Explication of my Mythic Coat

A Reminder of Our Shared Story

“The general principle is that the higher up we are, the more clearly we can see the bottom action as a demonic parody of the top” (Frye, 52). Throughout the course of the semester, the underlying theme is how the past possesses the present. Frye takes this concept a step further. I interpret this quote as meaning that the further each of us is from an event in our own lives, we can see more and more clearly that the present is merely a twisted displacement of previous episodes in our lives. This theme has been alluded to in every text we have read, “In my beginning is my end” (Eliot).

As I thought about this idea introduced most poignantly by Frye, I could not shake the idea that we, each individual human, is carrying with them a metaphorical coat. We carry a coat of all the shared stories of our earth, and of our ancestors, and stories from every corner of the globe. Similarly, we wear our own personal coats. Coats that mimic these shared stories of our collective past. We can now, being higher up, see our actions as parodies of those stories before, and below. Our coats reflect our personal histories, and how they are embroidered upon us, reminding us that we are indeed reliving a demonic parody. The coat that I have chosen to make is representative of our shared stories. But, is equally a my own story, as the way I have chosen to express these stories so clearly shows influences from my own life.

I have always been interested in fiber arts and textiles, and this manifests itself in a variety of ways including sewing, quilting, knitting, felting, spinning yarn, and weaving, just to name a few. The history of textiles is rich, and integrally connected to myths and stories from all over the world. The English word “text” comes from the Latin word for weaving, texare. This explains common phrases such as “weaving a story”. Though there are countless stories involving fiber, I will name only a few. Neith was an Egyptian goddess of weaving, and also the mighty aid of war. Penelope wove by day, and unraveled her beautiful work by night as to avoid marrying one of the suitors. Saule was the life-affirming Baltic sun goddess, who spun sunbeams with the spinning wheel. Working with fiber has been a part of myth throughout time, and from all over the world. By creating my own coat, I wove myself into the larger story.

Though an insignificant piece of the puzzle, I have taken my role in a tale much bigger than my own. And, each story of each weaver is indeed a displacement of those that came before.

The coat itself appears to be jumbled, or lacking in consistent theme. This was intentional, as it is not the plot or storyline of each of these myths that tie them together. Rather, the theme of how they each story has been displaced in various examples discussed in class. We have read in class a different demonic parody of each of these stories, many of which have been displaced multiple times, by many different authors. It is not the story that binds the coat together, but rather the displacements of these stories.

I will not discuss in detail each of the images depicted on the coat, as I am assuming that each member of the class is familiar with these myths. The hood of the jacket is covered in snakes, just as on the head of the feared Medusa. On the rear of the coat I have shown Icarus, flying too close to the sun. His feathers lay strewn across the coat. Below his remains, a quince tree dominates the back of the jacket. (Quinces have appeared in high frequencies in my life as of late. As noted above, though this coat shows the communal stories, it also serves as my own story as told through those of the past.) The tree can be interpreted as that of the Garden of Eden, or the tree of life, and is easily appropriated to a number of stories. The Tree is what bridges the higher to the lower, the living to the dead, the earth and the underworld. The underworld is shown on the front side of the coat. Here I have placed the lyre of Orpheus, and the pomegranate of Persephone.

We are displacement. We are the demonic parody. And we must carry coats to remind us as such. We wear the shared stories, and through them, we are reminded that our stories are not really our own.

Dream #4

I will omit the details for your sake. 

I had a dream last night in which I was walking along the beach and found a mummified person washed up ashore. I unwrapped her gauze and was startled to find a living breathing girl beneath the bandages. She was a nameless porn-star who became my best friend and lover. Long story short: we lived happily ever after. 

The end.  

Coincidence

I had found myself in a daze, time had slipped beyond my grasp. I was unsure how long I had been in these woods, these familiar woods. The snowy mountains towered around me, yet the sun warmed the rocks and soil beneath my hammock. The smell of opium hung thick in the air; a blanket of perfumed smoke. Had I been here for days, or weeks, or months? I could not muster the care to wonder.

Moses had found me when I needed him most. Looking up at his tall slender figure, I attempted to deduce whether or not he was the prophet Moses. He looked exactly the way I would have expected the prophet Moses to have looked. A tall, skinny, Iranian man. His tangled mat of hair graces his skinny waist, and his formidable beard must have been more than a foot long. I later learned that he had not bathed in over ten years. Moses found me, he slipped his hand into mine. He spoke in Farsi, sweet and dark. I let him into my hammock, and he sucked me into his hole. A hole where the tea was bitter with poppy seeds, and the beautiful blur of Farsi whirling thorough my ears. 

Eventually, my vision cleared. It had indeed been weeks. I had to leave, to not come back. I had let myself get lost in this alternate world; a world where my troubles were left behind as soon as I found myself in these woods. The paradox of extreme introspection, juxtaposed with the complete ignorance of my own life. I had no connection to these people. I had no phone, no way of using the Internet, no method of bridging my life with that of Moses again. 

Home was about a 16 hours drive from those woods where I had left Moses about a month prior. My life had returned to the typical monotony familiar to me. But, walking down a street one day, in a city of approximately 20 million people, I literally ran into him. I saw Moses. His lanky legs, his dready hair, his deep dark eyes and prominent nose. And once again, I found myself sucked into his hole. 

What a coincidence.

P.s.

I later found that these men were all involved in the Iranian mafia. They were traveling with fake passports; transporting benzene oil from Iran to Pakistan, and bringing opium from Pakistan back to Iran. 

Dream #3

I was planning on going to the library tomorrow morning, though, like many mornings I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep.

But, after returning to sleep I had a dream that I woke up in order to take a shower. I walked out of my bedroom and saw a shower of something. I tried to turn on the kitchen light, and then the living room lights; they would not turn on. In the dark and creepy corners of my kitchen, I saw something lurking. It took the shape of a bird. The bird flew to me, flapping in my face. It pecked me hard in the back of my head. Suddenly, there were tons of birds, flapping all around me and pecking at my head. Rain slapped against the dreary windows. And, with one heavy peck on the head, I awoke. 

Expunged of personhood and knit back together again

We were asked in class to attempt to assemble and reassemble ourselves. relieve ourselves of all of our beliefs.

This complete disassembly of my beliefs happened to me in a profound manner whilst experimenting with the powerful hallucinogen DMT. These things are incredibly difficult to put into words. When one gains access to the realm of the forms, even if it is only glancing through this analogical window, it is not an experience easily verbalized. 

I was stripped of myself. Momentarily relieved of all memories, all scraps of Sally that I hold onto when defining what it is to be myself. And then, slowly and rather painfully, as if I were chewing on tinfoil, my own self image creeped back into myself. But it was different. And yet exactly the same. The best way to describe my reassembly is as if an interior designer had entered my mind and completely redesigned my insides, but using only the materials that were already at hand. All of the contents were the same, and yet the room they resided in looked completely different. I had been disassembled and reassembled myself. I had been temporarily relieved of all of my beliefs, not only about myself but about everything else as well. I lay paralyzed, attempting to comprehend my restructured interior. 

It has been two years since my interiors were disassembled, redesigned by some outside source, and assembled back again in a way almost recognizable from the original... And yet exactly the same. And, after two years, I have gained no further access or explanation to what the implications of this dissasembly were. 

I wanted to say in class..

I actually wanted to sing in class.

I was shocked to find out that the majority of my peers have never heard Alice's Restaurant. I wanted so badly to belt out one of my favorite songs. But, alas, I have a terrible voice and I'm too shy to sing in front of people.

So instead I've found a link where you all can watch the movie, which basically just disects and explains the song in great detail, entailing all of the original people to act out the basis of the song again in the form of a film.

But seriously. Watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0jfwlWDgto

Enjoy!

Dream #2: I Swear It's Tuesday

On Monday morning I awoke as usual with the annoying buzzing of my alarm. And, as usual I turned off my annoying alarm and went right back to bed. I had the most vivid dream of waking up and realizing the day was Tuesday, not Monday. And this would all be fine except for the fact that I was supposed to meet with Simon Dixon, and the freshman in my section of Texts and Critics in order to conduct the midterm reviews on Monday afternoon. I was trying to rationalize (in my dream) how I could have possibly missed out on a whole day. The only explaination I could think of is that the previous day I had assumed was a Sunday, so I did not attend classes. In which case, I could conceivable wake up on Tuesday and realize with horror that I had all together missed my Monday.

I awoke from my sleep and first thing started to compose an apologetic email to Simon, attempting to explain how I had accidentally gotten my days all mixed up, and thought that yesterday was Sunday, when it was indeed a Monday, So I thought that today was Monday, when turned out to actually be Tuesday, and therefore I missed all of the responsibilities I was supposed to be doing on the actual Monday. Halfway through the email, I stopped to check my calander. It was Monday. I hadn't skipped Monday, I had not misidentified my Sunday, and it was not at all a Tuesday. It was all just a dream.