The End is Here

Reading the last story in the book Metomorphoses, I realized many things. I've realized almost the entire book has been about love. Maybe one or two of the stories weren't but the rest were. All the stories that envolved love, were told in different fashions, and the one I just read, Baucis and Philemon, told a love story about wanting to die together instead of one at a time. It was all for the purpose that no one would grieve in the end. When it was time for them to go, they both held hands and turned into trees.

Also reading this I have realized that whoever wrote the original stories seems to be in favor of turning people into plants or animals.

Although the story is about love, it's also about being selflessness and caring for others. The couple came from nothing but yet still lended a helping hand while the other 1000 houses had slammed their doors on the two, unrecognizable gods. It gave an important lesson in the story, saying that those who help others no matter their condition will be blessed greatly, as it says, "The poor little house, their simple cottage, was becoming grander and grander, a glittering marble-columned temple." It's a warming story and shows you can achieve greatness just from being kind.

Out of all the stories, I would have to say this is my favorite.

A Therapist and Plenty of Questions

Almost finished with the book, I have realized the author, Mary Zimmerman, makes all her stories very modernized. Does this mean something? Is she trying to make the stories much easier to understand? It's rather interesting how she goes about writing the stories. Zues smokes and now Phaeton is relaxing on a yellow floaty in his backyard talking to a therepist. Interesting is all I can say.
Then the therapist really starts talking and she uses all these complicated words that only Phaeton seems to understand. For example, the quote, "Where better might we find a more precise illustration of the dangers of premature initation than in this ancient tale of alternating parental indulgence and neglect?" shows how she uses all these difficult words and it's all in one sentence! And I thought the author was trying to rewrite the stories to make them easier to understand. I mean, I do understand the sentence, but what about everyone else? And why put all those difficult words in?
So the story goes on and tells how Phaeton goes to his father, Apollo, and demands to be given the keys to his car (in the original story it's a chariot). Let's just say Phaeton causes the Earth to catch on fire. But that is not what caught my interest. It was what the therapist said at the very end of the story, "It has been said that the myth is a pubic dream, dreams are private myths." What does this mean? I got an idea that it is saying myths are what people dream of and that myths come from people's dreams. Interesting, I might add. But why is this important to the story of Phaeton?
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This is where characters begin to have only a one letter name. This is where the characters Q and A come into the picture. Yeah, you heard me right. Q and A. It's funny because it sounds as though "Q" stands for "question" and "A" stands for "answer". Is this a coincidence or is this really why Mary Zimmerman named them Q and A, to stand for the two other words? There's even proof that she could've indeed named them after the two words because in the script, Q is always asking questions, and A is always answering them.
It's really interesting, because the story, Eros and Psyche, is all about love. It explains it and proves of it. Q asked some very simple and wierd questions and A answered the questions with important answers, an example of which the question is wierd and the answers seems as though it's important, "What does the word "Psyche" mean?" asked Q, then A answered, "In Greek it means "the soul." What in the world does that have to do with anything? Maybe because Eros, or cupid, stands for love, Psyche means "the soul" of a person, or "the soul" that falls in love?

My Amazing Two Line Poem

This is a poem I had put all my heart into. It may be short, but, oh well. It's amazing anyways. It's a summarization on the story, Phaeton.

So here goes my beautiful two line poem. I call it, "Summarization".

My father lent me his prized chariot,
I lost control, the world parished a lot.

[audience goes wild. Shouts of "Bravo!" can be heard. I respond with plenty of thank you's to last a life time]

I know. No words needed. It was great and you know it.

Orpheus & Eurydice

Going into the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, I realized this story was very similar to Dante's Inferno. In Dante's Inferno, his wife is taken down into the underworld and he goes to retrieve her, just like it is in Orpheus and Eurydice. The only difference is that Eurydice is taken into the underworld because she was bitten by a rather poisonous snake, killing her on her wedding day.

Orpheus, because of his great love for Eurydice, decides to embark on a journey down into the dreadful place where he meets the god Hades. He tells Hades that he wants Eurydice back with him and at first Hades tells him no, but when Orpheus tells Hades that he will stay instead, Hades tells him this, "As you ascend this place, she will not walk beside you; but she will be following. You must not, until you pass our gates, turn around to look at her. If you look at her before you reach the sunlight, she is ours. Forever."

The two traveled for awhile, with Hermes following the both, and when they had almost made, Orpheus just had to look back and see if Eurydice was doing okay. Sadly, Hermes picks up Eurydice and takes her away, both she and Orpheus reaching for each other.

Then something unexplainable happens, literally unexplainable. It seems as though it is retold from Hermes' point of view of when Orpheus turns back to look at her. What is written makes it seem as though Eurydice was filled with death and could not see who was in front of her before the gates. He was unrecognizable. Then she simply walked away.

A sad love story if you ask me.

Erysisomethingoranother & Hunger

So the story starts out with Erysichthon finding himself in the sacred grove of Ceres. He tells the narrator to cut down the tree. The narrator tries telling him that the tree is sacred and that it belongs to Ceres. Erysichthon tells him that he doesn't care about the importance of the tree and if it was Ceres herself he would still cut the tree down! The narrator is still concerned so goes on to beg Erysichthon to not cut the tree down and Erysichthon's reply to this was, "Get off me, you pious son of a bitch!" which proves that this Erysichthon guy is a jerk.

Finally we get some decent characters! Ha ha, just kidding. I think.

So this guy Erysichthon is just a jerk and the tree does end up getting cut down and the entire time, Ceres was watching the whole thing.

Then an amazing thing happens, the tree comes to life! Or at least the tree spirit floats around talking and tells Erysichthon that he will regret what he did, but Erysichton is all like, "Oh, now I'm really frightened," making this story probably the most original story in the book. It sounds so modern which I actually like.

The goddess who heard everything, including what the tree spirit told Erysichthon, turned her mind to torments she could use on Erysichthon. Ceres comes up with the idea to torment Erysichthon with Hunger. So Hunger comes and clings to his back, making him always starving hungry, so hungry that he sold his mother to buy more food.

The mother while behind her new master in a small boat calls out a prayer to Poseidon (who is my favorite god by the way) and the god remembering her as a little girl, pulls her under and turns her into a little girl again who swims to shore. A legend followed this after many years saying that to this day, you can still sometimes see the little girl playing in the waves.

So going back to Erysichthon, even with the the money he had earned from selling his mother, it was not enough. And then a very surprising and almost creepy ending happens. The goddess comes forwards and brings to Erysichthon a silver tray with a knife and fork along with a vase holding a rose and this is where the story reverts to cannibalism. Yeah, you heard me right. Erysichthon puts his own foot on the platter and-well, you know the rest.

Now going back to what I said before about this being one of the most original stories in the book, well, I take that back.

Alcyone and Ceyx

Alcyone and Ceyx is one of those love stories that has a rather strange ending. If you look at the above picture you just might get an idea of what I am talking about. Yeah, yeah, you'll understand it soon enough.

So the story starts out as one of those typical love stories. The man of the house is going far away for his work and the wife is bawling her eyes out. There's about a million of stories that have a similiar beginning to this one. Only usually, the man is going off to war, not on a ship to visit a far-off oracle. Speaking of which, wasn't an oracle one of those things that gave off really good advice or could tell you your future or did it mean something else? Oh well, who knows?

So as I was saying, Ceyx goes off to sea, but not before promising his wife that he will be back in two months time. And Alcyone tells him, "If you die my life is over and I shall be cursed with every reluctant breath I draw."

Oh how romantic!

Not really.

I mean seriously! Maybe it sounds romantic telling him that if he's gone she'll kill herself or live in depression, but if Ceyx actually does die, well then she will be living in pain! Or be unmoving underground. Would anybody really want to go through that? No. If I were her, I would've broke up with him right before he left so I wouldn't have to go through any of that. She should've known he wasn't coming back alive. Okay, why do I for some reason feel like what I all just said didn't make any sense?

So back to the story. As it turns out Ceyx does indeed come back dead. No, no, no, I'm not talking about him turning into a zombie, I'm talking about his dead body washing up on shore and Alcyone finding it, and after all those days on end praying to the goddess-Aphrodite? I can't really tell who she was praying to because it gets kind of confusing in Mary Zimmerman's version at some points.

So Alcyone is so upset and "Aphrodite" sends a message to some other gods to let her husband live as (drumroll please), a bird! Yeah, a bird. But of course Alcyone was the first to turn into one. It was as she was running towards his body and soon realized that for some reason she couldn't hold or kiss him and was instead pecking the heck out of him!

But it all ended happily because as I said, Ceyx had also turned into one. And so the happy and forever couple, of birds, flew away into happiness!

Metomorphoses

I listened the creation of metomorphoses more than I can count, yet I still have no idea what it is talking about. I seemed to have heard blah, blah, blah, and blah. Seriously! I wish it could have all been said in english, unless it was.
What I did comprehend in the end was that it was explaining something about the creation of our world, universe, or whatever it was. It was explaining (or so I think) how everything was just a big mess of things. Nothing was orderly. Slowly, everything started coming together to create a more so "happy" and organized enviroment, but that's just a guess. I suppose my comprehension skills aren't all too great.
So anyways, it talks about the creation of all things, of god, lives, the Earth, ect. The world use to be empty or pointless, but it's slowly becoming something. Like I said before, everything is becoming more organized. (This was all just a repeat of what I said before.)

Maybe I'm losing my hearing.

Yes! I Finished Bhagavad-Gita!!!

So I am here today to give you my overall conclusion and I am afraid it is not going to be very long.
It was boring.
I learned nothing of importance.
I'm sorry, but I had to be honest, the title of this blog is 'The Blunt Truth', am I right?
But, do not worry. I have at least learned some things such as:
1. Never read a book about wisdom/knowledge, or whatever this book was about.
2. Never read Bhagavad-Gita, if any of you do, you may just fall over dead with boredom.
3. I'm never going to ever even look at the word wisdom again. Oh, whoops. Just did.
4. Hinduism bores me to the bone. At least, in this book it did.
So that was what I learned. As for what happened in the story: a battle went on, Arjuna didn't want to fight, Krishna gave Arjuna more than confusing advice, and finally Arjuna got together his guts and joined the fight because of Krishna's power of persuasion.
I did not like this book.

Bhagavad-Gita Teachings 17&18

In the eighteenth and seventeenth teaching, I am once again, overly confused. Many more deep going examples, and all I know is that I am getting more and more tired with each teaching that I read.
There is this saying that states, "Men of lucidity sacrifice to the gods;/men of passion, to spirits and demons;/the others, men of dark inertia,/sacrifice to corpses and to ghosts", and I couldn't help but think, "Is this describing some sort of supernatural, death book?" It's sounding a little dark that one. I figured it was saying that men who worship and sacrifice to the right gods and lead good lives, are light with faith, while the others are sacrificing and worshipping to the dead and are dark inside, mislead, and cruel.
I also realized the two teachings talk a lot about faith. Faith is apparently important. So this is what leads us to the answer of the question that we have all been wanting to know (at least some of us), "Does Arjuna fight?"
The answer to this, is yes. You see, Krishna gave off such great advice, and Arjuna understood everything that was being said to him, that he realized, it would be better to get on out there and fight. He saw he might as well fight because if he didn't, Krishna would go ahead and do the killing. Not to mention, if Arjuna was killed, he knew he would be reincarnated.

Bhagavad-Gita Teachings 11-15

In the Eleventh Teaching it is conformed that Krishna is a god even more so. So Krishna showed His Cosmic Unversal Form of greatness to Arjuna to prove he is majestic. It describes his form below:

"It was a multiform, wonderous vision,

with countless mouths and eyes

and celestial ornaments,

brandishing many divine weapons."

Why do those few lines prove he is a god? Because in the Hindu culture, the gods usually are full of color and have multiple body parts. Much fuller and bigger proof at last!

Anyways, then Krishna explains to Arjuna how his true form is the original form of the godhead. How his body shows the world's destruction and everything else of and in the world. Then Krishna goes to explain to Arjuna to not be afraid of the battle, because with Arjuna having Krishna on his side, the others were hypothetically already dead. Krishna could not be beaten.

Arjuna feels basically like a nobody standing next to Krishna so he starts to tremble. Arjuna starts apologizing for the way he always acted towards Krishna and for all the things he ever did that he no longer feels was an acceptable action.

In the Twelth Teaching, Krishna tells Arjuna that the worshipping of Krishna, the supreme personality of Godhead, is the best recommadation for worship. So Krishna explains the process of devotion you must have towards him and then Krishna says that anyone who devote to him endearly will be especially dear to him. If you ask me, this Krishna dude is sounding a little full of himself.

The Thirteenth Teaching goes about Arjuna asking about things he wants to learn about and then Krishna answering all of them. Arjuna asks six things which are: nature, the enjoyer, the field of activity, the knower of the field, knowledge, and the object of knowledge. So basically Krishna is having to explain everything again with long examples because Arjuna just can't seem to get anything.

In the Fifteenth Teaching (yes I am skipping fourteen), Krishna is talking about a tree and it's branches. I think this is having something to do with life because of the way he is wording it. Especially when he says "roots are tangled in actions", which I'm taking a guess is referring to men's actions. It even makes it obvious when he says "tree of life." And I'm gussing the branches are all twisted in ways due to people's choices. I also realized that it is possible that it has something to do with Krishna. I think it's saying that all sources of energy and keeping up the universe and all living is Krishna. So Krishna is like the tree.

So hopefully that makes sense.

For the record, John Park should have not been voted off American Idol. The other dude should've gone home. John Park has an amazing voice.

Bhagavad-Gita 7-9

In these new teachings of new wisdom, Krishna teaches Arjuna about the magic of nature and describes four virtuous men. It tells who these four men are below:

"Arjuna, four types of virtuous men

are devoted to me:

the tormented man, the seeker of wisdom,

the suppliant, and the sage."

As I was trying to figure out what this meant, I realized Krishna said the words "devoted to me." Could this mean Krishna has some high authority? I already kind of figured that perhaps Krishna was a King, but could he have some other kind of authority? And along with those questions, they made me wonder how Krishna could have gained all this type of knowledge. Just, how old is he? Back to the four men, I'm taking a wild guess that they are his consolers for wisdom and knowledge.

The eighth chapter talks about your inner spirit and how men are with their self-control at their time of death.

I also happened to come across another passage that answers my question to whether or not Krishna has any higher authority than just being something of a King.

"A man who dies remembering me

at the time of death enters my being

when he is freed from his body"

Reading this, I questioned, "Is Krishna a god?" This passage gives away an answer on to how much control and importance he has onto his people. It makes logical sense.

Reading the rest of the section, I realized it is saying that you have self-control or discipline, and put faith into something, you can reach a better place when you die, such as being riencarnated into a better person. And with this faith, you know that you have a purpose to live and you can motivate yourself forward with a goal or something similar to reach that place.

Bhagavad-Gita The 3-5 Teaching

Yeah! More reading! (that was heavy with sarcasm)
So what happens is...
Arjuna is confused by the long explanation Krishna gave him. Then Krishna has to give him a new long explanation about controlling senses and such, disciplining your actions, and...stuff. There was also something about evil things or people? I'm lost.
On the fourth teaching it talks about knowledge. So listen up people! You must listen to what I have to say next to become smarter!
So I have realized that they are both still at the battle talking about these things. Nowhere does it say they walked somewhere else to talk about these things more privately. This made me wonder with my great abilities and to come up with a possibility of what could happen to them from standing on the battle field. I know I should be thinking about symbolism and what they are actually saying but this thought overwhelmed the other two. I mean seriously. If you were standing on the battle field and the conches had already been blown to start the battle, wouldn't Arjuna and Krishna both be lying dead with an arrow stuck through their head? Since they're still alive at this point, they must have some magical force to shield them from being killed, because I don't know anyone who can just stand in the middle of distruction and killings only to not be killed. I thought this book was supposed to be about wisdom!
So anyways, in the fourth teaching they both end up talking about riencarnation once again and controlling your actions. I never knew there could ever be so many examples of the same thing. It's like everything just keeps being repeated. Only it's sad because I still can't seem to be getting this story. Maybe my mind isn't advanced enough to understand this kind of stuff.
In the fifth teaching, Arjuna wants to know which one is better, dicipline or renunciation. I personally would say dicipline because my sisters don't seem to know the meaning of the word. Maybe I could have Krishna come and explain it for them. Although I don't think they would even be able to sit through the first example of dicipline. Krishna would basically be coming to his own death sentence.
So it says in the passage, "The man of eternal renunciation is one who either hates nor desires," and another one says, "Men of dicipline reach the same place that philosephers attain." What??? There are several more examples of the two but it only made me the ever more puzzled.
So I'm reading, reading, reading, but to no success, do I find something to help me understand. It doesn't even say which one is better. I'm going to take a wild guess because it says, "The man of dicipline has joy, delight, and light within." It sounds happy and better.