GROUP 5!

I must say that my adventure through my group presentation for this class has been amazing. I have gotten to know a wonderful group of individuals who are hillarious and totally creative. Maggie i have know for a while now, Zack i knew a little bit, Shelby is one of my residents so i knew her in a professinal setting, Jackey i was gald to meet and work with and Jake has rounded out our group so well it is amazing. We all have laughed, screamed, howled with joy and made complete fools of ourselves in the last few days perfecting our presentation! I love it. Each one of us bring something new and totally different to our group. Plus we all have great senses of humor which has made working with these five individuals, for me, a great experience. I usually do not like group projects, i can admit it, i am kind of a control freak when it comes to assignments but this group has made it super easy. We all had a vision and our work together went without a hitch. You are all in for a huge suprise and treat tomorrow in class with GROUP 5!!!! Thanks you guys for making this so much fun and so funny!

Perhaps our wings have turned into something else, something my generation can relate to better than the idea of people having the ability to fly. I believe that our wings of love and laughter have turned into the capes and costumes of our heroes and heroins. Wonder Woman who stands for justice, peace and hope; Superman who is the universal symbol of a hero and Batman the protector of Gothem City and the innocent lives that inhabit it. I think that perhaps our ideals about wings and their powers have been transferred into that of the cape and the flying superhero. But what does that mean for the rest of us that still have no super powers and our magic wands don't seem to actually cast our spells, even when we concentrate.

I believe that this is a wake up call. We need to as a people, as a society, as a class come together and find what makes us happiest. That is our little bit of magic. If we can hold onto what makes us happiest we will be connecting with our former selves, back to the time when we had wings and one true sole mate we were destined to meet young. Those ideals of reality no longer exist for us, so i believe that it is the small things that we must hold onto. Those little moments when we are reminded of our true selves, when our shoulders itch, and experience them for as long as we can. As long as the world will let us.

They can be hard to recognise but i know for myself as i think of what makes me happiest i think of this afternoon; watching the snow come down as i laughed for over an hour with my boyfriend about nothing. We simply told each other stories, tickled and pocked our sides and laughed at all the silly and stupid faces we could make. We even found having a staring contest completely hilarious. For me, i hope to continue to laugh with him each day and every day until i am too old to laugh with my whole body, nostrils flaring.

Never Never Land

Well, I've been thinking allot today with the addition of this nice snow shower. What happens to lost children? Those little ones that fall out of their prams when busy nurses aren't looking, who wander away down the isle at Walmart, who sleep and dream but don't wake up with the sun? We always say there is a better place that our little lost ones go to, or else they go to purgatory along with all the other unbaptised non-catholics. But what if they are simply in never land.

i mean it people, i am serious. What if all those miscarried babies and lost siblings are simply flying through the clouds playing pirates and Indians all day long and sleeping by the water side next to the mermaids. That is where i would want to go. Not to purgatory or heaven but to Never Never Land. Where i could fly with Tinkerbell and her fairy dust while tying flowers and feathers to my hair. Never again, always sunny and happy; full of adventure, danger and singing. That sounds like every stressed out grown-ups dream vacation. Lay by the water getting sun while chatting about the island gossip with the mermaids. Or leaving brief cases and trader info behind for a bow and arrow to shoot at Captain Hook and his dirty, tattooed pirates who sing from their ship.

But taking a second look i once again see that my seemingly unique ideal is simply a repeat o Steiner's struggles. This one being the struggle between aged and youth, captain hook and peter pan. Unfortunately for me all that is past still possesses all that is my present. I wonder when i will have a thought uniquely mine and wholly original?

sunday morning by wallace stevens

when i spell checked that poem from the original form i copied there were eight spelling errors. of course i wanted to fix them but did not. i have read and reread this poem in the hopes of having its full understanding and meaning, but alas i am afraid that perhaps our dear Professor is right, it will take us another twenty years to have its full meaning.

however, i am still trying to read it once a day because i like it.

1  Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound. Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.  2  Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measure destined for her soul.  3  Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue.  4  She says, "I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?" There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured As April's green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow's wings.  5  She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss." Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.  6  Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.  7  Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feel shall manifest.  8  She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

This is Sophie, my sister. She is the essence of beauty, smarts and awesomeness. She is ten and the best part of my life. I would not be who i am without her. Just wanted you all to see who i am always talking about.

~Chloe

Watching Zack of the Saving Bells recall his childhood and the soothing melodies of his mother's lullaby, i began to think of my own childhood. Hearing the stories of my babyhood but not remembering my own memories, at first i thought of the lullabies i sing to my sister when she is sad. I sing to her about Wink'n Blink'n and Nod and their adventure in the wooden shoe. Where did i first learn that song? Who sang it to me when i was sad and tired? Unwilling to remember the truth that no one in my family had sung to me as a child i moved on.

What about the songs that my children will hear from me? What song will i make for them as i hold them at night, rocking them as they drift into the land of dreams. i hope that my song to them will be as memorable as the song from Zack's mother for him so many years after. I hope that when they hear that song they can think of me in a warm flannel shirt holding them tight in my tan arms. Feeling my long hair rub against their skin and the soothing melodies of my voice. That is my hope for my future.

How did Niobe hold her children? She had so many and loved them all. Loved them all until her pride consumed her leading to her demise and that of her family. If she had not turned to stone how could she have lived with out them? Each one taking a piece of her heart and holding onto it as they slipped into the welcoming loving arms of Persephone and Hades. How could she have continued knowing that it was her pride that doomed their futures? That is every mother's fear, to out live their children.

That is why Hecuba and the Trojan women wept and begged for the death of Helen. To give them some comfort for their lost children. How is it that fathers and mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers can live without their children? It's not fair that the world we live in can bring such heartache. How are we to cope?

The only thing i can think of that can sooth the souls of those that have lost what is most precious in life, is music. That is Hermes and Mozart and Bach. The soothing and heart wrenching melodies of those artists that have been guided by the gods to bring peace through their melodies.

class presentation

Watching the presentation today in class i began to think about Antigone and her struggle with Creon. The idea that it is one of Steiner's five conflicts, the conflict between both age and youth and person and state. How many times have i begun an argument or fight with someone older than myself and changed my mind or backed down from my point simply because of my feeling of respect?

Well i will tell you the answer, often. I will admit that i am the argumentative sort when i get together with my whole family, we all just say that it runs in our blood. How come then any time i think back to those arguments that i always seem to loose. Not because i cannot support my ideas and beliefs with facts but because i am afraid to push my elders too far and have them think i am disrespectful. Where does this crazy idea of respect come from?

Antigone fought for what she believed to be right. She stood up to someone who was not just older but more powerful and the father of her faience. At my age she was able to fight for what she believes in knowing that her punishment will be death! That idea is crazy. I would fight for my family and for their rights but would i really go against my future husband's father and society to know that my consequences would be my death. I would like to say that i would do what she did and be as strong as her but there is no way to know that for sure. I hope that when my time comes to be strong and be a leader for what i know to be right that i will have the courage and the gumption to do it.