Thanks on Thursday

Several things come to mind this week that I am thankful for.

This week we Mahayana Buddhists celebrated the Buddha's enlightenment, known as Bodhi Day, or Rohatsu. Some at a local temple stayed up all night chanting. I had Dharma School.

I am grateful for these clever uses of technology that find second uses for energies that are basically thrown away. This could be the wave of the future of green technology, I think. There are so many ways in which we expend energy that could be captured for reuse.

In Tokyo, the pounding of many commuters' feet will provide the power for the ticket gates and display systems. Elsewhere, the kinetic energy collected by a revolving door will send electricity back to the grid. It may not be a lot, but imagine if every single revolving door collected energy this way. I am grateful too for coffee, which gives many people the energy to get started. The used grounds make great compost and repel ants, and now there is another use: biodiesel. Better than corn or soybean oil, used coffee grounds will not take away from food sources. It also has natural components that act as a preservative, so it will last longer even than petrol diesel. With coffee shops every few blocks, Portland could be a great place for this to take off.

Speaking of Portland, we got a great write-up as a green city at InHabitat. They love our transit system, our bicyclability, the ease with which we can buy local (which they call locavorism), and our green policies. We don't just recycle...our city wants to reach a 75% recycle rate by 2015. I am looking forward to the curbside composting. I am so grateful I live in Portland. And as I told Jason, it's all because of him that I live here, so I'm grateful to and for Jason. If he hadn't got married, and if my first husband hadn't gone to Seattle to attend his wedding, and if Jason hadn't told him that Portland was a more affordable Pacific NW city, I might never have come here.

Reading more Classics

I intend to say more about the book groups on The Iliad and The Odyssey. Murasaki looks forward to more slow shared reads, but I wonder if she's ready for the next one. I'm not sure I am, but one thing about book groups...sometimes you read a book you wouldn't otherwise, and usually you are pleasantly surprised.

I figure I need a month for Moby-Dick. After that, Virgil's Aeneid, also translated by Robert Fagles. I'm going to give that one two weeks, as that's about all I'll have. I seem to recall from my college days it was an easier read than Homer.

I'm kind of interested in the Pop-Up Moby Dick, cover shown here.




My planned schedule:

Moby Dick

• December 21-27: Chapters 1-34
• Dec 28-January 3: Chapters 35-68
• January 4-10: Chapters 69-100
• January 11-17: Chapter 101 to The End

The Aeneid

• January 18-24: Books 1-6
• January 25-31: Books 7-12

So go ahead, reserve your library books and join me. And make comments. If I know you're reading along, I'll be better at keeping to my schedule. The readings are just about the right size for an average bus commute, think about that.

The Odyssey: Books 23, 24

The Great Rooted Bed

Penelope still won't believe. She's too depressed. She just wants to sleeeeep. The old nurse says, "He's the stranger they all manhandled in the hall. Telemachus knew he was here, for days and days." (30-31) For some reason this inspired joy in Penelope, but not for long. She still doubts. Perhaps the stranger is a god. He couldn't possibly be her long-lost husband.

She makes her approach slowly.

One moment he seemed...Odysseus, to the life--
the next, no, he was not the man she knew,
a huddled mass of rags was all she saw. (108-110)

Telemachus scolds his mother for spurning his father. Odysseus lets her be. Letting a wild thing approach you works best, don't they say? That's my metaphor. In Homer, for the most part the men get the wild animal comparisons.

Odysseus, always the tactician, makes plans to avoid avenging relatives. Let people "think it's a wedding-feast that's under way." The two will go to their country estates. Finally the wary Penelope circles closer, offhandedly offering her famous test.

Come, Eurycleia,
move the sturdy bedstead out of our bridal chamber--
that room the master built with his own hands.
Take it out now, sturdy bed that it is. (197-200)

And Odysseus gives the deeply needed correct response.

"Woman--your words, they cut me to the core!
Who could move my bed? Impossible task...
Not a man on earth, not even at peak strength,
would find it easy to prise it up and shift it, no,
a great sign, a hallmark lies in its construction.
I know, I built it myself--no one else...
There was a branching olive-tree inside our court,
grown to its full prime, the bole like a column, thickset.
Around it I built my bedroom... (205-216)

If the tree is the female element, she is certainly quite strong and sturdy. Odysseus molded her to his marriage bed. Bed and home are melded together. His marriage was a strong marriage to survive such a long separation. Does Odysseus now have cause to wonder? Is he teasing her by turning the tables on her?

Does the bed, my lady, still stand planted firm?--
I don't know--or has someone chopped away
that olive-trunk and hauled our bedstead off?
. . Living proof--
Penelope felt her knees go slack, her heart surrender... (228-231)

Now she is convinced. Odysseus weeps. Athena holds back the night to give the two more time. Odysseus tells her of his final labor, of planting an oar where it is mistaken as a winnowing fan, and making his offerings to Poseidon. But first, that rooted bed calls....

Still feeling the afterglow, Odysseus tells her of all his travels and trials. In one night? This took me a month to read! He leaves early in the morning, to see his father.

Peace

The ghosts are making their trip to Hades, led by Hermes. Note to self: a trip to hell is always a good opportunity for a flashback, in kind of a petty way. The ghost of Achilles jabs at Agamemnon: rather than favored by Zeus as they all expected, rather than dying with honor on the battlefield, Aggie was cut down by familial traitors. Aggie says Achilles was the happy man for dying on the battlefield. A litany of the mourning rituals follows.

New ghosts meet old ghosts. Amphimedon tells a very one-sided story of Penelope's trickery with the weaving, and how "just then some wicked spirit brought Odysseus back, from god knows where," and how Odysseus cut them all down, "corpse on corpse in droves." Their bodies are untended, he whines. Agamemnon cuts through all that.

"Happy Odysseus!"
Agamemnon's ghost cried out. "Son of old Laertes--
mastermind--what a fine, faithful wife you won!
What good sense resided in your Penelope--
...The fame of her great virtue will never die.
The immortal gods will lift a song for all mankind,
a glorious song in praise of self-possessed Penelope.
A far cry from the daughter of Tyndareus, Clytemnestra--
what outrage she committed, killing the man she married once!(210 -220)

The dead sure can get caught in an endless loop of self-pity. Or is it only particular ones? How they lived they are in death? Achilles is still arrogant; Agamemnon is still self-involved; the suitor is still sees himself as blameless.

Meanwhile, Odysseus, Telemachus, and the loyal men have reached

Laertes' large, well-tended farm
that the old king himself had wrested from the wilds,
years ago, laboring long and hard. (227-229)

Odysseus approaches his old father. Now it is his turn to hold back, approach slowly.

Debating, head and heart, what should he do now?
Kiss and embrace his father, pour out the long tale--
...or probe him first and test him every way?

Why does he choose to test? What is this compulsion to verify? What is being verified? Odysseus spins another tale, but as soon as he sees Laertes' black cloud of grief he stops.

Odysseus' heart shuddered, a sudden twinge went shooting up
through his nostrils, watching his dear father struggle...
He sprang toward him, kissed him, hugged him, crying,
"Father--I am your son--myself, the man you're seeking,
home after twenty years, on native ground at last.... (356-360)

Ah, perhaps it is not until this moment that Odysseus is really home. It is through his father's love and grief that he can really reach his native ground.

And Athena stood beside him, fleshing out the limbs
of the old commander, made him taller to all eyes,
his build more massive, stepping from his bath,
so his own son gazed at him, wonderstruck--
face-to-face he seemed a deathless god...
"Father"--Odysseus' words had wings--"surely
one of the everlasting gods has made you taller, stronger,
shining in my eyes!" (408 -415)

I think I see a bit of Telemachus in Odysseus now. Like father like son. Fathers and sons.

The vengeful relatives of the suitors arrive, but Athena stops the fighting. She commands,

Break off--shed no more blood--make peace at once!" (585)

So it ends.

Thanks On Thursday: Blog Anniversary

Five years ago today I began writing this blog. My intention was to keep focused on the interesting bits of my life, and not get bogged down with petty details of life that are of no interest to others. I wanted to use it as a platform to explain myself, to show how it is not contradictory to be a Buddhist and a moral person, and to be non-monogamous.

I've loosened up my expectations of myself, using it for these things, but also as a way to remember myself, and to remember what I've done, what I've read, what I've imbibed in entertainment. In that way it has become closer to a journal I suppose, but I still write hoping to keep it interesting to someone else. This technology has even introduced me to a different way to read a book, slowly while blogging with others, so that even the reading voice in my head has changed.

This week I highlight my gratitude for this technology. Email, web, and social networking platforms have allowed me to express myself and to discover some people find my thoughts valuable and wise. This technology has also allowed me and others to make connections to organize in easy streamlined ways. I couldn't take care of a local chapter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship so easily, nor have taken the lead on 5 years of putting together a local Buddhist Festival without this technology. All this would have moved along much more slowly, and perhaps would have fizzled. I couldn't even have rented the other side of our duplex so easily without this technology.

In the 5 years since I began, I have seen polyamory become more known to the mainstream. I think it was able to coalesce as a movement more quickly than similar ones in the past because of this technology. The wisdom of the masses could filtrate more quickly thanks to the ease of connection. The recognition of similar experiences also rose to the surface more quickly thanks to the ease of communication. Because we are not limited by geography, when we are radically different from the public face we aren't so lonely because we find others like us through this technology.

In this five years I've also learned that this blogging thing isn't just a platform to spew myself out there for others to find. It is an expansion of community, and works well when I as a writer recognize it as a dialog, not a monolog. It works well when I recognize the currency of this sphere is that of gifts. Not only do I give intimate pieces of myself for the view of others, if I give my attention to other bloggers with links and comments, they are more likely to give back to me. That is another thing about this technology that I am grateful for: the rediscovery of the currency of gifts.

The Odyssey: Books 21, 22

Odysseus Strings His Bow

How Odysseus got his bow:
As a young man he was sent to Messene to retrieve stolen flocks. He met Iphitus who was there for his stolen mares.

Iphitus gave him the bow his father, mighty Eurytus,
used to wield as a young man, but when he died
in his lofty house he left it to his son.
In turn, Odysseus gave his friend a sharp sword
and a rugged spear to mark the start of friendship,
treasured ties that bind. (36-41)

Heracles killed Iphitus, apparently for the horses.

Penelope announces the test of the bow, and has the swineherd set up the axes. Telemachus tries to string the bow. No go. Poor kid, trying to measure himself against his father. Man after man tries the bow. None can string it. Meanwhile Odysseus takes the loyal swine and cow herds outside. Would they fight beside Odysseus, should the man miraculously show up. Of course. So O reveals his identity, using the identifiable scars from the boar. He promises them wives and houses, and they would be comrades of Telemachus. They solidify their plans. When the time comes, Eumaeus will bring the bow to Odysseus.

There's an awful lot of suitors, and none of them can measure up to Odysseus. Eurymachus is concerned none of them will.

"Eurymachus," Euphithus' son Antinous countered,
"it will never come to that, as you well know.
Today is a feast-day up and down the island
in honor of the Archer God. Who flexes bows today?
Set it aside. Rest easy now. (286-290)

He calls for a break. Odysseus uses the moment.

For the moment
give me the polished bow now, won't you? So,
to amuse you all, I can try my hand, my strength... (313-315)

Penelope supports the beggar's bid to try the bow, accepting he would not be doing it for her hand. Telemachus, suddenly the manly one, bids her leave, he's the man of the house, he'll take care of it. Eumaeus delivers the bow, and sends the nurse and the women to their rooms as planned.

...they mocked, but Odysseus, mastermind in action,
once he'd handled the great bow and scanned every inch,
then, like an expert singer skilled at lyre and song--
...so with his virtuoso ease Odysseus strung his might bow.
Quickly his right hand plucked the string to test its pitch
and under his touch it sang out clear and sharp as a swallow's cry.
Horror swept through the suitors, faces blanching white,
and Zeus cracked the sky with a bolt, his blazing sign... (451-460)

Well it's all over now for the suitors.

Slaughter in the Hall

Antinous is the first, gruesome and dramatic. Eurymachus the second, Amphinomous the third, and the rest, named and unnamed. Just to make it interesting, the traitorous goatherd figures out where they hid the arms, and brings some out to the usurpers. Odysseus orders him strung up, which the swine and cowherds do. Athena in the form of Mentor joins them.

And now Athena, looming ou tof the rafters high above them,
brandished her man-destroying shield of thunder, terrifying
the suitors out of their minds, and down the hall they panicked--
wild, like herds stampeding, driven mad as the darting gadfly
strikes in the late spring when the long days come round.
The attackers struck like eagles, crook-clawed, hook-beaked,
swooping down from a mountain ridge to harry smaller birds
that skim across the flatland, cringing under the clouds
but the eagles plunge in fury, rip their lives out--hopeless,
never a chance of flight or rescue--and people love the sport--
so the attackers routed suitors headlong down the hall... (311-321)

Just like the portents.

Phemius the bard pleads for his life...he was forced to sing. Telemachus agrees he is innocent, as well as the herald Medon. Leodes the seer was not so blessed. Then it's time for clean-up. Odysseus puts Telemachus in charge, and has the old nurse cull out the disloyal women.

She found Odysseus in the thick of slaughtered corpses,
splattered with bloody filth like a lion that's devoured
some ox of the field and lopes home, covered with blood,
his chest streaked, both jaws glistening, dripping red--
a sight to strike terror. So Odysseus looked now... (426-430)

In the face of all that, the nurse would cheer in triumph...not faint of heart, that old girl. Once the cleanup is done, Telemachus and the men are to take the women out back and hack them with their swords. Interestingly, this is what Telemachus does:

...taking a cable used on a dark-prowed ship
he coiled it over the roundhouse, lashed it fast to a tall column,
hoisting it up so high no toes could touch the ground.
Then, as doves or thrushes beating their wings
against some snare rigged up in thickets--flying in
for a cozy nest but a grisly bed receivs them--
so the women's heads were trapped in a line,
nooses yanking their necks up, one by one
so all might die a pitiful, ghastly death...
they kicked up heels for a little--not for long (491-500)

I wonder, is that significant that he chooses a different way to kill them? Is the means of killing symbolic? Or is he just tired of cleaning up bloody messes, and this will be neater?

Finally, Odysseus cleanses the house with fire and smoke.

The Odyssey: Books 18, 19, 20

The Beggar-King of Ithaca

Arnaeus aka Irus the tramp picks a fight with Odysseus the beggar. Bad move. The suitors enjoy the prospect of a smack-down, but don't expect the stranger to win. He gets the prize, food and a chance to sit inside.

Odysseus takes the opportunity to find out if there are any loyal men. One catches his attention, and we get a glimpse inside Odysseus' mind, possibly. He says:

"Amphinomous, you seem like a man of good sense to me.
...Listen. Listen closely.
Of all that breathes and crawls across the earth,
our mother earth breeds nothing feebler than a man.
So long as the gods grant him power, spring in his knees,
he thinks he will never suffer affliction down the years.
But then, when the happy gods bring on the long hard times,
berate them he must, against his will, and steel his heart.
Our lives, our mood and mind as we pass across the earth,
turn as the days turn...
as the father of men and gods makes each day dawn.
I too seemed destined to be a man of fortune once
and a wild wicked swath I cut, indulged my lust for violence,
staking all on my father and my brothers.
Look at me now.
And so, I say, let no man ever be lawless all his life,
just take in peace what gifts the gods will send... (149-163)

Athena fans the flames and prods Penelope to mix it up.

Forcing a laugh, she called her maid: "Eurynome,
my spirit longs--though it never did till now--
to appear before my suitors, loathe them as I do.

Heh. And those suitors said she led them on. Teased them, made them do all they did. Yeah.

Penelope says Odysseus said she should marry someone else if he does not return before her boy's beard grows in. Clearly she doesn't wish to marry any of these men. They are loathsome and uncouth, "a far cry from the time-honored way". Why, real suitors give bride-gifts, don't eat her out of her home. Odysseus sends the maids after her, saying he'll tend the torches. Melantho reveals herself as a bad maid.

Penelope and Her Guest

The suitors gone for the night, Telemachus and Odysseus stow the weapons. Melantho is bitchy toward the stranger again, and Odysseus scolds her. So does Penelope. Pene tells O of her weaving scheme. Tit for tat, she wants news from him. Odysseus spins yet another story, that he's from Crete, and was there when Odysseus was on his way to Troy.

The way he describes himself, I think he's trying to torment his wife. He did say he was testing her.

I noticed his glossy tunic too, clinging to his skin
like the thin glistening skin of a dried onion,
silky, soft, the glint of the sun itself.
Women galore would gaze on it with relish. (267-270)

Hmmm...it left nothing to the imagination. It's nice to know women were recognized to have a sex drive, even if noblewomen had little say about what they did with it.

He tells her Odysseus is coming home soon. Despite his convincing story, Penelope still won't believe it. Dare not, I suppose. She has Odysseus' old nurse give him a bathe. Eurycleia recognizes him by his scar "made years ago by a boar's white tusk."

We learn how Odysseus got his name. His mother's father,

...Just as I
have come from afar, creating pain for many--
men and women across the good green earth--
so let his name be Odysseus...
the Son of Pain, a name he'll earn in full. (460-464)

This other translation has it as "Lo, inasmuch as I am come hither as one that has been angered with many..."

Just about a hundred lines pass in an instant, in the nurse's memory. Then, Odysseus warns her to keep quiet about his identity. His nurse assures him she can tell which women are traitors, but he says he can tell.

Now clean, Penelope resumes her grilling of the stranger, and asks for his interpretation of her dream. (Yet another sign of lesser birds killed by an eagle.) Odysseus interprets it as the other seers interpret it...her husband will return and destroy the suitors. Penelope still won't believe it. She's been down so long.

And now she shares the test she has devised for the suitors: the one who can shoot Odysseus' bow through 12 axes, he will win the bride.

Portents Gather

Off in the entrance-hall the great king made his bed,
spreading out on the ground the raw hide of an ox,
heaping over it the fleece from the sheep the suitors
butchered day and night, then Eurynome threw
a blanket over him, once he'd nestled down. (1-5)

I've got just one thing to say about that. Eewww. Stinky. But then that is a perfect spot for him to see just which women "whored in the suitors' beds each night." Odysseus holds his rage in check.

Early in the morning Odysseus asks Zeus for a sign, and "he thundered at once." (111) After all the help from Athena, and hearing all those other signs, he still needs a sign? Maybe it's protocol, to send a prayer before battle.

The swineherd returns, and has a warm greeting for the disguised Odysseus. The goatherd returns, and has only insults. Enter the cowherd Philoetius. He is of the swineherd's ilk. He only stays on, enduring the usurpers, because to leave would be disloyal to Odysseus' son.

Telemachus has definitely developed a bristly manner with the suitors. It's all he can do to hold back, I'll bet. Of course Antinous, the brawn not brains leader, sneers.

"Fighting words, but do let's knuckle under--
to our prince. Such abuse, such naked threats!
But clearly Zeus has foiled us. Or long before
we would have shut his mouth for him in the halls,
fluent and flowing as his is." (300-304)

Right at this point while reading a bee landed on my open book. I couldn't help but wonder, is this a portent? What would a bee signify?

T's bristly voice comes to clarity:

But no more of your crimes against me, please!
Unless you're bent on cutting me down, now.
and I'd rather die, yes, better that by far
than have to look on at your outrage day by day:
guests treated to blows, men dragging the serving-women
through our noble house, exploiting them all, no shame!"
Dead quiet. The suitors all fell silent, hushed.

Telemachus' guest Theoclymenus enters and sees another portent.

Night shrouds your heads, your faces, down to your knees--
cries of mourning are bursting into fire--cheeks rivering tears--
the wall and the handsome crossbeams dripping dank with blood!
Ghosts, look, thronging the entrance, thronging the court,
go trooping down to the world of death and darkness!
The sun is blotted out of the sky--look there--
a lethal mist spreads all across the earth!" (392-398)

Awesome! The suitors jeer. I have yet another vision of a retelling of this book through Telemachus' view. There could be something more between these two, something not said in the lines of Odysseus, some adventure that bonds them and makes them so loyal to each other. This would be a great book for teens...the whole finding dad, fighting alongside dad, but feeling inadequate next to dad thing. A great coming of age story.

That reminds me of some lines from Book 19. Boy sees a sign of the gods, and Odysseus shushes him.

. ...Pallas Athena strode before them,
lifting a golden lamp that cast a dazzling radiance round about.
"Father," Telemachus suddenly burst out to Odysseus,
"oh what a marvel fills my eyes! Look, look there--
all the sides of the hall, the handsome crossbeams,
pinewood rafters, the tall columns towering--
all glow in my eyes like flaming fire!
Surely a god is here--
one of those who rule the vaunting skies!"

"Quiet," his father, the old soldier, warned him.
"Get a grip on yourself. No more questions now.
It's just the way of the gods who rule Olympus.
Off you go to bed. I'll stay here behind
to test the women, test your mother too.

Back to Book 20. There was the portent...here's the prophecy:

. Oh I can see it now--
the disaster closing on you all! There's no escaping it,
no way out--not for a single on of you suitors,
wild reckless fools, plotting outrage here... (410-413)

Portents, prophecies...can we get on with the action already?