fandomhigh | World Mythology - Monday, March 31st

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World Mythology - Monday, March 31st - 2nd Period

Ghanima appeared rather cheerful this morning, one might almost say the Princess Royal was giddy.

Almost. This was, however, Ghanima, and she effortlessly slipped into her role as teacher once the class was assembled.

"Welcome back, I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend," she teased, blue-on-blue eyes flaring with amusement. "I was called out of town for the majority of the weekend, and didn't get to experience the joy of witnessing your second childhoods. If anyone has pictures of the event, I would love to see them."

"Today, however, you are all back to your proper ages, and therefore class shall go forward as normal. Firstly, last week you were given an assignment; to explore the library and report back today about the items you found therein. I am going to assume that many of you planned to do the work this weekend, and were unavoidably detoured from your project. I would, however, like to hear from those of you that did to the assignment. You," she said, pointing at a random student, "What did you learn?"

After listening to those that had completed the work, she nodded. "Congratulations on a job well done. Those of you who had the foresight not to procrastinate on the assignment, I will bring treats from JGoB next week. For the rest of you, you ought to know by now that 'Fandom Weird' strikes without warning, and with alarming frequency. Consider this a lesson in proper preparation for emergencies."

"Now that we have pondered the difficult relationship between religion and mythology, we turn our eyes southward, to the world 'Down Under', or Australia." Hopping off her desk, Ghanima began distributing the handouts to the class.

"Australian Aboriginal myths, also known as Dreamtime stories, Songlines or Aboriginal oral literature, are the stories traditionally performed by Aboriginal peoples within each of the language groups across Australia."

"All such myths variously tell of significant truths within each Aboriginal groups' local landscape affectively layering the whole of the Australian continent's topography with cultural nuance and deeper meaning, effectively empowering selected audiences with the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of Australian Aboriginal ancestors back to time immemorial."

"Australian Aboriginal mythologies have been characterised as "at one and the same time fragments of a catechism, a liturgical manual, a history of civilisation, a geography textbook, and to a much smaller extent a manual of cosmography". "

"Now, there are over 400 distinct Aboriginal groups from across Australia, each distinguished from each other by unique names most often identifying the particular languages, dialects, or distinctive speech mannerisms. There are so many distinct Aboriginal groups, languages, beliefs and practices that it would not seem proper to attempt to characterise, under a single heading, the full range and diversity of all myths being variously and continuously told, developed, elaborated, performed, and experienced by members of each and every one to the groups across the whole of the continent," she said, continuing to pace the room. "Despite the daunting task of trying to catalog such an evolving mythology, The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia never-the-less observes: "One intriguing feature [of Aboriginal Australian mythology] is the mixture of diversity and similarity in myths across the entire continent.""

The traditions and lore of Australia's indigenous peoples belongs to what may be one of the oldest continuous culture on Earth, to my understanding, circa 50,000 years. Indigenous Australian peoples conceive of all things beginning with The Dreaming or Altjeringa, also called the Dreamtime, a sacred 'once upon a time', time out of time in which ancestral Totemic Spirit Beings formed The Creation." Ghanima smiled as she returned to the front of the class to sit on her desk. "Some of this may sound familiar by now, and while we could dedicate an entire semester to the power of the collective human unconscious, we unfortunately do not have the time."

"On your desks, you should now have four handouts regarding The Dreamtime, Songlines, and the Rainbow Serpent. Please read them over, and then we will discuss as a class."

[OOC: ~~Please wait for~~ the OCD ~~to go~~ up.]

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Once more, with wee!tiny!

S.T. Anders, who was never weetiny in Fandom ~~or, you know, possibly EVER~~

Adam Park, who also has yet to be weetiny in Fandom.

Savannah Levine

Isabel Evans

Hoshi Sato

Michael Guerin

Valentine ~~who was not weetiny, but here, have a toy, kids!~~

Wyatt Halliwell

William Kessler ~~who feels sorry for Adam for never getting to be weetiny~~

Dawn Summers

Jim Halpert

Naminé

Teyla Emmagan

Katara

Troy Bolton, who wasn't wee this weekend, so have some Gerard Butler instead.

If you actually went to the library to browse the 200s, let Ghanima know. What did you find, what do you think about it?

[OOC: Yes, this can be a handwavey answer, details not required.]

Michael had gone to the library, before the weetiny struck. Surreptitiously.

Edited 2008-03-31 17:32 (UTC)

Hoshi had ~~handwavily~~ gone to the library, but some time during the weekend, she had colored all over her notes.

Valentine had ~~handwavily~~ managed to get to the library sometime before he started flitting off to another world, but never did find the 200s.

No matter how hard he yelled at them, none of them had wanted to fly into his net.

Billy had gone to the library, and found that most of the religion section was just the Big Three: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Anyother religions were in the New Age section.

Dawn frowned. What she'd really learned was that there was only so long her boyfriend would tolerate her staying in the library under non-weirdness or crisis situations.

Which didn't mean she didn't explain all the different myths she'd read about to Ghanima, in very thorough detail, and with comparisons to some of the ones they'd learned about.

Teyla was thankful she'd gone to the library before the weekend. She had done enough research to tell Ghanima about the surprisingly wide variety of myths that were available.

As you do.

Isabel had reluctantly dragged herself to class and was sitting taking notes.

And Michael was taking notes too.

Hoshi was taking detailed notes as usual. Somehow, it felt weird not to be using crayon.

Dawn was taking even more notes than usual. She didn't know much of anything about the Australian myths.

Do you have anything like this in your culture? Is it similar to anything else we've studied in class?

Valentine considered this question carefully before answering, pleasantly.

"In my world, there's something called the Dream Lands," he ventured. "It isn't really the beginning or the end of anything, it's all dreams and wishes settled between the Light and the Dark, not really given shape or form so much as they're given... the suggestion of it. What was a fountain one day might be gone the next, replaced with a bicycle, or a piece of cake."

He tapped the eraser of his pencil against his desk, musing on this for another moment.

"But now and again, something that showed up in the Dream Lands one day will become a part of the rest of the world once it's left there. So I think, perhaps, that the girl who built my world-- it's her dreams in particular that form up most of what flickers into suggestion, there on the border, though I've seen hints now and then that the dreams of others close to her sometimes find their way there, as well."

He looked at the handout for a moment longer, and then looked up to Ghanima with a pleased smile.

"It seems rather similar to me," he decided.

Naminé looked over, curiously, and wished she could have seen the Dreamlands.

Songlines. What do they remind you of from other cultures?

"There are many worlds, but one sky," Naminé said softly. "The idea that ... we're all connected. There are always pathways, if you can see them."

As it says, Discuss!

As you do.

Billy was here, looking distracted.

If you can get her to stop bouncing and looking smug.

DONE. OMG, WHY IS IT SNOWING AGAIN? IT WAS 60 YESTERDAY!

IT THE APOCALYPSE! ZOMG!

... I'm seriously done with this crap weather. It's spring, for crying out loud!

*is in total agreement*

Persephone and Hades are having great sex. *nods*

Good for them, but they need to stop sometime, right?

Right?

Quick, someone Demeter to go bust up the party and demand her share of custody.

NO KIDDING. I say we file a formal protest. I wouldn't mind so much, if the weather would just make a decision about what it wants to be.

Anansi one week, and then the Dreamtime?

Oh, you are positively spoiling me. <3

Hee! *halos*

See, feedback like this gives me ideas for other classes. People should not give me ideas, it usually results in someone calling the cops.

Awww, but those sorts of ideas are fun, too. *halo*

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World Mythology - Monday, March 31st - 2nd Period

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The Homework

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