The Stone

"We enter the mythological when we enter the realm of risk, and myth is the enchantment we generate in ourselves at such moments.  More than a belief, it is a magical bond that tightens around us"(Calasso 279).

The Sacred Stone of LIT 285 entered the lives of the students in class.  Some of us wanted to pass our warmth onto it's cold surface and held it for at least a minute or two, while others simply checked it out, or on several occasions, slid it down to the next person (blasphemous!).  We conspired into this ritual and as was said in class, it is not the thing that's sacred, it's meaning we put to it.  It's sacred if you believe it is.  In Parker's blog, he writes about the lack of people who read--reading is sacred to him.

Calasso writes about sacrifice and how it "can be reduced to just two gestures:  expulsion (purification) and assimilation (communion).  These two gestures have only one element in common:  destruction."  In thinking of the sacredness of myth juxtaposed with the bloody ritual of sacrifice and eating of the victim's flesh, for me, I prefer to see mythological acts more as enchantment and not the violent, sadistic, rituals Calasso imbues.  Why?  For the same reason I choose not to participate in anything that exudes negative energy.