Through the Rabbit Hole

All sorts of scholars and scientists have commented on the enduring themes hidden within Alice in Wonderland.  How can you not?  It's such a rich book that fits the simplistic and whimsical needs of children but at the same time; it caters to the older generations with hidden references or ambiguous writing that can be taken in a plethora of connotations.  And I think the beauty of Alice is that it means something different to different people so there can never be one, absolutely correct answer to the questions posed throughout the novel.  Why indeed "is a raven like a writing-desk?" (Annotated Alice, pg. 70)  I suppose we must each find our own answers.

And is that not the same as the experiences in college?  I'm from a small school where everyone had to go through essentially the same things.  We all had the same teachers, the same lunch options, the same extracurricular activities (to a degree), and such parallel lives that I never put much thought into what I wanted to do or how I was going to get there.  I was just moving with the flow.  But here at UT, everyone is stunningly unique.  I feel constantly awed and confused by so many possibilities.  I agree with what Dawn said about the caterpillar's question, "Like Alice, I did not know how to reply.  One spends four years in high school creating a persona, routine, and niche in their surroundings, only to have each of those things overturned in college." (Anthology, pg. 208)  I used to be known as a 'color guard chick' but now I'm doing Tae Kwon Do.  I was always better at history than most of my science classes, but now I want to go into the field of neurology.  Im diverging from my self-concept I've held for so long.  I know I'm starting the obvious, but it's really scary.  But at the same time, it's exhilarating.  I was held down for so long by my classmates concepts of how I was as a person and how I should act.  I felt rather one-dimensional because I didn't always act the way I felt; I was too busy adhering to their expectations.  So while I currently feel lost down the rabbit hole, it's all about my journey to my ultimate end as an individual.  As the red queen said in Through the Looking Glass, "remember who you are!" (Annotated Alice, pg. 166)  If I can follow this advice with my core of how I am and how I want to be, the outcome will be practically automatic!

On a darker note, I couldn't help but feel bad for Carroll/Dodgson after reading one of the selections.    I don't hold to the belief that he was improper towards his children friends as Freud would like to have us think.  Certainly he was an odd man, but I don't think he ever had ill-intentions for anyone.  He was just in a different mental state than his peers.  He, like Peter Pan, didn't really want to grow up. Unfortunately, the world doesn't work like that and he did grow up in a physical sense just not emotionally/mentally.  And that's what makes him such a pitiable person.  All the girls he befriended eventually grew up and left him stranded.  "Like the Mad Hatter's tea-party, he was forever stuck at a particular moment in time and unable to accompany the girl he identified with to full maturity." (Anthology, pg 200)  It's just incredibly sad to me.  I guess it's at least somewhat cheering that at he enjoyed the time he spent with Alice and created a lasting novel in her honor.

http://amaltea-olenska.insanejournal.com/tag/pel%C3%ADcula

On a last, and relatively unrelated note, I recognized the song lyrics placed at the end of today's reading.  In fact, I've heard it multiple times before though I didn't realize this until I listened through the entire song.  Basically, there's a winter guard based out of Austin/San Marcos called Identity and last year they had a distinctly designed show.  Titled "Curiouser and curiouser,"  they did a show based on the idea of Alice's journey but in a more abstract form.  It gave me chills the first time I saw it and quickly became a crowd favorite.  I can't seem to find a video but I'll ask my director (who helped teach sabre work for Identity) and see if there's a way to link it to the facebook group.  It's an interesting interpretation that, though best seen in person, certainly gives Alice a more eerie, dark tone but keeps the adventurous spirit.

http://www.wgi.org/news/01122010-Does-Identity-make-you-Curiouser.html

Yin-Yang: The Wolf and The Butterfly

I hear the rustle of the branches as I settle my back against the tree trunk.  It’s warm but not uncomfortably so.  From my perch in the dilapidated tree house, I can no longer hear the distant traffic, only birds and and a herd of deer as they migrate through my yard.  I’m in the back yard of my five acres: not exactly the rugged wilderness, but neither is it some structured and orderly park or garden.  It’s my private hideaway where I’ve always gone to commune with nature in solitude.  This time, however short my visit home is, I’m still on a mission.  I’m no longer aimlessly letting my mind wander, but attempt to send myself even further away.  To go deep into my head where the subconscious is allowed nearly full reign.

I establish a breathing rhythm, letting the air circle in and out, in and out.  Slowly I let myself fall through the crevice in the rock.  That’s how it always begins.  And more often than not, I appear in a lush deciduous forest.  Every time, I have to fight the urge to take control of the meditation, to lead instead of allowing myself to be led.  But after several practices, I’ve mastered letting go.  As I walk through the looming trees, a black and midnight blue butterfly flits across my path.  This surprises me and I take it as some incarnation from one of my favorite shows.  However, after several attempts to seek out other creatures, I realize this is my totem animal.

This was my path to discovering half of my identity.  The other half, the wolf, was a bit more concealed from me.  On my mental journeys, I could sense a presence but it never materialized.  If it weren’t for recording my dreams, I might not have noticed how the wolf has been a motif for much of my life.  I think it’s because both of these creatures speak to different sides of me.  The butterfly is gregarious, sunny, and lighthearted while the wolf is more related to my inner concepts of myself and how I treat close family and friends.  And while these two animals seem in opposition, they in fact strengthen each other’s positive qualities. 

I suppose though the butterfly came to me first in the most obvious sense, the wolf was my first real connection that I’ve ever felt.  I’m always reminded of my freshman year when I was the youngest and newest being added to the color guard “pack.”  My first friend that I made, Andrea, was very spiritual and connected.  She was completely different from me, an analytical person who had to research, question, and dissect everything.  She took everything with such a natural stride that I think that’s how I first connected with her, because I wanted to understand more about seeing the whole picture.  In any case, she became my first friend and took me under her wing.  I can still remember right before my first performance.  My nerves were topping out, and I was completely full of nervous energy.  Meanwhile, Andrea was starting a sketching project where she drew each of the girls in guard but as animals similar to their personalities.  To calm myself, I’d help her decide on the cast and what kinds of expressions they should have.  When it got to my turn, she didn’t even bother to ask.  She just began to draw herself as a mothering wolf with me as a pup by her side.  That image still reminds me of how close we were.  Her and I were our own mini-pack within the whole.  From then on, whenever we saw a wolf poster or jewelry or any such item it became our private little call sign to each other.

Fast forward three years, and I became alpha of my pack.  I was truly integrated with all of my guard girls.  That’s what the wolf says to me, that to belong in a tight knit group is one of the best gifts you can ever have.  Sure, we’re not hunting, but we need the same level of cooperation to achieve our goals.  It’s a pack mentality that turns all of my sentences from “I did” to “we did.”  I  recall reading in Animal Spiritual Guides that “wolf shows us how important it is to have a strong family where there is support and devotion.  Yet she also teaches that at times it may be appropriate to choose the freedom of solitude, becoming the lone wolf to sort things out.”[1]  So there is some duality involved as well.  And that’s why in some ways I hold the wolf closer to myself than the butterfly.  I love to be with others but I need my time for seclusion otherwise I lose myself in too many activities and opinions that I absorb from others.  I have to pull myself apart to form myself as not part of the social amoeba but to keep my unique identity.

But as I said, the butterfly is equally a part of who I am and helps to guide me in this turbulent year.  I’m not sure I could ask for a better docent who can help me make sense of the abundance of information that is continually surrounding me.  I feel that the butterfly is a rather new development for me that has come in recent years as I’ve begun to struggle to change as a person.  For much of my youth, I was rather anti-social and felt no need to interact with others.  I found people to be a distraction from whatever my interests focused on, and I put minimal effort into developing friendships and acquaintances.  But at least in the past two years, I’ve begun to break out of my self-created cocoon and reach out to others.  I believe that my transformation into something more akin to a ‘social butterfly’ speaks strongly of my connection to this graceful insect.

Yet as close as the connection I feel with both these spirit totem animals is, there’s an interesting element of duality and opposition between them.  The key symbol for the wolf throughout history has been the moon which “has the power of intuitive wisdom”[2] while the butterfly is a creature of the light.  She is linked to air and wind which are “connected to the power of wisdom and knowledge.”[3]  Instead of feeling these two aspects as contradictions, I feel they’re actually complimentary and help to round me into a more complete person.  The same goes for the central elements upon which each are based.  The butterfly is obviously a creature of the air while the wolf is a denizen of the earth and both of these have some sense of a gender orientation according to Animal Spiritual Guides by Luttichau.  According to him, “earth is female in essence”[4] which ascribes to the idea of mother earth.  It also follows along the lines of the nurturing family atmosphere of wolf packs, for wolves “are absolutely committed and loyal to the pack and find their place within the group.”[5]  On the other hand, air is “masculine in it’s fundamental nature [and] it brings cleansing and clarity.”[6]  In this case, the butterfly is not tied by familial obligations and is “reminiscent of freedom and creativity.”[7]  I try to retain that ability to separate myself from the crowd in order to think in peace  and decide on where I want my path to lead me. 

And perhaps that is their greatest intersection point, the ability to guide a person on a journey.  In all of my research, I’ve found both animals to be regarded as forms of guides, though of different variety.  The butterfly is a symbol of the inner journey, the path of self transformation, whereas the wolf is more intrepid in terms of seeking out new paths.  But both are excellent helpers who lead one to the growth necessary to fulfill their potential.  Considering the many options I have at my disposal here in college (whether it be career choices, study abroad options, clubs and activities, or simply lifestyle choices), I know I will utilize their aide in finding the right direction in my life.

I embody many of the traits of my animals, as well I should, but there are some that I’m still working to improve.  There are certain qualities that I’m aware I lack which, with the support of my totem animals, I believe I can master.  To start with, I wish I were more openly trusting.  I have a tendency to lean towards being paranoid about lending my books or movies.  There’s usually no basis for my stress.  One of the qualities I admire in the butterfly is how it is “free, flying from one flower to another, curious about life, trusting, full of joy.”[8]  They seem so free from ordinary concerns, and I’ve never seen a stressed-out butterfly, nor one that didn’t know how to ‘slow down and smell the roses.’  I’ve always been such a goal-oriented, driven person that I know I need to learn to relax sometimes and accept life in all its beauty.

As for the lessons I wish to take away from the wolf, they revolve more around their inner stamina and strength.  They are wise when it comes to using their strength; “they do not fight needlessly and often avoid fighting whenever possible.”[9]  I know I can be too aggressive or in need of proving myself at times which certainly annoys my friends.  I want to learn how to tone down and to be powerful because I have the ability to be strong, not because I’m defensive.  It’s a balance that I feel I haven’t achieved yet, but I can certainly work towards this equilibrium.

So now, when I meditate or send myself off to bed, I’ve begun to think of my power animals, and they are entering my subconscious twice as often.   I’m well aware that “in our hyper-industrialized, polluted, and plugged in culture, we’re too busy to connect with our deeper selves”[10] which made initiating this experience all the more difficult.  But now that I’ve begun my journey, I feel more freed to follow the natural rhythm of the world.  As quoted in the anthology, “every animal is a gateway to the phenomenal world of the human spirit.”[11]  I’m ready to take my chances and walk through.

FINAL WORD COUNT: 1,737

WITHOUT QUOTES: 1,588

End Notes

1. Luttichau, Chris. Animal Spirit Guides: Discover Your Power Animal and the Shamanic Path. New York: Cico, 2009. Print.

2. Luttichau, Chris. Animal Spirit Guides: Discover Your Power Animal and the Shamanic Path. New York: Cico, 2009. Print.

3. Luttichau, Chris. Animal Spirit Guides: Discover Your Power Animal and the Shamanic Path. New York: Cico, 2009. Print.

4. Luttichau, Chris. Animal Spirit Guides: Discover Your Power Animal and the Shamanic Path. New York: Cico, 2009. Print.

5. Takatoka. Wolf. Spirit Guides. Manataka American Indian Council. Web. 18 Sept. 2010.

6. Luttichau, Chris. Animal Spirit Guides: Discover Your Power Animal and the Shamanic Path. New York: Cico, 2009. Print.

7. Takatoka. Wolf. Spirit Guides. Manataka American Indian Council. Web. 18 Sept. 2010.

8. Luttichau, Chris. Animal Spirit Guides: Discover Your Power Animal and the Shamanic Path. New York: Cico, 2009. Print.

9. Takatoka. Wolf. Spirit Guides. Manataka American Indian Council. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. 

10. Andrews, Ted. “Animal-speak: The Spiritual and Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small.” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, edited by Professor Bump, 71. Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2010

11. Andrews, Ted. “Animal-speak: The Spiritual and Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small.” in Composition and Reading in World Literature, edited by Professor Bump, 63. Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2010

Images

Butterfly

http://www.7photographyquestions.com/2009/01/p32-a-vibrant-black-and-blue-butterfly.html

Wolf

http://aurorawolf.com/2010/06/a-peril-in-trophies/

Wolf Pack

http://www.photos-of-the-year.com/contest/08/potm/showphoto.php?photo=668

Wolf Girl

http://www.booksie.com/moonbeamergirl

Girl and Butterfly

http://www.layoutsparks.com/1/51045/butterfly-cute-girl-blue.html

Sunset

courtesy of the sky and my backyard

Dark Side of College

There's something daunting about sitting down to type about suicide.  Even the word has become a sort of taboo.  No one wants to talk about it because it reminds us of how fragile a human life is.    We all just try to hide it in the corner of our minds but it can quickly become an elephant in the room.  I can't say that I've ever been involved in a situation where I worried about someone else would go to that extent.  In fact, I guess I've lived in a little bubble from my small town upbringing.  And some might see that as a blessing, but I worry that it might actually be detrimental in its own way.  I don't feel prepared to help a friend if they were facing such thoughts.  Heck I'd probably fall for the persuasive belief that's it's best not to discuss the problem at all.  I had no idea that "you will not increase the student's risk of suicide by asking him/her directly about it." (155) It's quite the revelation for me to know that it would be better to be straightforward.  I'm usually a rather blunt person but this is one topic I'm much more likely to dance around without ever hitting directly on it.  In fact, I feel like I'm doing that right now.

Let me try a more direct route- I've never actually planned suicide but I have given it a thought during a dark time in my life.  It was during sophomore year.  I was taking two Pre-AP math courses (Algebra II and Geometry) simultaneously, struggling in my main activity of color guard, had friendship troubles and insecurities galore.  I also was invited by an older girl friend of mine to the prom (sophomores could come ONLY if invited by an older student).  There was a bit of a mix-up with dinner plans before the dance and my mom made the decision that it would be better if I just didn't go at all.  I don't know why this was the tipping point but it was.  All of it seems trivial now but back then, all I felt was a mountain of stress and no way to relieve it.  I didn't really seriously considered it. I was just tired and frustrated and depressed.  My usual method of release is my writing, everything from journals to short stories and fan fiction.  So, I started to write.  I created a story where I committed suicide.  I wrote about a funeral where friends who had been neglecting or ignoring me suddenly realized the error of their ways.  I had people who I always admired share how they thought I was a good person.  It was all ridiculously morbid, almost lugubrious.

http://guard5girl5geek.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d28jzzb

I never finished the story because eventually I got things resolved.  I went to prom with a group of friends, pulled B's in my math classes, and worked out what had me so troubled about my friends.  I've never let anyone read what I wrote, I almost feel it is too silly and inane to mention now.  But I think it shows that what someone sees as an unbearably dark time isn't always because of a real tragedy they're facing.  I wouldn't have been ruined for life if I didn't go to prom.  The key is just the piling up of the struggles and the lack of a support net.  I try to never dismiss others troubles because of my own little experience back then.

On the other, less emotionally distressing side, I found another very personal message in the article on page 176.  Heck, I know I'm caught in the little conundrum all the time!  I am referring to the article about our generation's lack of ability to disconnect from the virtual world.  We think we're staying connected and keeping up lots of acquaintances and friends.  But we're not even managing to keep them up.  That texting or IM-ing or "facebooking" habit becomes all you're able to do and the outside world becomes less important.  We go from having healthy relationships to a "bubble of connectedness [that] stretches to ensnare us no matter where we are." (176) The ironic thing is, we think we're being more connected with our friends.  In truth, we're becoming more distant from each other.  I can't count how many times I've gone out to do something with a friend, only to have us both texting someone during our outing.  It's incredibly rude to each other yet unbelievably addicting.  You begin to believe that you have to text back the instant you receive a message, no matter what else is going on.  This cuts into others your physically with, focus that needs to be maintained on certain projects or jobs, and even possibly safety when it comes to driving.  So why can't we seem to peel ourselves away from the habit?  I honestly don't know the answer to that question, and I'm just as guilty as everyone else.  This summer I spent a weekend with a good friend at a convention but midway through the first day, I was constantly checking my phone and responding to people who I know as friends only in passing.  The girl I was with didn't say anything at first but she finally became frustrated enough to tell me how she felt.  I immediately felt guilty and tried to put the cell away.  But hearing it buzz, I had the almost-instinct to respond.  I never considered myself addicted to technology but..... I certainly consider that food for thought.

http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=cell%20phone&order=9&offset=24&offset=24#/dteg2n

Home on the Range (or Campus)- Longhorns and Mustangs

I'm going to have to agree with Sadia on this one- I never quite saw the longhorn as my animal or even one I wanted to be associated with.  In contradiction to how many feel, especially ones native to the area, I suspect I felt like I wanted to be above it all.  In other words, because I attended school a mere 30-35 miles away where everyone was either an Aggie or a Longhorn with maybe a few Texas Tech mixed in.  From 4th grade on, I was constantly peppered with the question of "which are you?"  I eventually came to the decision that I never wanted to be either.  Of course, that was really a decision more out of spite and a need to be unique than based on reason and actual personal emotion.  As I've started my freshman year, I've come to change my view to one I actually hold within myself, not just for the sake of my classmates.

In other words, I'm beginning to become enamored just the like the rest of us.  I think it is mostly in part that the longhorn is changing from an orange label slapped on everything in Austin to a living breathing animal.  They have traits and personalities and lives just as unique as ours.  I love the characterization given to Sancho during his saga.  I love how he becomes such a unique individual when he "became a kind of chiltipiquin addict.  He would hunt for the peppers." (106)  I can easily imagine this hulking figure with oversized horns carefully sweeping the ground and bushes for his favorite treat.  From there, the stories change to the more wild brethren of Sancho who were outlaws and ladinos.  They strike me as more of the mythology of Texas.  The non-comforists who helped to shape the cowboy myths that any Texan child has had read to them on cool summer nights.  (I know my family own such a collection.)

And that leads me to another important point that I felt should be mentioned.  The excerpts from Learning from Longhorns at first struck me as very silly and childish.  It sounded as if something you would read to a young child as a morality book.  But, I guess I'm not a complete cynic and it hit a soft spot with me on the mention of what nurturing mothers longhorns make.  I had no idea they were devoted and aware enough to draw you away from their calf if they sensed you following.  That shows an awareness and anticipation towards what others are thinking.  That's some pretty complicated thinking in my book!  I still have trouble recognizing whether I say something potentially awkward in a social situation.  I guess I still have a lot to learn from the bovine.

They're not just huge beasts.  They have feeling and distinctive lives- just like us.

from: http://whatwomenwritetx.blogspot.com/2009/11/wild-dogs-and-longhorn-cattle-couldnt.html

As for the other wildlife (for truly, by definition they are wild) that we covered in our reading, I felt myself fall into the romance of the mustang as presented in so many stories and anecdotes.  They are never merely horses or feral work animals that in the vast expanses of grasslands.  They are inseparable from our image of how Texas was in it's "golden age."  Despite that they came with the first Spanish Conquistadores were never native to the area, we hold the as the hallmark to the age of the Indians and Cowboys.  They grace our old movies of the John Wayne variety and are often used in art across the west.  When I first read the quote, "a thing of beauty will never pass into nothingness" (131) I thought the writer to be exceedingly nostalgic.  Couldn't he see that the wild mustangs no longer ran the prairies that are now covered in suburbs and shopping malls?  But I began to think about it, and saw that he didn't mean it in such a literal sense.  He was referring to our collective image and ideal of these magnificent creatures.  Though highways may cut across the open land instead of cattle drives, we still honor our history and theirs.  All the pictures, postcards, stuffed animals, and movies that show the rolling plains and the untamable inhabitants- the mustangs.  That is how we preserve our thing of beauty.

This the the statue on campus which I have admired in passing on the way to the museum.

from: http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/images/

Windhover and Reactions

I've never been much of a poetry buff and I certainly can't name to you all the rhythm schemes and when they were most popular with London's finest.  But when a poem moves me, that I can grasp and articulate with a bit more clarity.  And how can you not be moved by such a wonderful piece?

As my classmates have said before me, I too was caught in the majesty that is used to describe this powerful bird in flight.  But to me, that all seemed rather expected in the fact that he is describing a bird in flight.  I was knocked off my feet when Hopkins begins to move into the subject of the windhover  overpowering the wind.  Hopkins then begins to make his connection between the bird and himself.  He describes his "heart in hiding" and that's where I deviate in my interpretation of the poem.  It seems to me that Hopkins is aching for the same freedom and scope of capabilities the windhover has, "the mastery of the thing."  And when he comes to the pivotal moment of "buckle," I don't visualize a change in the bird but rather one in the man himself.  His walls that he has created around his heart to protect himself from the perceived threat of the outside world crumble.  Hence, the fire that breaks lose is that of his own passion.  And in some ways, I feel this lends more credibility to the final stanza.  Because now the field is not just freshly-turned cropland, it's the fertile space in his mind that he has opened up for use.  I know this might be reading too much into the poem but that's what felt right to me and occurred immediately during my first reading of the piece.

And in truth, I see in the selection of other poems by Hopkins a similar sense of search for release.  Whether that be from the mundane world such as in the "Sea and the Skylark."  The opening on this piece focuses on the natural cadence of his surroundings and their harmony with each other.  But in the third stanza, he criticizes either the actual clock tower or the human populations lifestyle by saying "how ring right out our sordid turbid time."  It's as if he views city life to be mechanical in it's progression of time instead of the natural flow found in the natural world.

In the vein of time in terms of the physical understanding (AKA- the hours and minutes we so arbitrarily rule our lives by) and that of a more openly interpreted time, I feel that The Annotated Alice fits in perfectly.  For the contrast that I see between the hustling, bustling inhabitants of the city and the more natural gait of country folk (I put myself in the latter, generally speaking) is displayed with Alice's curiosity towards the rabbit.  Alice is rather bored with her sister in the first chapter but is generally amused enough to not stress or worry about finding something to do.  The white rabbit, on the other hand, is a nervous flurry of action.  He is perennially caught in another sense of time and cannot slow down.  He seems to embody that which Hopkins wants to avoid- the more superficial style of life.  Instead, maybe we should model off of Alice.  But that sends me on a train of thought of maybe Alice serves as a better totem than the rabbit but that's discussion for another day...