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Starting anew...

With the start of a new quarter I am making the decision to continue on with my blog here but from now on it will be (mostly) non-academic. This is just a place for me to spill my guts (without any actual blood and guts). I just have a lot to say, there's a lot on my mind and I think that my horse is sick of hearing it all.

I had a big developement last night. Quintin and I have been talking very seriously about what our future looks like and it seems to be that both us a very open to the idea of getting engaged within the not-too-distant future. He actually told me that when he was in his last segment at boot camp he had actually thought through some ways to ask me to marry him. (!!!????!!!!!) I never thought that I would be the kind of girl who got butterflies when she heard that kind of stuff...but last night when I was laying in bed I was totally head-over-heels!

This is a real possibility (oxymoron?). I may have found that "one." He makes me so incredibly happy and I have literally never felt so complete. I can't even imagine being with someone else. The sound of his voice makes anything better. I still have so much to do, explore, and learn...some of that he will be a part of and some of it he will act as background support for. I just can't wait for our life to start--together.

I spent two days with him in South Carolina and only had limited one-on-one time with him, but just that brief amount of time with him back in my life totally refreshed me. I didn't realize how I had totally crawled back inside myself and started shutting everything else out. He brought me back though. He was just what I needed.

I am so in love with a boy. Who woulda thought?

This was a start. I will be getting deeper...don't worry.

Our persevering roots...

Wow what a whirlwind of a quarter this has been! There was a lot of planning, a lot of failed plans, lots of ideas that had to get reworked, and just a lot of chaos in general. But, Hey!, that's the American way right?

I love that this quarter ended with spring...no, not only because of the sunshine and warm breezes (though those do help!), but because I feel like I have such a fresh perspective on everything now. You know your an English major if...you can relate every single thing that happens on any given day back to a book you recently read. Seriously, I feel like there isn't a day that I don't reflect back to something we covered this quarter. When I ask myself why this is, it's simple: because these readings are our roots. What we delved into this quarter was the beginning of it all. The way we are today, the way we act, and react, and feel, think is all a direct result of the issues and ideas that are at the core of all this literature. That's pretty, genuinely awesome. I have never quite felt the kind of direct connection to literature as a whole in a single class as I have this quarter. I mean, yes, there are books and poetry that speak to me on far more levels than some of this work did, but as an entire unit over the course of two weeks...I am almost taken aback by it now that I am really reflecting.

This quarter has given me profound understanding.

Now where did we start? At the beginning would make sense...so, ahh, Mr. Mather and his witches...

What did I learn about my current American perspective?
We,as a culture, are still scared of anything that doesn't make sense. We would much rather classify and degrade those who are different or even odd than actually deal with what may or may not be going on. We still, to this day, try to separate ourselves from anything that may seem out of the ordinary. Do we still see the body as a register/barometer for evil? Yes, though I don't think we attribute it to "evil" anymore necessarily. We still resort back to these deep-seeded roots of resentment towards anything we don't have a firm understanding of.

Quote I'll take with me:
"Alas, the Philistines, of Hell have cut our locks for us, they then blind us, mock us, ruin us: In truth, I cannot altogether blame it, if People are a little transported, when they conceive all the secular interests of themselves and their families at stake; and yet at the sight of these Heartburnings, I cannot forbear the Exclamation of the Sweet-spirited"

Next: Young Goodman Brown

What did I learn about my current American perspective?
I think that most have become very transient with their faith. Goodman walked into the forest knowing the temptation and evil that it (supposedly) possessed. He walked out on his faith yet when he needed to recover from the experience he had he returned to his faith. I am not a religious person but it frustrates me to no end when people pick and choose which situations they will approach as a spiritual person. In the Catholic Church sin flies around like it's nothing, but as long as you go say a few "Hail Marys" and put on a good act of apology for your priest then everything is magically A-OK...How does that make any sense? People today are just as quick to re-assume their faith as they were to write it off in the first place, and it's all situational. Did Young Goodman Brown start it all?

Love this last part:
"A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate, man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because another anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain"

That then leads us to: Women's Indian Captivity Narratives--Mary Rowlandson.

What kind of perspective did this give me on our modern American culture?
In class we discussed the hypothetical/philosphical question of what a combined Indian/ Puritan belief system would have looked like had the Indians and Puritans gotten along and I think that the beautiful thing is that now that sort of thing does exist in this country. Sure there are still people getting belittled and picked on but that will happen anywhere. For the most part, here in America, you can feel free to be the person you want to be, whoever and whatever that is. It was a long time coming from where we started but we have made it.
Also, I couldn't help but think about our culture's obsession with white women's captivity. It is a story that we can't get enough of to this day...Silence of the Lambs, Law and Order: SVU, Taken, it is everywhere in pop culture and Rowlandson was really the first woman to come out with this sort of story. Do you think she knew she have such a groundbreaking idea?

Quote to take with me:
"This sight was enough to melt a heart of flint"--I just think that is so beautiful and gives such context to her situation.

"I had taken two or three pipes and was presently ready for another"--I really liked this scene as a whole because it brought humanity to the Indians that have been portrayed as such savages and also seemed to bring a little light to the situation.



After that we read: The Conquest of New Spain

Current culture insights:
Desire.For.Domination. It is still so alive in this culture today, as we saw with the wrestling movie. Men still have this incredible need to be the biggest and the best, to overcome and conquer and we, as women, tend to feed the viscious cycle. I'll be the first to admit, I adore my boyfriend for his big, muscley arms and for the fact that he is in the army and plays football. That's what every classic American girl wants right? Why? Nowadays, it is a hard question for us to answer but I think anymore there isn't an answer directly relating to the current status...it all goes back to our roots. This is a mindset that has been passed down and manipulated from generation to generation. I'm amazed that it hasn't spiraled completely out of control yet (or maybe it has).

Quote:
All the description in the narrative was so, so beautiful! But I loved this description of gunshots and the apparent deceit:
"For they told him we shot out flashes of lightning, and killed many Indians with our horses, and that we were angry Tueles, and other such childish stories. But now that he had seen us, he knew that we were of flesh and blood and very intelligent, also very brave. Therefore, he had a far greater esteem for us than the reports had given him, and would share with us what he had."

Also, not from the book but it was said that Cortes asked Montezuma if they had any more gold because he and his men "had a sickness of the heart which could only be cured by gold"--talk about laying the greed on thick...I will remember that forever...

On to...The Coquette!

Cultural connection:
Females in today's society seem to be plagued with an inability to find a suitable mate, hence half of all marriages end in divorce. How sad is that? Can we never learn? Or has Eliza's mindset grown and mutated over the generations causing and entire population of women with an inability to make a wise decision? Maybe I'm being a little too harsh and a little too broad...but still the stats exist and prove that we as a culture have become completely incapable of finding suitable mates.

Quotes:
"I am young, gay, volatile."

"Sometimes I think of becoming a predestinarian, and submitting implicitly to fate, without any exercise of free will; but as mine seems to be a wayward one, I would counteract the operations of it, if possible"

Week 6 Brought us Thoreau and Emerson and unfortunately I don't think we see any more than brief glimpses of them in certain people in our current day. We live in a culture of people who all think they are thinking for themselves, but when reality strikes the truth is that each and every one of our opinions is very guided through channels that we don't even realize most of the time. "Let yourself be a counterfriction to the machine" is something I think that a lot of us would love to embrace, but none of us, likely, will have the guts to actually do it. It's far easier to fall into line and besides, we're too busy to make plans to stir things up anyways....

As for my slave girl friend Linda...
Connection to today:
I think that in its very base form we can find the largest connection to be FREEDOM! So many worked so hard to get it and we do take it for granted in the modern day, but it is also something we take advantage of each and every single waking (and sleeping for that matter) hour. I think that in the hustle and bustle of the every day we forget about our freedoms but when it comes down to it if you were doing street interviews and asking, "What is the best thing that we have in America?" I guarantee you most everyone would say "freedom." It is ingrained into us, it is what we are passionate about.

Quote to forever hold...
"Why does the slave ever love? Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wretched away by the hand of violence?"--heartbreaking...

In the Heart of the Sea--
brings us back to the idea of dominance and conquest that is still alive and breeding in our culture. However, this story brings to life the risk and the affliction. This is something that is not integrated into our culture anymore and if it is we seem to be used to/immune to it. The sad thing is that even though we can hear these tales and feel this pain with these men, it still will never curb the appeal of this core form of masculinity...sadly enough.

I will never forget...
"began by removing the most obvious signs of the corpse's humanity"--gut-wrenching...

O POE...
Current day connection:
We love the dark and the gothic and although we have modernized these sorts of things in various ways it all comes back to Poe. Today we also hear far too often about love becoming an obsessive, consumptive force...there are so many stalking issues, and rapes, and murders that have to do with this force that it's almost sickening. And to think that Poe was the one who tapped into it all first!

Before Reading Ligeia I had no idea that Poe could write to beautifully...too bad it was obsessively driven...

Line to remember..."Misery is manifold"

DICKINSON!
My love! My heart belongs to Emily! JK! but not really...

Connections:
We spent a lot of class time looking into who Emily was as a person and we were very critical of her lifestyle, as many have been. Maybe she was one of the visionaries for this type of lifestyle, however, today it is very commonplace to most creative people to be at least somewhat seclusive if not completely. In solitude I think many find their purest thoughts and in that I see Emily's way still being alive today...

Forever and ever..."We are the only poets and every one else is prose"...


This is what I will take with me...and with this I feel content. I have learned so much and will continuously refer back to these stories, to our roots, for reference and inspiration. Thanks so much for everything!

Back on Track with Dickinson Week 10

Emily Dickinson is my soft spot, she makes me melt.
"We are the only poets and every one else is prose" from "Open Me Carefully"...how can that not just totally send you into a whole other realm?! I love it! I love it! I love it!


Emily's poetry is poetry of shadow and difficulty but also of will and self-reliance. I found it incredibly interesting that her copy of Emerson's "Self-Reliance" is still in existence and that out of all the passages she could have underlined, "my life is for itself and not spectacle" and "what I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think" were the two she chose to distinguish.

In class we described Emily as "deeply dysfunctional" and I can't say that I really agree. I think that Emily was not comfortable in the situation that she was brought up into and quite frankly I think that a family of lawyers and nights filled with dinner parties and other social events would probably send me into seclusion too. There are lots of people who find comfort in solitude, nowadays they live out in the wilderness of Oregon or the desert of Arizona but they exist nonetheless. I can't say that some of my most profoundly happy moments are when I'm completely alone. So why are we so hard on Emily. I don't quite understand it...lots and lots of creative people tend to spend great quantities of time in seclusion. Are we tough on her because in her time her behavior was generally unacceptable? Because she chose not to rise to the social occasion of her status? or simply because she had such a strong, vivid voice that we must find some way to rationalize it all?

Speaking of rationalizing...we also spoke of Emily's seemingly bipolar relationship with love in class and I am going to rationalize it by saying that many times we live in memories. I know that I do it on a regular basis. Emily we know had been hurt before. I have been hurt before. But she was also very hopeful (In fact her poem "Hope is the thing with feathers/that perches on the soul/ and sings the tune without the words/ and never stops--at all-" is my absolute favorite!)I think we have all been in the situation when we are sitting alone with our thoughts and they take us back to a certain time and place and we feel as though we are completely immersed. When you do "snap" out of it, the feeling is incredible. This is how I imagine Emily being. Only she had the ability to put quill to parchment when she was in her "trance". Therefore, when she was in a darker memory, her poetry reflected it and vis-versa. We all have moods and certain things that inspire us. Again, why are we so hard on her?

She is beyond brilliant and I think that we should absolutely keep looking deeply into her writing but should be a little more sympathetic to her situation. I really believe she wasn't as "loony" as everyone thinks she was.

My faves:

Wherever runs the breathless sun-
Wherever roams the day-
There is its noiseless onset-
There is its Victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time's sublimest target
Is a soul "forgot!"



When Roses cease to bloom, Sir,
And Violets are done-
When Bumblebees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun-
The hand that paused to gather
Upon this Summer's day
Will idle lie - in Auburn-
Then take my flowers- Pray!


I held a Jewel in my fingers-
And went to sleep-
The day was warm, and winds were prosy-
And I said "'Twill keep"-

I woke - and child my honest fingers,
The Gem was gone-
And now, an Amethyst remembrance
Is all I own-


If you were coming in the Fall,
I'd brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As housewives do, a Fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls-
And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse-

If only Centuries, delayed,
I'd count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers dropped
Into Van Dieman's Land.

If certain, when this life was out-
That yours and mine, should be
I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind,
and take Eternity-

But, now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee-
That will not state - its sting.

There are o' so many more, but I must keep this somewhat brief! It's been a wonderful week!

Catching Up! Week 5

Okay so I'm going to begin by making what may seem to be an off-the-wall personal connection but it must be made for my own sake because, for me, the timing couldn't be more perfect.
I have a confession to make...I am in love with someone other than my betrothed... she may be a horse named Coquette, but I am madly in love with her and would give up anything, including Quintin and my baby Benjamin (also a horse lol), to have her be mine. We met once, but I have had eyes only for her ever since and I can't help but think of the happiness we could have together. Quintin and Ben are safe, good men, they really are but I love the mystery she possesses and I am overcome with desire for her.


How'd I do? A little over the top? Well, it was worth a try... (I do love her though, she is damn good-lookin')

Back on track now...The Coquette is totally classic (which is probably why it remained in print for more than 100 years straight after its publishing). It is the tale that women love to read and sentimentalize with. Some women, actually I would go as far as to say many women, have lived through these same tribulations and have been pestered with the question of fiery, wild and unpredictable or safe and a little bland?

In class we made connections to the movie "The Patriot," which gave us a really good insight into what the mindset of the period was like. Americans were no longer dealing with questions of faith but now, rather, those of freedom. Thomas Hutchinson said, "A thirst for liberty characterizes this people" and I think that can be easily seen in The Coquette.

This is one of the first narratives that was released having to do with a woman making her own decisions and offered a really fresh portrayal of the contrast between social conformity and individualism. At this time Americans were just beginning to get a taste of what individualism was and therefore this novel speaks incredibly well to the idealism of the country as a whole.

Eliza's decision was simple in nature: passion vs. reason. However, it is a tragic question in the sense that many in the past have fallen victim to making the wrong decision. But I must take a moment and ask...are both decisions doomed? Both Boyer and Sanford are deliberately flat characters. Although, there is nothing radical or revolutionary in choosing Boyer there really isn't anything incredibly beneficial about the decision to choose Sanford either, he is deficient of virtue, corrupt, predatory, fiercely (if not brutally) self-interested, and he capitalizes on the ways that he is associated with the taboo (all characteristics that we discussed in class). If she were to choose Boyer we, I think, would be right to presume that she would be bored and disinterested with her life and be constantly tempted to stray from her marriage. However, with a choice of Sanford we can also presume that Eliza would long for a stable life built on commitment rather than passion. The right answer would be to find a happy medium...but does that really exist?

Kailey, the optimist, who is currently is in a healthy relationship, would say yes. However, the skies aren't always quite so blue. When we descend from a dreamworld and come back to reality it is apparent that "happy mediums" don't come easily, but are rather slowly accomplished based on the compromises of each party. But, alas, we must re-center ourselves and keep in mind the time period in question. This was a time of revolution! Therefore, of course Eliza had to make the daring decision...otherwise this novel wouldn't have fit very well into the historical slot that we needed it to fill. So, what did she do? Choose Sanford. Who had already moved on to another woman. Sad. But then what should her next move be? Settle for second best of course. But, guess what, Boyer had already beaten her to that idea. In the end she is alone.

It's a good thing that our daring, passionate country didn't end up with the same fate when it decided to make a bold move.

Sadly, this seduction narrative becomes an iconic representation of the fallen woman. However, it leaves us with a classic tragedy, riddled with the passion of the time period, that can serve as a lesson to be learned for many women out there. Though I do think that Tough Love with Steve Ward on Vh1 is near equally as entertaining and enlightening.

In the end, I think I will take the advice with me that when in doubt make a bold move but don't be disappointed if you end up in a beige world either--it's better than a pit of despair.

Faves:
"The heart of your friend is again besieged. Whether it will surrender to its assailants or not, I am unable at present to determine. Sometimes I think of becoming a predestinarian, and submitting implicitly to fate, without any exercise of free will; but as mine seems to be a wayward one, I would counteract the operations of it, if possible" (24)--this gives us a really great insight into not only Eliza's wit and intelligence but also her passion.

"While, therefore, I receive your visits, and cultivate towards you sentiments of friendship and esteem, I would not have you consider me as confined to your society, or obligated to a future connection" (29).

"O, I have another plan in my head; a plan of necessity, which, you know, is the mother of invention" (34)

"I do not plan to give my hand to any man at present. I have but lately entered society; and wish, for awhile, to enjoy my freedom, in the participation of pleasures, suited to my age and sex" (50).

"Beware of the delusions of fancy!" (57) --foreshadowing much?

Catch-up! Week 2

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a troubled spirit. He lived with a family curse burdening his everyday and it is easy to see that he worked through many of the wretches that haunted him within his writing. The evening that I sat down to read Young Goodman Brown I happened to have the travel channel on for background noise and couldn't help but pay attention to the fact that the scheduled show was covering the "World Creepiest Destinations" and the world famous Winchester Mystery House was in the number one spot. I thought that it was an odd connection once I came to class and learned about the Hawthorne family history. It just so happens that Sarah Winchester was also haunted by a family curse, in fact it is said that she became so possessed by the souls that had been slain by the infamous Winchester Rifle (the sake to all the families money) that she started building this maze of a house to try to confuse them and keep them away from her. In the 38 years leading up to her death she had carpenters working around the clock creating staircases leading to the ceiling and doorways that opened to nowhere. Creepy huh? So Sarah spend $5.5 million building a mystery house and Nathaniel wrote stories. I think I'd be more comfortable sitting in a room with Hawthorne. This whole Winchester thing kinda creeps me out! A cool connection nonetheless.

Anyways, getting back on track towards "Young Goodman Brown"...This story plays with the Puritan conception of the wilderness as the Devil's playground. The Puritans believed that the forest had alluded God's hand and was never domesticated. Therefore, when venturing into this sort of place no one was immune. Brown's Faith, yes, his wife, what did you think I was referring to? Asked him to stay awhile longer on her behalf. But wait...what if Hawthorne is playing a bit with his words here? Do you think he dare do such a thing? If he meant faith in the religious sense then does that mean that Brown's "faith" knew that he would be tested beyond his limits on this night as he ventures into the darkness...of the forest? Hmmmm....

Even as Brown enters the woods he asks himself, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow?" Yes,what if? Yet, he continues forth. A few pages further we find Mr. Hawthorne playing with his words again "What if a wretched old woman do choose when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go any farther?" Would he really be loosing sight of his wife if he went further? or would he be testing his religion? Better yet, a few moments after asking himself this question he sees his minister and deacon on horseback jogging through the woods. I am "tempted" to think that this is Hawthorne's representation of how he sees the devil's temptation. Then Goodman goes on to say "With Heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!"...but wait Mr. Brown...what good is it to stand firm against the devil when your Faith has already gone down below? I mean that is what you subconsciously said...right?

Well, as the story progresses the "faith" wordplay continues and Hawthorne even throws in zingers like "humanize" which sounds an awful lot like "human eyes." Brown is overcome with all sorts of images and feelings (Hawthorne doesn't hold back here)and we are left to ask what the scariest thing in the forest was that night, could it have been Goodman Brown himself? and he does choose his Faith in the end right? I mean can you ignore your faith one moment and then take it back? Kudos Hawthorne, kudos. You will leave us wondering for a long time. Which is maybe your way of getting rid of your own monsters...by letting them loose on others...


My favorite quote: (other than all the Faith wordplay)
"A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation we singing a holy psalm, he could no listen, because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain."

Is it really Week 9 already?!

As I sit here to work out my thoughts I have the Oscars on in the background and couldn't help but find it a little spooky that the Oscars just presented a "mash-up" if you will as a tribute to horror films AND this week we studied the man of horror himself. Poe was the one to start it all, in America at least, and the "Fall of the House of Usher" was one of the very first horror films ever made (dating back to 1928). What are the chances? Although, Poe is the master of the dark and austere I would like to work through my surprises this week...which was really one main surprise I suppose--the fact that Poe can write beautifully stunning love narratives. Now, by no means do I think that he needs to change his last to Austen or Bronte but I can honestly say old Ed sure threw me for a bit of a loop. Now, of course his "love stories" ( a term that I will cautiously use out of respect for Ed's primary image)are complete with the typical Poe paraphernalia but I will give credit where credit it due and within the pages of Ligeia, Bernice and Morella there is some truly beautifully writing. Take for instance:

"Hour after hour, would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music of her voice" --from Morella

"The character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language, made their way into my heart by so steadily and stealthily progressive, that they had been unnoticed and unknown" --from Ligeia

If you had plucked out those quotes and handed them to me, I would have never in a million years guessed that Poe had penned those words. However,they become sensical when you put them in context with narrations such as:

"During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, Had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning--among the trellised shadows for the forest at noonday--and in the silence of the library at night--she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her--not as the living and breathing Bernice, but as the Bernice of a dream; not as being of the earth, earthy, but as the obstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And now-- now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet, bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in a never moment, I spoke to her of marriage."

The above proves to me that the second set of readings for this week are truly Poe because of the complexity. None of the narrators in those 3 pieces could simply love or love simply and it is within the intricacies of their psychology that we are once again able to see Poe's brilliant mind at work.

In class on Thursday we tackled the subject of "does/can love conquer all," and by no means did this prove to be a question with a simplistic answer. Rather, it has no definite answer at all. Love has the power to overcome someone, on a personal level, without a doubt but "conquering all" is a pretty large-scale designation. Love has an ability to completely consume, which has been very obviously seen with the tale of Ligeia, which is interesting coming from Poe because we usually expect psychological paranoia to overcome his protagonists.

We asked some brutal questions, including is it possible that Ligeia willed her own death...after all she is will personified...and really got into the depths of the reading. It was interesting how almost every member of the classroom had a different take on the reading and responded to the psychological deterioration in a variety of ways. Does Poe speak to our own myriad levels of psychology? I don't think we will every be able to fully comprehend the immortal genius of the man.

We read the classic Poe this week for Tuesdays class and gained new insight to the man on Thursdays class. Who would have thought Poe could enlighten? Though he must be an incredible if the New York Times is willing to grant him the space of an entire page... NYT page

Week 8!

So much to work through this week and so little space in my mind to process it all!

Okay, so Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl...vivid and brilliant. This is one of those readings that I feel like no matter how far down my path of life I happen to be, I will remember this story (even if just momentarily) and be able to be completely submerged within Linda's world. This can happen for only a few select reads and I think, I think this might be one of them, but, alas, only time will be able to tell [and believe me this book is competing with some greats...need I mention My Side of the Mountain, I Capture the Castle, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, etc.?) There I so much good juice in this book!

I think that the relationships in this read were what affected me the most. She bears her heart and soul to us, though I guess that's not a huge sacrifice considering nothing much worse can really happen to it. There were moments when I literally felt my stomach churning with anger for the anguish she lived through..."Why does the slave ever love? Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wretched away by the hand of violence"..."above all things I was desirous to spare my lover the insults that had cut so deeply into my own soul"...How can those words not make you just want to throb!

In class we got into some really deep material and discussed how our culture has a morally complicated relationship with choice and brought to light some of the questions that have embedded themselves within our culture relating to social respectability. Linda was not respectable in the eyes of the whites but had also made other slaves ashamed of her. Her grandmother told her that there was more virtue in death and/or rape than in what she was doing, citing "stand by your children and suffer with them till death." Wow are those some heavy words or what? We also discussed briefly that you must be selfish before you can sacrifice because you must have something to sacrifice before you can sacrifice it. Maybe what Linda was doing was selfish, but it was also selfless in the fact that she had the eventual aim of helping a cause much larger than herself. However, she had to work towards her freedoms before anything would be able to come of it.

To add insult to injury, I was browsing around and found this beauty...


How pathetic is it that these are the works which are more likely to be picked up in a bookstore and read by some poor, lonely, ignorant housewife rather than the real, heart-wrenching words of a woman whose life was spent actually struggling with all these toils. It makes me sick. [But now I can be assured that although I may one day I may very well become a housewife I surely won't be completely ignorant when it comes to my choice of reading materials.]




You know what also makes me sick? Cannibalism. No seriously.

That being said, In the Heart of the Sea, was an awesome read--gut-wrenching rather than heart-wrenching but good nonetheless. This was my first introduction (redundant?) to this story, as I have never read Moby Dick and that being said I apologize if I get hung up on some of the big-picture ideas, as I have never really worked through them before. First and foremost, I couldn't help but be continuously preoccupied with this notion of us, as humans, having such a huge preoccupation with conquering things so much larger than ourselves (which goes back to Conquest of New Spain, I know). Why climb the tallest mountain in the world and risk your life? Why go to war with another country and risk your life? Why set sail on a little boat and try to kill a monstrous whale? A beautiful, wild whale that has lived its life in serenity. What's with this little man syndrome? Why can't we just let things be the way they have been? There's no need to go around picking fights...I just don't understand. But when it really all comes down to it I suppose it's because we all feel this intense desire to prove. think about it, our lives completely center around proving anything and everything to other people. So I suppose if you start out big then all the little, everyday battles of life are a lot easier to win, in other words, if you kill a whale no one will really be interested in picking fights with you. And it's a lot easier to hook up with the ladies! Don't believe me? Well, "there was rumored to be a secret society of women on the island whose members pledged to marry only men who had killed a whale" (13). Which again brings me back to this human fascination with all things "big". No one wants to be with the simple man, we all want bigger and better...but why?

In class I loved the connection we made with Rowlandson with the word "affliction". I think at first the definition of affliction could be found amongst the men on the boat wrapped up with the intense weight that seemed to always be on their shoulders. The weight of having something to prove. For instance, take the character of Lawrence, he was afflicted with the fact that his every move was being watched and that with even the smallest of mistakes his entire reputation (or the one he was trying to gain) could to ruined forever..."he knew that the mate was analyzing every one of his movements. If he let chase down there would be hell to pay" (52). That is some serious pressure if you ask me. However, that kind of affliction has no comparison to affliction in its most extreme form that these men would have to deal with down the road.
"As they lost weight, they became lethargic in body and spirit. They became increasingly irritable. Concentration became difficult. They were appalled by their lack of physical strength and coordination, and many suffered blackouts when they stood up too quickly. Their limbs swelled. They lost their sexual desire and would indulge instead in a kind of "stomach masturbation," describing favorite meals to one another and pouring over cookbooks for hours at a time" (158). In severity, this was a whole new kind of affliction. Then, "they were about to eat one of their own shipmates...this was not a whale or a hog or a tortoise. This was Lawson Thomas, a shipmate with whom they had shared two hellish months in an open boat. Whoever butchered Thomas's body had to contend not only with the cramped quarters of the twenty-five-foot boat but also with the chaos of his own emotions...Dean began by removing the most obvious signs of the corpse's humanity" (165). Yikes! Does the word affliction even describe this anymore? I think we might need to create a new word to suite this situation. This is seriously heavy.

An intense week this was...a lot to pack in...hope I did it!

Week 7

Okay, so at this moment in time we, as a class, find ourselves wedged in the "in-between." Otterbein cancelled classes for the first time in my college career! I feel as though this was a somewhat anti-Thoreauvian move (if that's a word?). Thoreau would have preferred for Otterbein to not be swayed from its typical stance on snow issues not affecting classes. However, there is some irony when considering that our Thoreau reading/discussion was what ended up being displaced, of all the possibilities! That was a useless tidbit but I found it to be somewhat intriguing.
I am going to start off this week by making a bold statement. Some of you will judge me, some will stand adamantly by my side. I will take a Thoreauvian stance and state that I don't care either way because this is what I believe to be true and I will stand by it for all of eternity. Alanis Morissette is my modern-day Thoreau. There I said it.

Here is my proof ( a random smattering):

"There is no difference in what we're doing in here
that doesn't show up as bigger symptoms out there.
Why do we spent so much time in dressing our bandages
When we've the ultimate cause to the key right here
Underneath"
-From "Underneath"

"We're never going to survive
Unless we get a little crazy"
- From "Crazy"

"Change is never a waste of time
Sometimes life is so unkind"
-From "(Change is) never a waste of time"

"We watch movies of murder and censor the breast
Give thanks for the murders of Chris Columbus
We kill our own and we vote for the man
the lesser of evils and us starring in the role of victim"
- From "Awakening Americans"


Believe me when I tell you this is just the beginning of similar thought-trains that I could dig up to prove my point. However, I will find rest with these few excerpts keeping in mind that not all who will be reading this will have the degree of adoration for Alanis that I do.

Here's the thing with Alanis...she has a firm idea about everything but never knows what it is that she truly wants...and just when she thinks she has found it, she gets royally screwed (Ryan Reynolds ring a bell?) and finds herself starting over from scratch once again. Her turmoil is gut-wrenching, but it makes for some damn good music.

Alanis can never be appeased...she lives as a constant "counter friction to the machine" and through her music is constantly asking her listeners to ask the hard questions for themselves as well.

Thoreau was another one who I would stick in the category of having a firm opinion on everything but not necessarily knowing exactly what they want at any given moment. He would be sad to hear that I think but, for me at least, it appears to be the truth. This was my first reading of "Resistance to Civil Government" and I have limited memory of my reading of Walden, however, Thoreau has become very wishy-washy for me. This could be totally just how I perceive him on a personal level but I guess that's really all I have to go on at this point. In class it was mentioned that Emerson thought that it would have been good for Thoreau to have a woman in his life, who could "straighten and sweeten" him. It came as a surprise to me that he lived the life of a bachelor because for the longest time my one of my favorite Thoreau quotes has been "there is no remedy for love but to love more," and it loses all of its validity for me now to know that he never had a true love in his life other than himself and his ideas. Such a shame.

I will forever love both of these figures. I commend them for being completely unwilling to settle and for not being afraid to voice a strong opinion. In many cases it is a lot easier to submit to and accept the status quo. It takes balls to stand up for something especially when you give up all hope for a semi-normal life--I guess if I took either of their stances, however, I would be asking myself what was so great about that kind of life anyways.

It hard to keep my own mind of the straight and narrow when in the presence of all these thoughts. I think, overall, the important thing is to figure out where my own individual happiness comes from and make sure that I don't let all the other bullshit in this crazy world get in the way of it. I don't get happiness from paying my taxes but not paying them would get in the way of the things that do make me happy. Being outdoors and getting dirty makes me happy, I'm sorry if I smell. Being in the presence of my boyfriend makes me happy and I'll be damned if anyone tries to lecture me about how being a part of a relationship means I have sacrificed my own voice. I'm so sick of hearing it. Alanis and Thoreau wouldn't put up with it, they do what they want. I will try to channel this more whole-heartedly from now on.

[For a more literature-based reflection on Thoreau please refer to last week's response. Thank you.]

Week 6 Readings

Hope this picture makes everyone laugh as much as I did. I don't think Emerson or Thoreau would have really appreciated its humor...but hey, it's my interpretation right?

When we really boil it all down this week was all about individuality in the sense of the word being at constant odds with our human tendencies to constantly imitate. At least that's what I have walked away with. I personally got more out of the Emerson reading, which is atypical because I usually just drink in Thoreau like it's Arizona Iced Tea. Why do we imitate? It it easy? In theory being "yourself" would seem to be what is easiest--wouldn't it? Or is "being yourself" hard? Does thinking for yourself mean that you have to take time out of your day to create original thoughts? More time than it takes to watch TV and have someone else give them to you? Or should it just happen authentically? I think it is easy for us to have our own original, authentic opinions but it is hard for us to own them--to stand behind them. Emerson says, "A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages," what he is describing here is the very heart of the problem. We do have original thoughts but everything else in this world clouds our ability to recognize them. We get so caught up with trends and flashing lights and celebrity gossip that when we discover something really, truly great for ourselves it is sometimes difficult to recognize that it even happened.

The facilitation group did a great job of pointing out this idea in the movie clip from Hot Rod. It was far easier for the guys in the movie to name "partying" as their main hobby than it was to actually put themselves out there and cite what they really enjoy at the risk of being ill-perceived. Emerson states that there "are voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world." Why are we so wrapped up in how we are perceived? Emerson also tells us that, "he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion"--why is it that our own being tends to be what we are most hesitant to be fully true to? Why do we associate so much shame so readily to ourselves? I think that these sorts of questions are impossible to answer and I could think myself in circles for hours on end trying to come up with an "original" answer. I suppose I could go to a psychologist or a therapist and pay them to come up with the answers for me, that would be the human way wouldn't it? They would feed me a bunch of bullshit for my check rather than actually thinking and giving me a straight answer too...again, so fitting.

In class we focused quite a bit of discussion on the idea of intuition. Which brings me to a classic (at least in my book)Watch this Jewel video, which I think actually ties all of our material in together quite well. [Who would have thought that Jewel would have pulled ideas from Emerson and Thoreau?!] Obviously, the video is done as a parody. She is talking about following your heart and trusting your intuition yet she is doing everything she can to "cash in" to what everyone else is doing. I think Jewel has created a video in reference to the Thoreau quote, " I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them."

We have our intuition, our conscience, our Jiminy Cricket, that gut feeling. It should be easy to listen to and follow, right? But yet it must not be because so many of us don't so much of the time.

Emerson tells us that the ultimate source of truth is within ourselves though we are usually not in-touch enough with ourselves to recognize it. Although, I loved the essay I found it to be quite repetitive and somewhat redundant, as if Emerson was trying to hammer his idea into his readers' heads. This ends up being a somewhat humorous idea...think, think, think for yourself...but read my essay with my ideas about just how it is that you should go about thinking for yourself.
I really loved Thoreau's idea of perfecting society without actually reforming society itself. He thinks that if we were each to reform ourselves, to create more complete and righteous versions of our current selves, that society would then also correct itself. His idea reminded me of a willow tree--you can cut their branches off as much as you like, even chop them off at the trunk, but they are hardy and will always grow back. Trying to get rid of the tree without attacking its roots is completely pointless. Hence, the reason society is in such bad shape is because its people are a hot mess--untangle the mess and suddenly society functions a whole lot better. I think he is onto something here. Too bad it is completely impractical--hot mess doesn't even begin to describe our society or some of the people existing within it (just check out an episode of Hoarders!).

What will I walk away with?
Calm down. I have recently found, with the help of my spiritual center, my boyfriend, that if I just stop trying to make other people happy then I have time to breathe; and when I stop trying so hard to be the person I supposedly want to be, the real, genuine Kailey comes out. It's all so much simpler this way. My mind is so much clearer these days. I think this is what these men were trying to get at and it resonated with me well.

Quotes I loved but couldn't squeeze into my rant:
If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.
Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
-Thoreau

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.
Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right.
Truth is handsomer than the affection of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it--else it is none.
A man must consider what a blindman's bluff is this game of conformity.
-Emerson

Yoda is Emerson! -Suzanne

Week 4 Readings

Okay, so, this week we read Bernal Diaz's narrative of Cortes' Conquest of New Spain and I must admit that I was way more into it than I originally thought I would be. Plus, I facilitated this week which I think helped me get a little more involved with the text than I may have been had I not prepared to lead class. That being said, the idea that I will forever take with me when I think of this conquest (and something I may or may not have been sharing frequently with random people I associate with who may or may not care even the smallest little bit about the subject matter at hand or ,therefore, literature at all) was that after being presented with gifts of gold and cloaks from Montezuma Cortes asked if there was more gold at Montezuma's disposal, for he and his men had a sickness of the heart which could only be cured by gold. A sickness of the heart which can only be cured by gold?! If there has ever been a richer tag line for greed I don't know what it is...


Then again...this is coming from a man who will forever be known as the "conquistador who led an expedition that led to the fall of the Aztec Empire." Personally, that would not be something that I would take pride in. The Aztec Empire was incredibly rich and had and intricately developed culture, which we know far less about than we should. And why is much of who the Aztecs really were such a mystery to us in the modern day? Oh! That's right because they were completely wiped out for no real reason other than desire for dominance and greed. Thanks Cortes. I apologize if I tend to seem a little overly hostile about this topic...when I was little my father travelled to Mexico for business but had the opportunity to visit some incredible Aztec ruins and I was fascinated with the pictures he brought back for the longest time--to the point where my imaginary friend lived in one of the temples--but I digress... I will come back to Cortes in a moment but for now I want to introduce the purpose for the images that I have chosen to put at the top of this post (in case you were wondering exactly how they relate).


Well, all throughout reading of the text, viewing of the Cortes' video, and my own bits and pieces of research I have been pre-occupied with Malinche's story. Maybe I tend to sympathize with the somewhat tragic female character, however, I feel like she really got the raw end of quite a few deals. Many view her as the greatest traitor in the history of Mexico while others see her as the quintessential victim. I think that she was absolutely a pawn in the great plans of Hernan Cortes but I also believe that she wouldn't have had the influence that she did had she been simply a "dumb girl". I found it very interesting how she has been portrayed throughout a span of time. My images rank from present to long past. The two images at the bottom of the stack are 15th century and show Malinche with no particular, outstanding feminine qualities--she is mainly portrayed as a mediator, standing between the Spanish men and tribal leaders. The next illustration gives Malinche some definitively feminine facial features, braids and portrays her in white (lots to read into there)! This is also the first picture where she is obviously represented as being "lower" than Cortes both with her visual placement in the picture as well as then in her actual importance. Why is it that now she is more feminine and therefore more lowly? Do you think it has something to do with the fact that this appears to be a European painting? In the second-to-top... I would go as far as to say that Malinche looks beautiful, she is given some very attractive qualities and is "caressing" Cortes's knee. In this picture Cortes is definitely portrayed as the superior with armour and all. Finally, we see Malinche in a very modern, movie version of herself. She is scantily clad, which have not seen at all before, and is attractive in a very earthy way. Do you think these photos actively represent how we, as a race, tend to manipulate images and ideas as our culture allows? I sure hope so. I found a bunch of really interesting sounding/looking books while I was sifting around online with Malinche's story as the basis. Hopefully, I can get my hands on one or a few in the somewhat near future.


I thought we covered some really fascinating ideas in class this week. Many of which I still seem to be working through my brain. The idea that I have expanded on the most, though it is still far from complete, is this idea of dominance [in a very broad sense]. We all have a desire to dominate...each and every single one of us...and I think that in most cases it happens on a daily basis. It doesn't have to be violent or sexual, though it absolutely could be. I can be as simple as the desire to dominate a conversation on a topic that we feel well versed in, or the simple everyday strive for bits of attention. I think domination comes in an incredible number of varieties and take on forms that we don't even necessarily realize. My real question is then: is domination at the core of the human existence? Are the small things that we do at seeming constant derive from the more extreme form dominance used to take in the "olden days"? Have we created a more complex albeit more hidden form of dominance? WWE, for instance, takes these ideas back to a much more raw form but can its popularity attest to the fact that we each have this little dominance monster at the heart of our being that needs to get fed every once in awhile? Am I getting too philosophical? I feel like I might be...

Nonetheless, I thought that this narrative was beautiful beyond all the gore and heartbreak. I thought the descriptions in the first section that we read were vivid and brilliant. Diaz definitely gets and A+ for description. I could feel myself travelling in time and place and putting on his shoes, which is getting harder and harder for me to do the more I read. I was definitely sucked in with this one. I loved the exchange on 222 and 223 where Cortes just comes right out and launches his religion on Montezuma, saying that "what they worshipped as gods not gods but devils, which were evil things" (222) and Montezuma was totally unphased by it citing that "ever since that time he had wanted to invite some of these men to visit the cities of his kingdom, where he would receive them and do them honour, and that now his gods had fulfilled his desire, for we were in his house," (223)proving that his gods did exist and were good to him.


I also love the question raised about how it is that so many of the heroes in our history have been such violent and brutal people? As kids in grade school it seems as though these are who we are taught to idolize as we learn about history. It's sad. CONQUISTADOR! If only I had known the violence and greed associated with that title from the get-go...

I don't mean to take a cop-out on my favorite quotes however, I could read the entrance, description "The Stay in Mexico" section through and through, just drinking in the details of the land and culture.

I think that might be all for this week.

Week 3 Readings (skipping around can't find my week 2 file that never posted)

Okay...so let's see how this works this week...

In this week 3 we, as a class, focused on our reading of Women's Indian Captivity Narratives (Penguin), particularly Mary Rowlandson's narrative.

Right when I first began reading I found it to be really interesting how concerned the editor was in the introduction to the collection with the particular "version" of the text was being presented to us. In class we discovered that it is impossible to come into contact with any first edition of Mary Rowlandson's narrative because they were all literally read to shreds (not always a bad thing)when the first edition was published and distributed. In the article "The Indian Captivity Narratives of Mary Rowlandson and Olive Oatman: Case Studies in the Continuity, Evolution and Exploitation of Literary Discourse" by the collection's editor Kathyrn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola there is really good breakdown given of how each edition evolved and was tapered to become what the readers wanted to hear rather than an authentic, vivid account of what happened.

When Mary first sat down and penned her narrative, she did so for purely personal reasons--a way to try and clear her head of what had happened. However, at the encouragement of Increase Mather (familiar family name?)she agreed to go public with her accounts and allowed her narrative to be published. It was first published as The Soveraignty and Goodness of God, this title appropriately gave it an autobiographic feel and and "stressed the captivity narratives religious dimension and its author's role as an orthodox Puritan woman" (Stodola 37). Interestingly, by the time the fourth edition came out the title had been changed to A true history of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson--this edition "described Rowlandson to English readers as 'a minister's wife in New-England' and capitalized on what it described as the 'Cruel and Inhumane usage she underwent among the Heathens'" (37).
As Rowlandson's story was told and retold it was manipulated and sensationalized, making it into a tale that the settlers could use to their advantage. They could easily instill fear in newcomers and make the Indians out to be brutal savages. When I think of barricaded forts surrounding little "cities" I think of Medieval Europe not our homeland. However, I found this website and it names over 20 forts in Ohio alone that housed settlements in the early parts of our state's history in order to protect against Indian attacks. There are also some really good "old" images on this page . It is because of accounts such as Rowlandson's that in all reality became a form of propaganda. People were so scared that they went to almost extreme measures to protect themselves. Of course there were also other realities of Indian attacks and there was great brutality in the King Phillips war but there was no effort made on the part of the settlers to see what it is that they were doing to these people in order to spark such violence. It was much easier to presume the accountability of the Devil or "evil" in general rather than look at their own part in the blame.

Quite frankly, I don't think that this is ever what Rowlandson wanted. I think that she had a small soft spot in her heart for the troubles of the Indian. She came to understand what they're lives were like and if she had been able to see what eventually happened to them it would have broken her heart. It breaks my heart just to think about it. I have worked on the Ogalala Lakota Indian Reservation in South Dakota and been to see Wounded Knee, my [adopted] aunt is pure Navajo Indian and these stories really eat away at me and maybe I read into Rowlandson's occasional empathetic words too much but I think that she really, truly had a soft spot for these people. In the last pages of her narrative she continually mentions "vanity" and it seems that she is almost disgusted with her people's obsession with it. She has seen what it is to live a truly "pure" life and she must have questioned some of the cultural ways [i.e.obsesseion with status, etc.] of her fellow Puritans. I love the moments when we begin to see a flicker of am emotional connection, such as on page 37 when she speaks of meeting with Tom and Peter and how even "though they were Indians, I gat them by the hand, and burst into Tears; my heart was so full that I could not speak to them". It is sad to imagine that these parts were probably abolished from the text as the various editions were published. For me, these are the moments I waited for and completely sucked in like some scene from (but with obvious gender role reversal).

What do you guys think? Am I being too dramatic? Do you really think that huge forts being constructed in Ohio could be attributed to some captivity narratives from women was this really the "embryonic stages of our national psychology" [as Suzanne put it]? What kind of role do you really think the Puritan ministers played? Am I really crazy for drawing a connection between Dances with Wolves and Puritan times? lol (maybe?). I digress.

I loved to movie we watched in class--not just because it was a movie...but rather because it gave a really good background to the reading. I am so glad that we got the Indian perspective. I know I got a little carried away with my supplementary material but thanks for reading!


Favorite Quotes:
"They had turned him out of the Wigwam, and with him an Indian Papoos, almost dead (whole Parents had been killed) in a bitter cold day, without fire or clothes; the Young man had nothing on, but his shirt and waistcoat: This sight was enough to melt a heart of flint" (31). Melt a heart of flint... Love it!


"Then also I took my Bible to read, but I found no comfort here neither" (30).


"I had taken two or three Pipes, I was presently ready for another." (24) This goes out to Christine...but I also love how it shows her comfort level growing.

These are my top three...I could write dozens more but I don't want to be a bore...I love, love, loved this reading! Have a happy weekend!

Week 1 Readings

Okay, so here it goes! First of all, I am really excited about all this blogging business and can’t wait to really get into the meat of the material this quarter. I think that these weekly explorations in conjunction with what we discover in class is going to make for a really interesting and fun next ten weeks. This week we started out with the text On Witchcraft by Cotton Mather. We read just a small excerpt; however, it was jam-packed with some awesome description and details of a seriously significant little bit in our nation’s history. I found the reading fascinating in the fact that it was written in advance of the Salem Witch Trials. I think by now most of us have become fairly well acquainted with the story of the Salem trials through “The Crucible”, “Hocus Pocus”, and various other mediums but I think that many of us, myself absolutely included, were surprised to find that there had been a precursor to the more famous [or infamous] witch trials. That being said, the small “chapter” that we read was entitled “Enchantments Encountered” and really just served to set a baseline for what is to be exposed within the bulk of the text. Cotton makes gives us vivid images of what his people have been dealing with, take for instance,
“ And we have now with Horror seen the Discovery of such Witchcraft! An Army of Devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is the Center, and after a sort, the first-born of our English Settlements : and the Houses of the Good People there are fill’d with the doleful Shrieks of their Children and Servants, Tormented by Invisible Hands, with Tortures altogether preternatural. After the Mischiefs there Endeavored, and since in part Conquered, the terrible Plague, of Evil Angels, hath made its Progress into some other places, where other Persons have been in like manner Diabolically handled. These our poor Afflicted Neighbours, quickly after the become Infected and Infested with these Daemons, arrive to a Capacity of Discerning those which they conceive the Shapes of their Troublers…” (15).
In this passage it is easy to see that Mather not only takes a very vivid and firm stance on the situation but also uses very vibrant images to bring to life the full effects of exactly what is happening. He capitalizes words that are to be given certain emphasis, which I presume was allowable within the confines of preliminary grammar. Throughout the entire reading Mather uses incredibly strong language, particularly using words such as Plague, Infested, Infected, Tormented, Irritated, Wretches, and so many more to be affiliated with the Devil and his affairs. I think for me, personally, it was within these words that I was really able to feel the impact of the situation.
In class we discussed our individual and varying views on the idea of “evil” and myriad on descriptions/explanations were offered. I don’t think that any single person had a complete, holistic idea of what evil was in our own mind, which is interesting to me considering we had just read the accounts from a man [representing an entire community of people] who had a really solid and unyielding idea of exactly what was going on. How can he be so certain? And why is it that in our current lives we seem to be so far detached from a definite idea of what seemingly should be our greatest adversary?
Other than the passage that I spent time re-typing I really like a quote from one of the first lines of the passage: “it may be easily supposed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed.”
For me, that set my reading off and put me in a good mood, it was a “duh” moment and made me laugh. Simple as that. (<<I also really liked the way that the quote “the Wretches have proceeded so far, as to Concert and Consult the Methods of Rooting out the Christian Religion from this Country” flowed off my tongue as I sort of read it aloud. I imagined myself being a stately, serious minister standing at a pulpit and making this proclamation to my congregation. Don’t know why exactly…it’s just what happened in the moment. However, that came back into mind as we were discussing in class the mindset of these Puritans and how they really, truly believed that they were God’s Army sent to this new land to actively engage in “battle” with the Devil himself. …Very iiinnnnteresting stuff!

I think that might be all I’ve got for tonight…better get back to some reading…Peace!
(I am so sorry for the awful formatting! I guess I will learn my lesson not to type in a word doc first!)

Just checking this out! Seeing how everything works! Thought I would get fancy and even add a photo! [too many exclamation marks?]