Wikipedia Trails: Kali to Deportation...

Kali: I started with Kali because I just finished learning about her secret from the 7 Secrets of the Goddesses Youtube videos. I liked looking at how she is worshiped differently in different places, especially her maternal form in the Bangali tradition.

The Caravans- Gypsy camp near Arles
Van Gogh painting (1888)
Sourc: Wikipedia

Saint Sarah: There are scholars who claim that this French catholic saint is in fact a form of Kali worship in the western world, brought to France by the Romani. I'm not sure this is true as the Romani seemed to adopt her as their patron saint after she was in France and she is Egyptian. But it is interesting to think how religions can mix so easily and blur lines.

Romani: The Romani people have always fascinated because when I was kid they would be mentioned in books, and I never understood who exactly they are (Where do they come from? What religion are they? Where are they now?). I always thought they were from Eastern Europe (Romani, Romania/Rome, not so crazy), so imagine my surprise to learn they are originally from India! I should have done more research on this a long time ago...

Deportation of Roma migrants from France: France enforced deportation of Romani people in just 2009! Less than a decade ago France is still trying to stop the flow of Romani people entering the country. I think it's amazing how we don't hear about this, and I associate discrimination against Romani a fixture of the 19th century and before in France and ending with the Holocaust.

Review: Helmets and Creative Juices

Tuesday May 1 Announcement

I thought that this little PSA was absolutely adorable. I love when you get to see a culture update their own ancient myths and legends. Last semester, I started following Buzzfeed India which gives me the modern side of India today. Now I am in this class in which I focus primarily on ancient India. This video was like if Buzzfeed and Indian Epics had a baby.

Thursday May 3 Announcement

This image is so me. When it comes to creative writing (not prompted from school in any way), I have to be in the absolute perfect mood to actually write. I want to get better at this, but for now, yeah, I need this perfect environment. 

Extra Reading: 7 Secrets of the Goddess, Part C

Illustration of Kali
Source: Wikipedia

For this part, I watched the three videos of Kali's secrets. This was difficult to keep up with, specifically the first video, because of all the Kali'like goddesses and stories. I got confused which stories were actually Kali's and which were similar to her, or ones they are unsure about.

Kali sounds really great to me. She doesn't care about humanity, which is very me more and more every day. She is going to do what nature declares she should, and society can't scare her off.

The most interesting part to me that I would like to learn more about is the Kali encounters. The video mentions a writer who encountered Kali and this encounter inspired him to become a writer of beautiful poetry. I don't associate ancient poetry as something that doesn't care about humanity. Most poets care about nature in how it relates to humans. Also, i would like to meet Kali as long as she doesn't kill me.

Gaia's Secrets: Pattanaik, Seven Secrets of the Goddesses 2016

Week 15 Story: Feminine Feelings?

Kyle was a cool guy. In high school he was the star quarterback, but he gave it up to focus on academics in college. He didn't need the football scholarship anyway. His dad's construction company could pay tuition, fees, fraternity dues, and basically anything else Kyle could need. Sometimes when he was running low on cash, he could ask his mom for a little deposit from the Lipstick Fairy. At least that's what she called it since it all came from her running the state's largest makeup distributor. Sometimes though, he had to work odd jobs so he didn't have to explain why he was short on cash after buying some Mary Jane. That wasn't fun walking his fraternity brothers dogs sometimes.

But overall, Kyle didn't have to worry about too much, and in fact, he didn't care about too much. He didn't know what was happening outside of his campus and he wasn't bothered by his limited worldview. He just wanted to hang out, have a good time, and live a good life. He wasn't hurting anybody, and nobody was hurting him.

One night, his fraternity hosted a house party. Kyle could only party until midnight until he had to sober up. He had a family function to be at in the morning. It was hard to leave such a rager, but sometimes life was hard for Kyle.

The poor guy had only a few hours of sleep before there was a pounding at the door. He ignored it the first few times, thinking it must be some drunk guy thinking it was his room.

"Kyle, open up dude!" He got up from his bed and opened the door to see his fraternity big in the doorway with no shirt on. "Listen, I just hooked up with this girl, but now she's crying and she won't leave. Will you get rid of her?"

Kyle didn't want to. No one wants to deal with some overly emotional drunk girl. But he owed his friend one. Kyle walked down the hall to his friend's room and saw a girl putting on her clothes, her appearance in complete disarray. She was drying her tears with the sleeve of her hoodie when she got the chance.

"Hey, I'm gonna walk you out." Better not to give a girl an option, he thought.

She followed silently. They got to the curb, and Kyle was about to turn back and go to the house.

"Can you stay with me while I wait for my uber? I just really don't want to be alone right now."

He didn't want to, but he shrugged indifferently, nodded, and stayed next to her.

Oh no, he thought. She's crying again.

"Sorry, I just can hardly stop. I checked my phone after we... well. I got a text from my brother. Our dog passed away. I've had that dog since I was 7. I just can't believe he's gone."

Kyle stared at her for a little bit, and then looked back at the road. He could remember when he lost his dog a few years ago. It was awful. I guess she's not just drunk, he thought.

Kyle tried to take his chance to leave. "Well I should really be going..."

"I'll never forget," she continued, "playing with him when he was a puppy. My friend Layla came over and he wouldn't stop chewing on her curly, red hair!"

Girl with curly red hair
Source: pexels

"That's funny," Kyle said, "Mys sister Layla has curly red hair."

"Layla Turner?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"She was my best friend when we were kids! But we grew apart when your family moved."

Kyle didn't say anything, but now he was thinking of his little sister, only a freshman in college this year. He pictured her at age 7, playing innocently with a puppy dog. Then he pictured her left alone and disheveled on the dirty floor of a fraternity house after she received heartbreaking news.

"How far is your uber?"

"10 more minutes," she said.

"Come with me. I'll go get my keys and take you home."

She followed him silently back into the house. He wasn't going to let an upset girl go home by herself.


Author's Note: Based on the story from the "7 Secrets of the Goddesses" in which the Buddha doesn't allow women into monastic orders. It is only when he sees his mother crying over his father's death that he can recognize women are also people with feelings and emotions that merit acknowledgement. In my story, Kyle doesn't recognize the legitimacy of a young woman's feelings until he can see his sister in her. He realizes he wouldn't want his sister to ever be in a similar situation.
When hearing the story about the Buddha, it made me think of current feminist movements right now like the MeToo movement. Men often say "I'm a feminist because I want my mother/sister/female cousin to be treated right". "Rape is wrong because I wouldn't want my sister to be raped." To me that is such a pointless perspective. Men should hate rape and inequality because women are humans. But for Kyle, like the Buddha, he has to be confronted by the legitimacy of women's emotions to accept it.

Gaia's Secrets: Pattanaik, Seven Secrets of the Goddesses 2016

Reading Week 15: 7 Secrets of the Goddesses, Part B

Mask of Agamemnon
Wikipedia

Part 3 of this first chapter of videos, Gaia's Secret, discusses how obedience became the most important value of a woman and that she was dehumanized to no longer be a human, but the symbol of a man's (whomever she belonged to) honor. I think the best example the video gives is of the story of Agamemnon, his wife, and their son. The wife kills Agamemnon and his mistress when she finds them together. In revenge, the son kills the mother. Athena, goddess of wisdom, saves him from the furies and says what he did was right. Matricide is ok in this patriarchal society because the mother belongs to the man of the house (her son) who must keep his women obedient before the ties of family or justice. 

In the fourth video, the author describes how mythologies and religions around the world lack strong, important feminine characters. Often, if women are at all included, they are delicate or a punishment. The author talked about how Buddha refused to allow women into the monastic orders. he only began to consider it when he saw his mother cry at the death of his father. It took him watching his mother crying to realize that women have emotions too... some wise man he was. I don't want to offend anyone, and every religion has problematic views of women, but this story of how Buddha didn't not see women as people with feelings for too long was very striking to me. 

Gaia's Secrets: Pattanaik, Seven Secrets of the Goddesses 2016

Week 12 Reading: 7 Secrets of the Goddesses, Part B

These videos were a little hard to follow at first. Not because I wasn't reading, they thankfully had many of the lines on the screen and spoke at a pace that this visual learner could keep up with. However, they had so many different points to make and used so many different stories from around the ancient world to make these points that it got confusing. I found myself thinking "Ok we are in India. No wait, we're talking about Persia now. Wait, Greece was matriarchal? I don't think that's true... dang it I missed something about Nepal!" I had to watch the first half of the first video twice just to get into the swing of things.

These first two stories highlighted the role of gender in ancient societies (into the 19th century) and how that was represented in stories of goddesses. the first video talked about how these women had agency of their body. They could go from man to man freely and chose their lovers. There was really no reproductive need for a less than perfect man, but women are necessary for reproduction.

Nepali Women
Wikipedia

However the second video showed how that was turned on its head when people were settling down, planting farms and men took over everything. All women had left was their bodies and sex. The story talked about how women became whores which went from something positive and liberating to a pejorative term. Marriage laws were enacted to keep women's number of lover restricted to 4 or as little as one, her husband. The choice and liberation of the early human civilizations were being stripped from women.

The story I found the most unsettling was the story of the Nepali girls who were "sacred": deukis. Men could sleep with them to be "cured" of illnesses. It reminded me of the Vestal Virgins, but instead of remaining chaste to be sacred, these women are forced to have sex because they are sacred.

Gaia's Secrets: Pattanaik, Seven Secrets of the Goddesses 2016

Reading Week 15: The Indian Storybook, Part A

My favorite story between the Sacred Cow and the Richyashringa was the Sacred Cow story. I liked the theme of too much good being a bad thing. the king was too generous and kind that the peace was too much, he needed an army. He needed to beat someone up. The king was depressed and so a goddess filled his life with laughter, but too much laughter becomes a source of "woe". 

A very ugly cow
flickr

I think that it is to say the only person deserving of a cow that can provide for all your needs is a sage hermit. No one, especially no one with power such as a king, should have a sacred cow, it would be too much good. 

The Sacred Cow. Wilson. Indian Story Book (1914).