Pegasus

Myths, symbolism, and folklore
Pegasus: The familiar animal symbol for poetic inspiration acquired this association only in the modern era, although it is clearly grounded in ancient myth, where the wondrous horse was said to have opened up the Hippocrene spring on Mount Helicon (the mountain of the muses) by stamping his hooves.

Winged horses appear in many Old World fairy tales. Pegasus was said to have sprung from the torso of the beheaded gorgon Medusa. The hero Bellerophon tamed the wild creature with the help of a bridle provided by the goddess Athena; riding on Pegasus, Bellerophon was able to defeat the fearsome chimera.

Mythologists associate Pegasus with the sea (originally following Poseidon) or with the lightning that bolts across the sky. Symbologically speaking, he combines the vitality and strength of a horse with the weightlessness (and freedom from terrestrial concerns) of a bird; thus it was only natural that Pegasus should later come to symbolize the indomitable poetic spirit overcoming the impediments of the world. The figure of Pegasus illustrates the favorable aspect of the horse in the mythic tradition; the animal's darker side is frequently visible in the myths of the centaurs. (Biedermann)

Myths, folklore & symbolism
copper: among some African peoples it is a comprehensive symbol of light, life, and things efficacious, such as the word or sperm. In alchemy there is a correspondence between copper and the planet Venus, whose nature is described as warm and moist, feminine, and conducive to beauty, leisure, and sensual pleasure. (Herder)

Hooray!

This is actually only through the end of Act 2, so lots more to write here - National Novel Finishing Month (AKA December) will be great!

So, two novels and a novella complete, and two novels halfway done (this and Oleanna). Pretty good for someone who told herself she couldn't write fiction five years ago. I shall buckle down over the next two months and get both of the WIP finished. Feeling pretty accomplished at the moment!

Now, off to the day job. Hope you're all having a fantastic morning!

Myths, symbolism, and folklore
bath: In a positive sense, it is a place of cleansing, renewal, and rebirth, as well as - in alchemy - a place of mystical union. In a negative sense, the bath - especially a warm bath - is the sign of growing soft, of luxury, and a place of unchaste pleasures of the flesh. In many cultures the bath is closely connected with rituals (i.e., washing away all sins). In antiquity even statues of the gods were ceremoniously bathed as a sign of the renewal of the relationship between gods and humans. (Herder)

Myths, folklore & symbolism

"This sign represents the moon in the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system. The alchemists have used it to mean the moon and, turned on its side...to mean silver. "

Get the full story at symbols.com.

The awesome journal Behind the Wainscot now has a spiffy new website. Check it out!

The Word-Hoard: fluppy, nupson, and zounderkite

This week's word-hoard feature: fluppy, nupson, and zounderkite.

I invite you to listen in and leave me a comment with your creative use of each week's word-hoard featured words! You can subscribe to this podcast (and this whole blog for that matter) by clicking on the RSS icon in the right-sidebar. Or, if you'd like to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, you can do it one of two ways:

1. Search for "Julie K. Rose" or "Word-Hoard" in the iTunes store; the podcast will show up in the search results, and you can simply click the "subscribe button"; or

2. Choose the Advanced menu, and then Subscribe to Podcast. This will bring up a dialog box, where you can paste this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/YULh.

Myths, symbolism, and folklore
turkey: For the Indians of North and Central America, it is a symbol of female fertility and masculine virility; it is frequently used as a sacrificial animal in fertility ceremonies. (Herder)

A Thanksgiving-themed entry for your amusement and edification.:)

I won't be around on Thursday or Friday, as I'll be going to my third straight Big Bone game. It's a football rivalry that started during WWII, when San Jose High Academy and Lincoln High School were the only two big high schools in San Jose. (My husband is a teacher at Lincoln).

According to the Lincoln website, "the Big Bone Game continues to be the longest continuous Thanksgiving Day rivalry in California. It is one of the most renowned high school football rivalries in the nation." With 63 years of tradition, I'd say so! Lincoln has kicked bootay for the last 6 (or 7?) games, and they'd better keep it going tomorrow. Here's a fun flash the SJ Mercury News did on last year's game.

They play over at SJ City College, and we'll get home in time for us to shove the turkey in the oven and then watch some more football on TV :)

So. All that to say, Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the U.S. I am so thankful for your curiosity, camaraderie, and sense of fun. These here intarwebs can be a really screwed up place sometimes, and sometimes - well, they can be magic.

Myths, symbolism, and folklore
pomegranate: Like other seedy fruits, it is a fertility symbol, for which reason it was sacred in Greece to Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hera. With reference to this symbolic meaning, newly wedded women in ancient Rome wore wreaths of pomegranate branches. In India the juice of the pomegranate was considered to be a remedy for infertility. Opening the pomegranate is sometimes also seen symbolically as deflowering.

Because of the bright red color of its flesh, the pomegranate is a symbol of love and blood, and thus life and death. For the Phoenicians the pomegranate was closely associated with the sun and signified life, power, and renewal. The pomegranate is a Judaic symbol of faithfulness to the law of the Torah.

In the Middle Ages the fragrance and the many seeds of the pomegranate were interpreted as symbols of the beauty and the many virtues of Mary. The spherical form, the multitude of seeds, and the fragrance also signified perfection and the endless number of characteristics of God's goodness. The multitude of seeds, contained in one husk, could also be understood as a symbol of the church; the red juice was associated with the blood of martyrs. The pomegranate, which has a hard and inedible husk but which contains sweet juice, is also a symbol of the perfect Christian, particularly of the priest. (Herder)

The Word-Hoard: mawmsey, manducation , and slapsauce

A special Thanksgiving week word-hoard feature: mawmsey, manducation, and slapsauce.

I invite you to listen in and leave me a comment with your creative use of each week's word-hoard featured words! You can subscribe to this podcast (and this whole blog for that matter) by clicking on the RSS icon in the right-sidebar. Or, if you'd like to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, you can do it one of two ways:

1. Search for "Julie K. Rose" or "Word-Hoard" in the iTunes store; the podcast will show up in the search results, and you can simply click the "subscribe button"; or

2. Choose the Advanced menu, and then Subscribe to Podcast. This will bring up a dialog box, where you can paste this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/YULh.

Booking Through Thursday: Footprint Leaver or Preservationist?

Yay, I have some extra time this morning to do the BTT meme:

Today’s question comes from Conspiracy-Girl: "I’m still relatively new to this meme so I’m not sure if this has been asked yet, but I’m curious how many of us write notes in our books. Are you a Footprint Leaver or a Preservationist?"

In fiction books, I'm generally a Preservationist (though that does not extend to turning down the corners of pages to mark my place; I know, it's slovenly). The only time I'll mark up a fiction book is if I find a passage I think is particularly clever or beautifully written, and then I'll underline or put a big star next to it.

In non-fiction books, I'm a Footprint Leaver. I make notes to myself, questions, responses to theories, etc. They feel more like textbooks to me, and I wrote all over those.

Edited to add: I have to make a distinction here: I never, EVER, write in library books, or of course books I've borrowed. Footnoting is strictly for books I own.

Myths, symbolism, and folklore



"A sign from the US system of hobo signs with the meaning here they'll rough you up."

Learn more at symbols.com.

Stag

Myths, folklore, and symbolism
Stag: In Paleolithic caves there are representations of stags and of people garbed as stags, which probably served cult purposes. The stag was an animal revered worldwide. Because of its annually renewed large antlers, it was compared in many cultures and epochs to the tree of life. It was also a symbol of fertility and of waxing and waning. Moreover, because of their form and the blood-red color of the cuticle sloughed off in the spring, the antlers were a symbol to many people of rays of light and of fire; the stag was therefore viewed as a solar animal or as an intermediary between heaven and earth.

In Buddhism the golden stag (along with the gazelle) symbolizes wisdom and asceticism. The solar aspect of the stag was sometimes interpreted in China in a negative sense, that is, as a symbol of drought and sterility. In antiquity, the stag and the doe were animals sacred to Artemis; the battle between the stag and other animals symbolized the battle between light and darkness. The stag occurs in antiquity and among the Celts as psychopomp. The stag was also seen in antiquity as the enemy and slayer of serpents. This idea, mediated by Physiologus, also appeared in medieval Christian art. The identification of the stag with Christ (who treads on the serpent's, i.e., Satan's, head) is based on this and other associations. The legends of St. Eustachius and St. Hubert, for example, report the appearance of a stag who bore the crucified Christ between his antlers. In Christian art the stag is also depicted in association with the water of life (with reference to Psalm 42).

Occasionally the stag is a symbol of melancholy, since it loves solitude. Because of its striking behavior when in heat, it also functions as a symbol of masculine sexual passion. (Herder)

WisCon32

Woo hoo! I just completed my registration for WisCon 32! This will be my first time at WisCon, and I'm muy excited. So, for the next couple of years, I've got some great cons to attend!

2008
WisCon 32 (May, Madison WI)
Women's National Book Association Annual Meeting (June, SF)

2009
Historical Novel Society (TBD date, location)
World Fantasy Convention (November 5-8, San Jose - woo!)

Do you know of any other great conferences I should look into? I'm skipping San Francisco Writers, Jack London, and East of Eden. They're just no longer useful for me.

Tetractys

Myths, folklore, and symbolism
Tetractys: For the Pythagoreans it was a sacred number, the sum (10) of the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, signifying the essence of perfection. The sum was regarded as the source of all things and was personified as the god of harmony. (Herder)

Myths, folklore & symbolism
omphalos: (Greek, literally "navel") In many parts of the ancient world, a familiar symbol for the birthplace of the cosmos or the site of Creation. The most famous omphalos was in the temple of Apollo in Delphi and is now displayed in the museum of that city: a rock carved in the form of a beehive with the suggestion of a net covering it, it symbolized the ideal midpoint of the cosmos, the point at which the subterranean, terrestrial, and celestial worlds all met. For this reason, it was also believed to inspire oracles A similar ompholos stone (umbilicus urbis Romae) stood in the Forum. Similar shrines were to be found in Gordium (the Phrygian capital) and in Baghdad. A rock in the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem temple (located in the space underneath the altar for burnt offerings) was likewise thought of as the site of the Creation and the ideal midpoint of the world - and also as sealing in the subterranean waters of the "Tehom," which, according to Talmudic tradition, came gushing forth whenever the omphalos was removed...

Polaris, the pole star, around which the other fixed stars appear to rotate, was frequently referred to as the "navel of the heavens." Its terrestrial counterpart was often a sacred mountain (e.g., Mount Meru in India).

In general, the omphalos, as a stone sealing off the conduit between realms, combines elements of stone worship, shamanism, and the worship of "mother earth." THe Delphi omphalos is said to have been sacred first to the earth goddess Gaea and only later to Apollo. A similar stone is said to have been in the Hall of the Mysteries at Eleusis. (Biedermann)

The Word-Hoard: hyperhedonia, boanthropy, and taphephobia.

This week's word-hoard feature: hyperhedonia, boanthropy, and taphephobia.

I invite you to listen in and leave me a comment with your creative use of each week's word-hoard featured words! You can subscribe to this podcast (and this whole blog for that matter) by clicking on the RSS icon in the right-sidebar. Or, if you'd like to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, you can do it one of two ways:

1. Search for "Julie K. Rose" or "Word-Hoard" in the iTunes store; the podcast will show up in the search results, and you can simply click the "subscribe button"; or

2. Choose the Advanced menu, and then Subscribe to Podcast. This will bring up a dialog box, where you can paste this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/YULh.

Phew!

Well, I buckled down today and I'm up to 18,601 on my NaNo, which is good because I'm bankrolling words. I'll be out of town for the next three days, having Thanksgiving #1.

I'll try to post the Word-Hoard on Monday from my Top Sekrit Remote Location, but if not, it'll be on Tuesday AM.

Y'all be good now, hear?

Mayan ideogram

"The first known occurrence of this strange ideogram is in thirteenth century South America. The Mayans are also known to have used it."

What do you think it means?

Learn more at symbols.com.

Author Interview: Catherynne M. Valente

I'm excited to present my interview with mythic fiction author Catherynne M. Valente. I think you'll find it amusing, intriguing, thought-provoking.

Catherynne's 2006 novel The Orphan's Tales Vol I: In the Night Garden received the James Tiptree Jr. Award for the expansion of gender and sexuality in speculative fiction. In the Night Garden was nominated for the World Fantasy Award in the Best Novel category, alongside Ellen Kushner, Gene Wolfe, Scott Lynch, and Stephen King. The Orphan's Tales Vol II: In the Cities of Coin and Spice was released on October 30. You can learn more about Catherynne at her website, http://www.catherynnemvalente.com/.

Did you study folklore and the motif index at all during your time in your B.A. or M.A. programs?
Not officially. I was a Classics major, it's not our bag. But informally, I did study it, and think about it obsessively--it's like an old-school wikipedia for fairy tale geeks. It combines a total obsession with numbering and filing and categorizing with truly bent and grotesque stories--how could you not love it? I kept wanting to label things in my own life with Tale Types. Tale Type 6000: Cat Seeks Her Fortune Overseas and Discovers She Does Not Like Cuttlefish. My newest poetry collection is actually full of fictional Tale Types, but with better titles than that one.

I understand your background is in the Classics and linguistics. How does that come out in your mythical stories?
Well, I've been reading, studying, gorging on folklore and myth most of my life. It neither started nor ended with Greco-Roman stories. But as I got older and became more aware of a horrible, green-eared little thing living in my stomach that wanted to be a writer, folktales started to become more transparent to me, I started to see how they were done, how they were made, and language is a big part of that. Now that I think about it, I think that maybe learning Greek and Latin was partly responsible for me becoming so interested in the basic parts of things, the smallest part you could break a story into and still use it, rearrange it, put it back in a different place. Narrative atoms, I suppose. Greek and Latin are ancient languages, with complex systems wherein every word has its place and its part, systems much more complex than English. I was fascinated with the process by which those languages and systems were still present in English, in degraded form. I think I wanted to degrade things on purpose, to break them, to see how much you can bruise story and language before they just fall apart. When you learn the smallest parts of things, you learn the biggest things they can do.

Do you find that you look at your own life in terms of motifs or archetypes?
Completely. I think to some extent most thinking people do. Hero's journey and all--but for a woman what does the hero's journey really mean? Ought she to stand still and wait to be someone's Lady Fair or someone's Temptation? Are we to, alternatively, be content with the maiden, mother, crone schtick that neopaganism presents us, that defines us only in terms of sexual access: virgin, pregnancy, menopause? Or can we see into the cracks of these stories, and see women trying to integrate the lessons of their mothers, survive violence, find power in old age, escape the horrors of their childhoods, grow up, fight good and necessary fights, die well?

I grew up a very lonely child, under extreme circumstances, and if it sounds silly to say that it helped me to think of myself as Gretel, as Snow White, as Gerta, as the armless maiden, then it is silly. But all those stories say the same thing. Little girl, you will come out on the other side of this, and you will come out alive.

Of course, as I grew older there were less stories for me--the child is always the hero of the fairy tale. As I went through my divorce, I scrambled for something to tell me that same thing, that I could survive it, that it was not greater than my strength to withstand it. There is not a whole lot out there for divorced women--Medea? Hippolyta? I'm still looking, to some extent, but I think the answer is that the wood is always deep, and the world is always a wicked and frightening place, and parents and lovers will betray you to the wolves, but there are always breadcrumbs, too, and lamps to light the way, and brothers in the forest, and sisters in the dark.

Stith Thompson identified over 40,000 tale motifs. Out of that massive number, what are your favorite motifs? Why?
I think my favorite overall tale is Snow White, which combines several motifs--I am always a slave to the lost girl running away from a terrible home. Pretty psychologically transparent there. I'm also fascinated with mirrors and doubling, with siblings, with witches and prisons, with psychopomps and katabasis and fell gatekeepers. With food and the corruption of domestic items like spindles and apples and combs.

What symbols do you find appear most often in your work? Why do you think that is?
See above. I think I'm attracted to things just behind or beside the great coursing swath of the Self, the Hero, the Mainstream, O Tempora, O Mores, you know? Monsters and broken people and worlds beneath the world. I always ask myself, when writing a folkloric story, how I would react if this were real and close as a heartbeat. the answer is usually "wildly poorly," but I think that is honest, and interesting in a narrative sense.

Folk tales and mythic stories were first made to be heard, not necessarily read. What do you think is lost, and what is gained, by telling these stories and tales on "paper"?
Well. Real folktales from real cultures, myths from countries that existed at some point, these are always oral and the value in writign them down is the value of not losing them. But I wanted to create folklore that does not exist, for a culture that never was--can't find that on any grandmother's porch or around any kitchen table. Some of the dynamism of the changing story, the multi-generational morphic tale is lost, but what is gained is intent, intentional folklore, created, false, totally constructed, but true and real for all that. But I do travel the country and read these stories out loud, with a singer who puts them all to music, so I'm taking part in the bardic tradition in my own way. They do feel intensely real when read out loud and there is power in that. Paper is slightly more permanent than memory, but it is the only way to deliver stories from places that can never be.

What was the inspiration for The Orphan's Tales, a set of novels that are the recounting of many tales, vs. a single mythic tale, a la The Grass-Cutting Sword?
There is a line in Arabian Nights that goes something like: "It was as clear as if it had been tattooed on the corners of her eyes." That image just opened up over and over like an origami box in my head--what if something really was that clear? Really was written all over a girl's face, but hidden and secret for all that? Combined with the idea of nested stories and frame narrative gleaned from reading in quick succession Carmina Burana, Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights, and Pale Fire, The Orphan's Tales was a fairly natural outgrowth of having dumped all that in the cauldron like carrots and onions. I don't think I could have told the same story any other way, and I suppose in some sense I was like Scheherezade, telling myself stories every night for years on end, trying to stay alive, trying to remember everything in the right order, in the right way.

What was the first story you remember being told?
Um. Probably something from Arabian Nights? I distinctly remember being read Prince Caspian from the Narnia books, but my grandmother used to read to me from the Arabian Nights and the Ramayana when I was very young through to my teenage years. My mother also read me fairy tales--weird medieval things like Robert the Devil--and French surrealist plays like The Breasts of Tiresias. you can probably see why I turned out the way I did. I also remember my mother reading me The Odyssey when I was terribly wee.

What was the first book you ever read on your own?
The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende. I was 5, and no one believed I read it, and I had to give a book report to my whole family--I remember them asking about the last line of the book clearly even now. I read like a monster as a child, as soon as I could. I think after that one it was Wind in the Willows and D'Aulaire's book of Greek Myths.

Why myths, folktales, symbolism? What does it say to you, and to your readers?
It says the world is more than it seems. It says we walk in stories we can't even see. It says you can come out alive, you can come out whole, you can come out with your beloved holding your hand. You can stand against a dragon and a divorce, you can keep your grip steady and your gaze clear, even when castles are burning and dawn never seems to come. They are all we have to tell each other about personal experience in universal terms. I tell you I was Snow White, you tell me you were Iron Hans, and we know something about each other, we understand some small, fragile thing. If not for myth, folklore, symbols, all we would have to say about Life on Earth would be refrigerator brands, sleep patterns, breakfast cereal. We create a world extraordinary within ourselves, and folktales are the little keys we fashion so that others may for a moment crack the doors to our hearts and say: yes, I understand, it was like that for me, too, when the wood was dark and I had no one.

Humans tell stories. It's what we do, like having opposable thumbs or quality cranial capacity. And since we first figured out the way of it, we've been talking about things that never existed but are truer than what does. If we stop doing that, we lose something, we lose that key, and the wood will go black, and there will be no way out for anyone without the lanterns called stories, and if you put enough of them together, it looks just like the sun rising.

Good prospects

"For some of the Indian tribes and peoples of south west USA this sign meant rain clouds, and since they live in a dry desert area, good prospects."

Learn more about this symbol at symbols.com.

The Word-Hoard: bosky, vinomadefied, and epileny

This week's word-hoard feature: bosky, vinomadefied, and epileny..

I invite you to listen in and leave me a comment with your creative use of each week's word-hoard featured words! You can subscribe to this podcast (and this whole blog for that matter) by clicking on the RSS icon in the right-sidebar. Or, if you'd like to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, you can do it one of two ways:

1. Search for "Julie K. Rose" or "Word-Hoard" in the iTunes store; the podcast will show up in the search results, and you can simply click the "subscribe button"; or

2. Choose the Advanced menu, and then Subscribe to Podcast. This will bring up a dialog box, where you can paste this URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/YULh.

Image of a soul?

"An alchemical sign for spirit or soul."

Learn more about this symbol at symbols.com.

Beech tree

First of all: I buckled down late this afternoon and got 1430 words done for NaNo. Not my goal #, but it's a good start, all things considered. Phew.


Myths, folklore, and symbolism
Beech tree: In antiquity it was sacred to Hades and Cybele; today it is still considered to be a plant of the dead and also a symbol of immortality, since it always remains green. As a leathery, hard plant, it also denotes endurance and steadfastness; hence its wood was used as the symbolic hammer of the Freemasons. (Herder)