretty dry month here, but rest assured that lots of writing was happening elsewhere. Almost 20 pages of high-quality academic prose flew from my computer in the 2 weeks before Mother's Day.

Results? Straight A's, for the first time ever. I've always been a decent A/B student, but this was a nice surprise and good validation that I'm in the right place. Lesson learned, though: grad school is not the place to be putting off papers until the end of the quarter. Turns out that at 40, sleeping is so much more important than it used to be.

The summer quarter is underway, and I'm already looking forward to seeing the rest of my cohort in August—it's really weird to start the quarter without seeing your classmates or meeting the instructors, but that just makes for a more joyous reunion/introduction later, I figure.

Myth and Politics

2008-05-06T05:18:21Z

Or, what I did this weekend.

Pacifica held a conference on Myth & Politics this weekend that I was fortunate enough to attend. There's so much to think about on this topic, especially in a hot election season, but a couple of things really stood out for me so far (looking at notes):

I need to find some way in the midst of all the reading I'm already doing for school to tutor myself on the Classics (as in the ancient Greeks). There were a lot of references in the talks to Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes, et al, and while they came with enough context to understand, there's clearly a wealth of material there that would be good to know in the context of my graduate program.
I should not be allowed anywhere near a bookstore run by Pacifica. They ported a good chunk of the campus bookstore over to this event, and as usual, I walked away with many more books than I currently have time to read.
More seriously, Glen Slater gave a really insightful talk about fundamentalism. I keep rolling over in my mind his main thesis that fundamentalism, at its core, is not a religious enterprise. It is rather (in his formulation) an attempt to fill in the missing mythos in our culture that the rationality of the Enlightenment introduced—a turning of the mythos into logos by insisting on the factuality of the myth (as in biblical literalism).

All of the presentations were strong and they covered a lot of ground on the topic. I took a lot of notes, but am hopeful that Pacifica or the speakers will make the papers they presented available; the level of thought and references were deep, and I would love another chance to read through them.

Cognitive Surplus and the Culture of Participation

2008-05-01T21:37:59Z

Or, why it's easy to find the time for creation when you don't watch TV.

That's a bit flip, but this talk by Clay Shirky does point out the amazing resources we have at our disposal (on an individual and cultural level) when we make conscious choices about how to spend time.

Money quote: "Media that is targeted at you but that doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for."

I gave up cable over 12 years ago, and with rare exceptions, have not looked back. I watch a little TV on DVD, but making things & having interactive experiences seems so much more fun that I don't miss it too much. One thing I wish Shirky had addressed a little more, though, was the extent to which other passive activities (reading blogs, watching YouTube) has taken the place of TV without increasing participation. It's my particular blind spot, and one I'm trying to address as my time becomes more compressed.

So, how would you like to spend your time?

Taking a Break

2008-04-30T23:05:13Z

After a couple of hard weeks of studying & work, I went to Vega$ with some friends this weekend to blow off steam...it's amazing how much it's changed since I was last there 8 years ago. The food is a lot better, for one thing; I definitely got to fulfill my foodie jones at a couple of very nice places (Table 10, I'm talking to you!) Also got to see the Cirque du Soleil "Love" show, which features remixed Beatles tunes. It was an amazing show—very rich, full of whimsy & wonder, and the soundtrack, of course, was tops.

Beyond that, the Strip didn't hold a lot of allure, so my buddy Angus and I took a cab out to the Pinball Museum, and aside from the Cirque show, it was the highlight of the weekend, a gem hidden inside a strip mall. There were over 100 machines from the looks of it, and I played a good chunk of them in complete joy. Pinball and I go way back (~1973), and it was great to see and play some old favorites. Here are a couple of videos to give you the flavor of the place:

A walkthrough of the museum

Me attempting to play Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy

Ozymandias* and a Salesman

2008-04-24T08:36:23Z

When it comes to ants, I feel like Vishnu: "I am death, destroyer of worlds." We suffer from periodic invasions of ants in the house, usually in the bathroom or kitchen, and when they decide to visit, they bring the whole family, usually thousands. So we stomp, spray, erect barriers of essential oils, until finally it's too much and we lay down huge puddles of Terro for them to take back to the colony. And then we clean up all the bodies, which is when the karmic guilt starts to set in. To these tiny, industrious creatures, I'm no less a monster than Hitler. I may kill them with remorse, but it doesn't keep the Raid can under the sink, if you know what I mean.

I've been thinking about this partly because the colony under the house has been sending up scouts again now that the rain is over, but also because I'm in an interesting quandary about compassion in general and how far I'm willing to extend it. A high school kid came to the door tonight, trying to get me to buy the newspaper or donate to help him go to college. He rattled off the kind of history I would have expected stereotypically (poor kid, mom working hard, deadbeat dad), and after a few minutes of listening to him try to talk me into it I told him "No thanks" for the third or fourth time and shut the door in his face.

So where is my sense of compassion in a moment like this? In one way of looking at it, every such occasion is an opportunity to help, and if I really believe in helping people who are trying to better themselves (and I like to think I do, something shadowy in a Jungian sense there maybe), then I should theoretically be willing to make a donation. And yet I didn't—partly from annoyance, partly from suspicion that it was a scam, and partly from a general rule of not giving out money at my front door. So is it an opportunity wasted, or a chance to exercise appropriate discretion? I think the answer is ultimately yes to both questions, so I'm left with a situation that regardless of my response leaves me feeling dissatisfied with it. A weird way to spend the night.

* Ozymandias, King of Ants

Friday Zen Moment

2008-04-04T18:32:13Z

Found on MetaFilter this morning: Eclectic 2.0 [requires QuickTime]. I have a thing for time-lapse photography and reverse video (see also Sensei Studios, their "Balancing Point" video is amazing), and this piece really took my breath away.

Secular Ravenism

2008-04-04T01:31:02Z

The title this week is taken from Bright River, which I can't recommend enough. After I mentioned it a few posts back I went back and listened, and the incredible act of imagination that the play represents just blew me away all over again. And then I went to my local caffeination station, where they'd just put a up a new art exhibit, including the painting to the right. To my delight, the artist was enthusiastic about sales, and so I was able to bring this raven home as inspiration for the rest of the quarter. I'm kind of hoping they start to appear in interesting and unexpected places more.

But enough about that. I want to talk about ravens in general.

Raven as a mythical figure has proved surprisingly elusive. You might expect that of a trickster figure, but they seem to enjoy being the subject of stories as a rule, or at least don't bother to cover their tracks much. Raven, on the other hand, is a much more shadowy personage, and alternately held in either high regard or contempt, depending on who you ask. It's one of the reasons I felt so drawn to the painting; the juxtaposition of the raven with a heart seems to point to both meanings at once: the carrion bird with its dinner, and the messenger of the gods, bringing a token of love to some worthy recipient. At least, that's what pops into my mind's eye—what do you see?

Podcast Notes
I was surprised at my level of resistance to doing the podcast...definitely some stuff to work out there about perfectionism. I had a lot of grand plans, and in the end, it was so hard just to get myself to record the voice that I gave in and left it at that. In retrospect, it's exactly what needed to happen. And the Code of Conduct (for those of you in the cohort) came in handy here— I held you in my thoughts, imagining you all sitting across the dining room table (where I recorded this), and somehow it became a lot easier to speak naturally.

The other thing I discovered is just how many times I say "um", breathe loudly, and smack my lips. I also have a new respect for the radio announcers who can do this live—I ended up cutting out almost 45 seconds of audio that was purely that kind of stuff, and it went from 1 long track to 112 snippets to get rid of it. So, without further ado, here is my view of Raven on a sunny Saturday morning:

Listen Up

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Raven

2008-03-27T07:42:46Z

after Wallace Stevens

I
When Noah's ark alit on the mountain,
The first thing he sent out
Was the raven.

II
I talked amongst my selves
Like a coffee klatsch
Of three ravens.

III
The raven flew down to its dead dinner
Chilled by autumn winds.

IV
The god and goddess
Are one.
The god and goddess and a raven
Are just too much.

V
I do not know which more pierces me,
The rasp of trickery
Or the rasp of hunger,
The raven cawing
Or just before.

VI
Trees filled the bay window
With shifting shadows.
The light crossed it,
To and fro.
The raven,
Hiding in a branch,
Drew a ray of darkness.

VII
O footballers of Baltimore,
Why do you imagine merchandised birds?
Do you not see how the raven
Flits around the wallets
Hiding in your pockets?

VIII
I know great tales
And speak in golden voices;
But raven knows
That he and I
Share the same dinner.

IX
When the raven made its nest,
It found itself
At the center of the world.

X
At the sight of ravens
Flying under full moonlight,
Even the Goths of Santa Cruz
Would put down their lattes.

XI
She drove to Los Angeles
In a red chariot.
Once, looking in the side mirror,
She mistook
The stuffed animal in the back window
For a raven.

XII
The waters have dried up from the earth.
Raven has returned to Noah.

XIII
It was night all the time.
It was dark
And it was going to stay dark.
The raven flew
And returned with the sun. ©2008 Carol Gunby

Myth and Modern Life

2008-03-25T07:40:41Z

Disclaimer: Not the official entry for this week (official entries will all be found under the 'School' category, for those who are playing along at home).

Now, then. (And what an odd turn of phrase that is, by the way...suggesting a conflation of past & present that feels very familiar.) Since I have a dreadfully long commute (45-60 minutes each way), I spend a lot of time in the car with my iPod. Goddess bless the podcast revolution, because as much as I love music, and that's a lot, having whole radio shows and other interesting intellectual tidbits to listen to during that time has (I firmly believe) saved my mind from becoming some kind of grayish polenta. So, since in the vernacular of The Tipping Point I'm a Maven who loves to share information, here are a couple of great, mythologically-relevant podcasts I'd recommend.

Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason – Six episodes. I think this ran on PBS TV a couple of years back. They have streaming video of all of the interviews as well as downloadable audio, and what interviews! Jeanette Winterson on Atlas and the Old Testament, Will Power on translating Oedipus to hip-hop, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood on the stories of religion....and a bunch more.
Radio Lab – I mentioned this one a few posts back, and it's rapidly become one of my favorites. While the show deals with ostensibly science-related topics (a lot of neurology in particular), there is always a strong sense of humanity and story. The series is ongoing, and I'd highly recommend a few shows in particular to get you started: Sleep, Memory and Forgetting, and The Ring and I.

And that's all I've got for tonight. Back to the books!

Latest from Twitter

2008-03-19T09:40:20Z

Jenny Holzer's latest twitter: MYTH CAN MAKE REALITY MORE INTELLIGIBLE

So true, eh? And Twitter is the perfect platform for her art, in so many ways (follow her now: jennyholzer). At least I'm assuming it's her; we never do know for sure...

Being Chosen

2008-03-12T03:02:51Z

Raven, trickster, appears
behind the oracular candy bar,
dark sweet thing,
brings fire, light, creation itself
a gift
to the myth-hungry two-legged
who come up out of mud,
crying in darkness

Stolen from the Sky Chief, this light,
by playing the innocent;
a pine needle in the right girl
becomes a baby boy:
the Chief's grandson.
His glowing toy: our sun,
and his message to me,
"Be not confined
by what you seem to be." ©2008 Carol Gunby

Raven is the mythological figure that chose me in class through a numbered candy bar drawing, and he'll be showing up here a lot, I think, as I try to figure out what he might mean for me. I'm still learning about him; there are a lot of raven stories in Native American traditions of the Pacific Northwest, where he roughly parallels the Southwest's Coyote as a trickster figure. He has a different energy about him, though, something more brooding and dark (think Edgar Allen Poe vs. Wile E. Coyote for general associations). Maybe he'll have something interesting to say to my inner goth.

I also can't help but think of the Raven character in a play I saw a few years back called Bright River, which was a deeply imaginative redressing of Dante's Inferno in modern clothes (consider Purgatory as a Greyhound Bus depot). The raven, like all the characters in the play, has a chance to tell his story, and his plaintiveness in recounting his childhood in a prison gave me a new perspective on these dark birds. While the play's no longer being performed live as far as I know, I would really recommend getting the CD at the link above; the storytelling is superb, and so is the music that accompanies the tale.

Residential Recap

2008-03-10T03:08:45Z

So, the promised recap of my first week of school. I drove down to Santa Barbara on Saturday, with all of my books, shiny new pencils, the laptop, etc. I almost went and bought Pee Chee folders out of nostalgia, but based on the amount of reading, am glad I went with the 3" binder instead. The drive down was stunning, good Mexican food in SLO, rolled in nice and early around 4:30, so there was time to unpack before dinner. The picture to the right is our dining hall—it has those great long family-style tables that could probably seat 16 if you really had to.

Dinner was just like high school, trying to figure out who to sit with (since I didn't know anyone) or whether to sit alone...finally sat down with some folks and introduced myself, had a nice chat, and got invited to go into Santa Barbara for some friendly drinking after the non-newbies got out of class at 9. A little light reading in my room, and then went to wait in the lobby for what turned out to be about an hour. My inviter never showed up, but in the course of waiting, I ended up talking with some of the folks from the fall 07 class, the one we were about to join, and stayed up until the wee hours with them in the student lounge. An auspicious start for someone so formerly shy.

Day 1: Orientation. Our fall classmates get to go to the beach while we get the big campus tour, a chance to shop at the bookstore (they got me 4 times, the bastards!), financial aid info, etc. Class starts after lunch, and we're right into it with human development theory and Jung for the next day and a half. By the end of this first day, my butt is already sore and my brain full. Less auspicious. Also a wonderful welcome dinner this first night, where everyone in the Humanities program eats together and we have a chance to toast those who are graduating and hear their words of wisdom. Lovely way to start off, and nice closure for those who are leaving, I think...the class graduating this term is only the second one ever since the start of the program.

Day 2: Psych-Out. Another 9 hours packed full of development, discussion, and sore asses. The fall folks, who were already here for 5 days before us, are really hurting and have to stretch a lot. Some of the wisdom from last night about pacing yourself & taking care of the body takes on new resonance. Wondering what brain yoga would look like because I feel the need for stretching there.

Day 3: Art. Such a breath of fresh air to start the day with pictures after all of those words. We get to watch part of Rivers and Tides, one of my favorite movies, and I suddenly want to go outside and play with rocks. Good discussions all day, very lively, and we get to make collages after dinner. Such a wonderful experience; it seemed like a lot of us regressed in a good way and just had a lot of fun cutting up images, sharing our glues sticks and scissors as we tried to represent ourselves on paper.

Day 4: Into the Technological Beast. One last session of art in the morning, a warm goodbye circle and then lunch (did I mention that the food was completely awesome?). In the afternoon, the class we've been told to fear, Technology and the Global Citizen. In the end, not so bad, although I can see that the technical requirements are intimidating at first if you're not used to them. Everybody catches on quickly though, and we choose our myths by random candy bar drawing (I get Raven, interesting—what is the universe trying to say there?) Really getting sore by this time, a little sciatic pain down the right leg. Am already making mental notes of cushy things to bring for the summer/fall session.

Day 5: More Tech & Home. Last two sessions of class. We install Audacity to prep for the podcasting assignment, delve deeper into APA style and other arcane but necessary items we will need to master, and then at 4:30, we're out the door (one last stop at the bookstore), and I start driving home, into what turns out to be a pretty heavy rainstorm. Listened to Radio Lab podcasts all the way back, lots of synchronicities with things we'd discussed during the week, need to be on the lookout for those now that I'm in Jung-land.

So that's the summary, and it's also the preamble to some upcoming posts that may seem slightly out of character. Being basically lazy, I'm using this blog for my blog requirements in class, so if the three of you see stuff that looks suspiciously like homework, your instincts are correct. Feel free to join in the discussion though—I'm all for cross-fertilization and some interesting hybrids might just result.

Home Sweet Dorm

2008-02-23T19:16:29Z

More on my first week of grad school later, but here's a little visual to whet the appetite...

Reasons to Hope

2008-02-05T01:54:21Z

I always want to find something pithy to say about politics, especially in an election season as charged as this one. But as usual, people who are far better writers than I have already beaten me to it. Michael Chabon's call to hope (and a vote for Obama) says everything I could hope to about why I cast my vote (absentee rocks!) the way I did:

To support Obama, we must permit ourselves to feel hope, to acknowledge the possibility that we can aspire as a nation to be more than merely secure or predominant. We must allow ourselves to believe in Obama, not blindly or unquestioningly as we might believe in some demagogue or figurehead but as we believe in the comfort we take in our families, in the pleasure of good company, in the blessings of peace and liberty, in any thing that requires us to put our trust in the best part of ourselves and others. That kind of belief is a revolutionary act. It holds the power, in time, to overturn and repair all the damage that our fear has driven us to inflict on ourselves and the world.

Link: Chabon's Washington Post commentary

New Chapter

2008-02-02T19:53:41Z

The new year has come and gone, and this blog has been dormant (as usual) for quite a while. The good news is that the situation's about to change. Partly, I suspect I'll have a lot to talk about, and partly, it will be because writing on the blog is going to be part of my homework. After a 15-year absence from the world of academia, I'm about to start grad school. Events and finances have finally transpired in my favor, and the perfect program for me, which didn't exist until a few years ago, has been created.

Which degree, you may ask: film school, MBA (hah!), MFA in creative writing? All have been contenders for the crown in the past, but the true winner emerged a few years back, unbeknownst to me until last spring. That would be this here degree, and it made itself present through another great experience, which since I didn't bother to write about it at the time, I'll attempt to describe now.

Last winter, still in a funk about my mother's death, I decided I needed to go on a retreat of some kind. Since I'm a human potential-inclined hippie by nature, and had a great experience there previously, I got online to see what Esalen had going on for the springtime. Back in 2000, before this blog was even a glimmer in my eye, I took a week-long drumming workshop there under the master, Babatunde Olatunji. I fell in love with Esalen then, and always wanted to go back for another week. So I went through the catalog, and found a workshop that I had looked at several times previously: the Mythological Toolbox. It's run every year at Esalen during Joseph Campbell's birthday week, and after reading the description, I knew it was exactly what I needed.

So I went. It will take another whole entry or two to describe in detail everything that happened that week, and I'll do that another time. The three most important things that came out of that week were first, a feeling of energy and forward movement, a desire to enjoy being alive, that had all but disappeared in a fog of grief. The second was a strong engagement with the mythological material that was presented during the course of the week. The entire week is a ritual, designed to help the participants understand that their life transitions are part of a story that has been played out throughout human history, and that there are guides, signs, and friends who can help us along the way. And the third was the beginning of a personal connection to the folks who run the workshop and the Joseph Campbell Foundation, for whom I'm now a volunteer webmaster. That connection has given me a sense of purpose that's a wonderful supplement to the enjoyment I already have at work and in my personal life.

I came back from Big Sur invigorated and wanting to learn more about Campbell and his work. (Sidenote: if you haven't seen Power of Myth, you really should...it's a great introduction to his work, very accessible, and very inspiring.) I had a vague memory that his personal library had been donated to a university, so I went a-Googling, and found it at Pacifica Graduate Institute. With grad school still in mind, I decided to take a look at their programs, and found the one I'm now enrolled in, which seemed to be the mix of personal growth, mythology, and engagement with the larger world that I'd been looking for. Freed finally from the financial need to use a graduate degree to further my career (which had been behind the MBA thoughts), I knew it was the one.

But I tend to leap in without thinking when enthusiasm levels are high (my closet full of unplayed instruments is a testament to this), so I decided to take a more cautious approach. I drove down to Santa Barbara with Debbie to check out the campus, and went to their info day to hear about all the programs and get a sense of the place.

I fell in love.

The only question remaining was when to start. It was June by this time, and the Fall quarter started in mid-August. Still wanting to test my passion for this idea, I decided to wait a couple of months and then apply to start mid-year if I was still feeling strongly about it. And that's exactly what happened. After getting recommendations from friends and colleagues, writing the personal statement, finding an old academic paper that still sounded good, and getting transcripts sent, I waited for that big packet to come in the mail.

So now I'm about to embark on this big adventure, once that will suck up all of my vacation and most of my spare time for the next two years, and I couldn't be happier. I'm also glad I waited...I considered going to grad school after getting my BA, but had no real direction at that time or for a long time afterward, and I think it would have been a waste of money. Now as a seasoned 40-year-old, I feel like I have some real experience and thinking to contribute, and a much deeper appreciation for the community that I'm about to join.

And with that, I'm off to do some pre-reading before President's Day...I'm determined to finally develop those good study habits I was always told would be helpful. :-)