Week 10, Famous Last Words

Well this week I only had time for the second reading, which was much shorter than the first.  Something that I’ve noticed and from Claire’s posts I see that she has too, there seems to be a rather gendered view on the Indian Epics.  The stories I’ve read about women have always been about them as a wife,  as a mother, or something similar and less spectacular.  The only power they seem to have in their lives is how to take themselves away from their husbands by dying such as Sati and Sita, both married to powerful men, both giving their bodily forms up for their husbands.

This week I don’t really think I wrote anything spectacular.  I have neither the time nor the patience to sit down and allow the words to come flowing from my brain, through my hands, and onto paper or computer.  I generally don’t even have time to do the extra-credit work, but this week I got a little pep in my step and so now I’m doing extra-credit, which seems to be my best work this week.  I actually tried to sit down and do a little fantasy writing as a relaxation exercise, but I couldn’t get my head into it because I always feel the pressure of homework lingering over my head.  I always have this sneaky feeling that I’m forgetting to do something and even when I’m not in school I feel it too!

Well I’m only in three classes this semester and frankly it’s been really hard of late to leave my happy little home, drive the hour to get to class, and then actually attend class.  That’s one of the reasons I love this class so much, I don’t have to worry about my attendance.  I just do the homework; do the projects, all in my chair in my front room while watching something like Property Brothers or Fixer Upper.  So therefore I find it hard to show up to class and even harder to get my mind going for these classes where it seems like I’m studying the same things over and over again.  I guess I’m a lot less focused than I use to be.  Also it’s really hard to come up with an ethical essay and I think it’ll be really hard to come up with a fifteen page paper on one!

Something that I’ve noticed on Facebook here recently is the issue about the police officer arresting the young woman at the high school when she failed to comply with the teachers.  I think it’s complete crap he was fired, I think it’s complete crap that he was even called into the classroom in the first place, and I think the whole situation is complete crap.  Yes the girl was distressed from the loss of her mother and grandmother, but that does not give her the right to strike a police officer and ignore school policies and teachers.  She should not have resisted at all when the police officer tried to remove her from the room and he did not throw her.  Anyone who has tried to throw someone from that angle knows exactly how impossible that is.  The whole situation is completely out of context, and should never have happened if the teachers had taken the appropriate steps in the first place.  A police officer should not have been fired over this.  She was 17-18 years old and she knows how she is suppose to act. The End.

police officer

Week 10, Reading Feedback

Okay so this week I chose Sister Nivedita's stories about Shiva from her books "Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists" and "Cradle Tales".  Out of these I actually only read a partial part of the first one and all of the second book.  I felt really intimidated by the amount of stories in the "Myths" book which is why I didn't read it as well, I felt like it was hard to get it in all in one day.

One thing I noticed was that in the story "Tiger-footed" the characters name was never mentioned, neither was the real name of the place where he sought worship to Shiva, I think these are important so I actually looked it up and ended up doing my storytelling piece on it.

I think one of the biggest problems I had with these readings was the format, I have sort of bad eyes and it was hard to read in the format of a book that's online.  I end up having to zoom way in and then it's not like flipping through an actual book, and you never know how long a story is unless you just click through to the end first.  I like knowing how many pages I'm going to read.  I like the format of Project Gutenberg the best.

tiger

Week 10, Storytelling, Tiger-footed

Kaal was born in a small cottage, barely kept up against the ravages of time, located near the banks of a once beautiful river.  In this time, modern amenities rarely still worked and the fitted clothing of the old ones was wearing thin and gave way to the rougher homespun clothing of the new generation.  The sprawling cities were covered in the overgrown and untrimmed plants, and the concrete roads were all cracked and uneven.  Smoke clung to the clouds and the rain, when it came, was often very acidic.

Kaal was born strong and his mind beheld great wisdom, even for a person so young as he.  He used his young years and energy to learn the ways of his father, the local sage.  He meditated for long hours, and in the early hours of the morning he presented flowers to the shrine that was located on the roof.  During the great shortage, many people turned to Shiva for hope and worship, he was the great answer.  A simple god that was not only the creator, but also the destroyer, he controlled their destinies.  With this worship people hoped that the Earth would once again have clear skies, beautiful fields, and sweet rivers and oceans that ran clear and clean.

Kaal devoted himself to this god and spent all his waking hours learning more about him and when finally he learned all that his father knew he asked, “Father, I wish with all my heart to worship Shiva in the purest way possible, but I am distracted here. There are too many people and I am young, where can I go to worship the great god?”

His father was so proud of Kaal and, with that pride, prepared him for a journey to the pool of light. A place untouched by time and people, the best place to worship Shiva.  So Kaal left his people and his little cottage and came to the greatest place left on Earth and each day he would lay flowers in the waters of the pool and keep it clean from pollution and secret from other humans.  Unfortunately Kaal was not as supremely happy as he thought he should be, but he couldn’t help but think that there were better flowers for the pool that he couldn’t reach with his own hands. 

He prayed every day to Shiva, continued to lavish the pool of light, and asked again and again to be granted the ability to provide Shiva with the best flowers.  Then one day he woke up and realized he was changed.  His hands had turned into claws, his eyesight was six times stronger, and his feet became more powerful like those of a tiger.  With these new abilities he without flaw gathered the best flowers for Shiva and continued to worship him unfaltering the rest of his days.

tiger

Author’s note:

While I didn’t mention this story in my reading diary, however I found it interesting in labeling the saints of Shiva.  This saint was called “Tiger-footed” due to Shiva granting him a boon so that he could reach the best flowers for Shiva’s pond.  The story is much the same and Kaal’s name is really much longer, it is “Pulikaalmuni.”  This was from Sister Nivedita’s book “Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists.”  I wanted to use the setting of a slightly post-apocalyptic world to change it up a little bit and give it a little more interest.

Week 10, Reading Diary A, Shiva

This week, following the reading guide that I made for myself, I read Nivedita's Cradle Tales on Shiva.

Shiva, The Great God.
This story really describes how Shiva looks, the beggar in simple clothes holding his beggar bowl and trident.  He is in eternal meditation up on his mountain peak in the Himalayas with his one possession , his old bull, Nandi.  His role as the creator and the destroyer, two sides of one stone. He welcomes the disabled, crippled, hunchback, and he wears the rejected snakes upon his neck.

Sati, The Perfect Wife.
This is another version of the story of Sati, Shiva's wife.  This one was quite different from Devee's version because in this one, Shiva offends Duksha before he is married to Sati and when Sati marries Shiva, Duksha tells her to never return.  However she does return for the worship party and kills herself in shame of her father, which is much the same.  Vishnu saves the world by chopping up Sati's corpse so that Shiva would return to his deep meditations.

The Tale of Uma Himavutee.

This is the tale of Sati reborn.  Sati is reborn as the princess Uma daughter of the great king of the himalayas, whose love for Shiva is why Uma chose him as her father.  Uma was very beautiful and once again thought only of Shiva for her husband.  The gods even tried to help her in that the god Love shot Shiva with an arrow infused with love and desire.  But Uma's beauty alone could not make the great god forget Sati and therefore she went to a hermitage, wore simple clothing, and ate little food and with this sacrifice Shiva finally came for her.

Shiva