The boy who traveled a thousand journeys

Zane Nelson
Personal Myth Unit
Mythology Period 2
1 / 14 / 2009
The boy who traveled a thousand journeys.

Once there was a boy who loved storybooks. He lived alone and isolated and read stories like there was no tomorrow. Each time he read a story, he felt a profound connection with that story. As if he personally knew the characters, their struggles, their hopes and their sorrows.
Through his reading he learned many life lessons and he became very intelligent. He felt that all he would ever need would be his stories. Because he journeyed through his books so much, he came to say that he had traveled a thousand journeys.
But one day, an old man came to the house of the young boy. Being of a kind nature, the boy let the man stay.
“My thanks to you young man, what may I call you?”
Being slightly arrogant, the boy replied “I am the boy who has gone on a thousand journeys!”
“Hmm,” was the only reply of the old man.
“Then you may call me the old man who has gone on one journey,” he announced proudly.
The boy was incredulous. Who was this old man to boldly make such a pitiful claim?
“Why do you speak such a pitiful claim so boldly?” asked the boy. “Why are you so proud of having only read one book while I have read a thousand?”
The old man smiled. “You misunderstand me young man, I can’t read at all. The only story I have read is the story of my own life. Which may not be much, but I wouldn’t trade in the events of my life for all the gold in the world.”
The boy was absolutely burning with curiosity about this strange fellow now.
“Why is that? Have you witnessed the rise and fall of empires?”
“No.”
“Have you traveled the stars and beyond?”
“No.”
“Have you gone on journeys to defeat a great evil with naught but a sword at your side?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Have you been witness to both love and madness, have you seen human triumphs and human failures. Have you led a revolution against an unjust government or redeemed a relative who was lost in darkness?”
“Nope, nada, no, nitch and zilch.”
Now the boy was just getting mad. “Then what have you done that has made your one journey equal to my thousand journeys?!”
The old man just kept smiling. His reply was only two words.
“I’ve lived.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
“My life may not have had anything heroic in it. I may not have done many great deeds or witnessed history in the making. But what I have done is skip rocks on a pond with friends. I’ve danced with a number of pretty ladies (my record being 15 at one dance and man were they all hot) I’ve gone walking through mountains and swam in the sea. I’ve done many little things but above all, I’ve lived.”
The boy, needless to say, was shocked beyond words. What the old man described seemed so ordinary so mundane. Yet it seemed so…………….fun.
The old man nodded.
“You know kiddo, things don’t always have to be great or historic in order to be exciting. Simple things that you do in life can be interesting.”
“But why are such things interesting? I’ve can be so ingrained in the stories I read that it is like I’m their when an evil empire falls or a hero slays a monster. So why are such mundane things so interesting in the face of what I’ve seen?”
The old man actually laughed. “Wow, boy are you slightly messed up. You’ve got such a great gift of reading that you’ve let it become your life. In doing so, you’ve been neglectutating to read the most important story of all. Your life.”
The old man took out an old smoking pipe and lit is as the now absolutely completely shocked boy processed this.
The old man took a puff of his pipe until the boy managed to come to his senses enough to say “neglectutating is not a word.”
The old man shrugged. “I told you, I can’t read. I wish I could though. It would have made a lot of things much easier.”
“But if you’re saying that the most important story in life is ones own life, does that mean I must stop reading?”
The old man coughed on his pipe. “cough cough cough, hack wheeze, spiehteisois. Ahem. Of course not! To read is a great gift that I would give my remaining kidney and spleen for. I’m just saying, you can’t live all your life in books. Otherwise you miss a story of which you are both the author and the reader. Read your books, learn from them and bond with them. But don’t forget to get out of the house and live. Make friends make mistakes, triumph and blunder but above all live. Because you can reread books anytime you want. But you only go through your life once, so you may as well live it. That is why my one journey is equal to your thousand journeys.”
Suddenly the old man seemed very tired. “I need to get to bed. I’m an old man you know. Do you have a place for me to sleep?”
The boy led the old man to an extra bed. He thanked the boy and went straight to bed. The boy though stayed up long into the night pondering what he had learned today before he got to sleep.
When morning came, the boy went to check on the old man. But he wasn’t in the extra bed. The boy searched everywhere but there wasn’t a trace of the old man. But then the boy saw something on the kitchen table. It was the old man’s pipe. The boy picked it up and looked at it.
It was make out of wood and it was rather worn and old. But it seemed to add character to the pipe not cheapness.
Then the boy looked at his front door. Putting the pipe down he slowly walked toward it. When he reached the door, he stared at it for a long time. He was honestly a bit afraid to go through it. That was another thing about books. They were usually pretty safe. But what lay out there was unpredictable, uncontrollable and unknown.
But then the boy heard the old man’s voice. “Get out there and live boy.”
The boy thought of all the heroes he had read about and gained some more strength from those thoughts. Even if this wasn’t a quest, this was an adventure. And all adventurers started by walking through their front door.
So the boy opened his door.
It was a rainy day. And the clouds made the place look really gloomy. But even so the boy moved out from his doorway and walked into the rain. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt the rain on his skin. Despite the cold he smiled a bit. He continued walking until a plump red haired storekeeper woman saw him out in the rain.
“Mercy me boy, get out of the rain before you catch a cold. Dear me kids today.”
The boy followed her insider her shop. Which was a nice place. He talked to many of the people there. A bit awkwardly at times because he wasn’t much of a talker. But he liked being among people. They were interesting.
Eventually he just sat by a window and stared at the rain.
The storekeeper noticed and walked toward him.
“What be you doin dear?” she asked.
As she asked this, the clouds started to part and the sun came out. The town looked beautiful in the sun. Like a land from a fairy tale.
The boy smiled in content.
“I’m reading and writing a story actually. The story of my life.”
The boy thought back to the words of the old man who had been on one journey.
“I’m living.”

Norse Mythology Definitions by Yours Truly.

1. Vikings: A people who lived in Norway, Finland and Sweden.
   
2. Ginnungagap: The abyss in the center of the beginning world. The dark void. Is also a tongue twister if you say it fast enough.
   
3. Nifleheim: The land of fog and ice.
   
4. Muspellheim: The land of fire. Guarded by the giant Surt. I think his mom wanted to name him Burt but he wanted to go with something a bit more mean.
   
5. Yggdrasil: The world tree. The Ash tree that holds all of the worlds together.
   
6. Asgard: The home of the gods. Nice place.
   
7. Midgard: The world of men. Earth.
   
8. Hel: Home of the dead. Those that died of plague or old age.
   
9. Bifrost Bridge: A rickety bridge that the gods use to travel between worlds. Appears as a rainbow.
   
10. Ymir: The first giant. Was slain by Odin and his siblings and his body parts were used to create Midgard.
    
11. Odin: The Father of the Gods. The greatest of the Aesir.
    
12. Frigg: Wife of Odin. Goddess of marriage.
    
13. The Valkyries: Daughters of Odin and Freya. Choosers of the slain on a battlefield. They also prove that the Vikings had a thing for chicks in armor.
    
14. The Norns: Those that control fate. These fate maidens are the Past, Present and Future.
    
15. Thor: God of Thunder. The strongest of the Aesir.
    
16. Balder: God of Light. The most beloved of the gods.
    
17. Njord: God of the sea. Father of Frey and Freya.
    
18. Frey: God of fertility and earth. Brother of Freya.
    
19. Freya: Goddess of Fertility, love and beauty.
    
20. Idunn: Goddess of Youth. Gave out the apples that kept the gods young.
    
21. Loki: God of Trickery.
    
22. Fenrir: A giant wolf born of Loki. Will slay Odin at Ragnarok.
    
23. Jormungandr: The world serpent. A giant snake of great evil.
    
24. Ragnarok: The final battle to end all things and begin anew.
    
25. Runes: Letters used by the Vikings to communicate and in some cases, tell of certain things. Odin is said to have given them to humans after hanging himself off Yggdrasil for nine days to study them.
    

The Blackfeet (Niitsitopi) Creation Myth

The Blackfeet or rather the Niitsitopi, have a creation myth that features a character that is known as Napi, the Old Man. It was Old Man who came to the plains who made things the way they were.. THis does not mean that they worshiped Old Man as a god. He was just the one who put things together.
The story goes that Old Man came from the south. He was always creating new things and putting them in their proper place. One instance is when bighorn (elk I believe) used to live in the dessert. Absurd you think? Well so did the Old Man. He moved them to the mountains saying that they suited them better.
As I said before he also created new things. He made mountains, grass even new animals. Afterward he even made people out of clay. Then once he had done that, he taught them how to hunt, build and take care of themselves.
However, not every other deity liked Old Man's fiddling. They often got into fights with him but Old Man's good nature won them over.
He was also a bit of a playful fellow. ONe day after a regular day of creation and arranging, he stood on the top of a mountain and figured that he had done a pretty good job with the place. He decided to have some fun and go sliding down the mountain he was on. The marks that he made on the mountain are still present today. As a result, that mountain is known by Niitsitopi as Old Man's Sliding Ground. IN other words his playground I suppose.
As soon as he finished everythin, the tale says that he went west and that he would return someday to find things very different.

Thoughts on Duality

The Yin-yang. A symbol common to oriental culture. It shows the unity of opposites. How one thing cannot exist without the other. Two opposing forces complete each other, need each other to exist. Yet despite their need of each other, are still opposed to the other.
Forever opposed yet forever united.
One could think of it as a controlled chaos of a sort. A conflicting dance between two people, yet while there is this chaos, there is a lively party and on the whole, an orderliness.
This description may be a bit confusing but if you look at it from the right perspective it makes sense.
Speaking of perspectives, I think its time for me to offer one of mine.
The Yin-yang operates on a theory of balance. In pure nature this works perfectly as nature always tries to maintain a cyclical balance. For everything there is a season, a time to live, a time to die.
As human beings though, we have a tendency to knock things out of whack. There are those of us with some balance of these forces, there are some of us with complete balance and there are those of us who are completely unbalanced. For sentience gives rise to the possibility of evil. Which in turn gives rise to people capable of doing evil purely for the sake of evil. Maybe the converse is true as well but that is a debate for another time.
Because where humans are concerned, the Yin-yang is not a fixed drawing. It ebbs and flows, stays static and chaotic. For very few people does the Yin-yang stay the same but still those people do exist.
In conclusion, in human nature duality is both fixed and flowing. It can be still as a statue or flowing like the aurora.

Analysis of the tale of Eros and Psyche

If myths are a way of telling about the great mysteries of the world, then it should come as no surprise that there are myths that revolve around love. A force that could be considered on par with any one of the great forces of nature. An unpredictable and illogical force of nature at that. THe tale of Eros (aka Cupid) and Psyche mainly revolves around the details of love, trust, forgiveness and love's willingness to go to the ends of the earth to be with the one you love.
Love is a curious thing. It can strike unexpectedly and without warning. Or not strike where you would think it would obviously strike. Like in the beginning of the story. We are introduced to Psyche. The most beautiful of 3 daughters to a great king. Yet despite her beauty and station, she remains unmarried. This could represent that beauty alone does not lead to love. It could even represent Psyche as a beauty so beautiful that all possible suitors consider her out of reach. Making Psyche a rather lonely beauty. Something that could possibly be common today like at a dance or asking a girl out for a date.
Perhaps this is because it is natural for some things to seem unattainable to us all. Like some instinct or human perception ingrained in our minds. Or it could just be that some people are just irrvocably shy.
Moving on to the next part of the story. The relationship between love and trust. When Eros finds that Psyche did not 100% trust him, he fled saying "love cannot live where there is no trust." This is true. At least to an extent. Trust is very much a part of love. It can be kind of scary to think that something so necessary to human nature can revolve around something so fragile as trust. For trust is usually a very fragile thing. It can splinter and crack easily and once broken, can be very hared to repair. Even if it is repaired there is no guarantee that it will be as strong as it once was.
But even so, trust is a part of what makes love special and all the more precious. People have some trouble trusting others. It is a part of human nature. Leading all the way to fears of rejection and betrayal.
I suppose it hurts when you are betrayed by someone who you've let into your heart. It must be painful as evidenced by Eros' flight from the house when Psyche did not believe in him. This leads into the next topic.
After Eros left her, Psyche went on a journey to win Eros' forgiveness. She was truly sorry she doubted him and went through many dangerous trials with just the hope and wish of only to see him again. Many would think going through all those tasks just to see someone would be sheer foolishness. But as the quote goes, "love makes fools of us all."
Eventually, Eros wanted to see Psyche as well. He found her and according to the story, berated her for a little bit. But he had forgiven her the moment he saw her again. That quality is another thing love is unique for, being able to forgive. For love cannot truly live without forgiveness to sustain it through the difficult times. That is what I believe.
So ends what could be considered as one of the worlds first chick flicks.
After all we got romance, plotting in laws,comedy.
And all in all its a bit sappy as well.
But I guess thats just a bit like love I guess.

Unity and love

This is a picture I made using power point. I made it after reading the tale of Eros and Psyche. The triangle with the male and female symbols meeting at the Yin Yang symbolize opposites united in a cosmic scale. The broken heart is mostly just for effect because Eros and Psyche is a love story.

14 Mythological definitions.

Myth: From the Greek Mythos, meaning story. A myth can be described, as many things but are most often a story to explain the world around people. One such story is the myth of Demeter and Persephone.
This myth is also a story that explains how and why we have different seasons.
Hero: A hero is often the focus of most myths. In these myths the hero is usually a force of change in the world. One who brings something new. A good example of such a hero in mythology would be the Greek, Theseus.
Hero Journey: The journey is often a cycle that applies to hero myths. Much like the introduction, climax and resolution of a storybook. The cycle consists of around twelve events, the main events being call to adventure, ultimate battle and resolution.
Universal: To be universal is to regard everything as just one thing. Something that is universal pertains to all.
Archetype: An archetype is a certain model of something. Archetypes appear all the time in mythology, from hero archetypes to creation archetypes. One such example of a hero archetype would be the trickster. Like the African Spider god Anansi.
Cyclical: As in a cycle. Like the cycle of the seasons.

Life out of Death: The concept that life thrives off of or is sustained by death. The Chinese creation myth of Pan Gu is a good example of this concept.
Sacrifice: When the hero needs to give up or let go of something he wants for the good of the people. An example could be when Heracles sacrificed his freedom to perform his twelve labors.
Duality: Duality refers to the relationship of opposites. Forever opposed yet forever united. The Chinese concept of the Yin Yang explains this relationship very well.
Creation: The story of how everything came into being. The beginning of life and the universe.
Patriarchal: Centering around the male. Male dominated.
Matriarchal: Centered around the female. Female dominated.
Creation: How everything began. How the world came into being.
Cosmology: Study of the stars and the cosmos. Ancient form of astronomy.