Bottom's Dream

I've been thinking about A Midsummer Night's Dream for several days. I don't know why I started thinking about it, except that maybe I was anticipating summer. I love spring, but in my mind's eye, paradise is summer. It smells like newly mown grass, with a dollop of suntan lotion, and it tastes like sweet iced tea and homemade ice cream. There might even be fairies, feuding lovers, and mischief afoot by moonlight.

It didn't feel like summer when I got up this morning. Thunderstorms cleared the air Friday night (and made for great sleeping weather), and yesterday was bright and pleasant . . . but a feeling of winter persisted. Certainly, we had a long winter here, of which most everyone complained, and it hung on for a long time. Maybe the cold and rainy weather earlier this week was too reminiscent of the gray season we had trouble shaking off.

This afternoon, I hauled my copy of Through the Labyrinth: Designs and Meanings over 5,000 Years down to the cafe, where I planned to finish the chapter I was struggling with yesterday. As soon as I walked outside, the warmth hit me -- no longer the balminess of spring, but a palpable, pleasant heat, like a day in June. I got in the car and searched for the right music. That's when the first good thing happened. I've been sad about the station I found recently that played such great music until they changed their format. By some miracle, it was back today to the way it had been . . . Percy Sledge was singing when I tuned in. Maybe things weren't so bad after all.

Then, another miracle. I was driving down the street when suddenly it happened, just like that: Something about the intense blue of the sky and the angle of light, and boom, I passed through an invisible portal from winter to summer. Some combination of Motown, sunlight, my summer sandals, and the leisurely afternoon ahead, and I popped right out of Lapland and onto the beach.

At the cafe, I sat by the window and despite the distractions of the passing scene and the uptempo jazz they were playing, managed to concentrate on my book and get deeper into it than I've been able to for the last couple of weeks.

I then remembered that the summer movie series is getting ready to start downtown, so I swung by to get a calendar. This Wednesday, the season opener: Raiders of the Lost Ark, a summer movie if there ever was one. When I got home, I was feeling playful, so while the water was boiling for a pitcher of tea, I opened my Pelican Shakespeare to A Midsummer Night's Dream, flipped through the pages, and let my finger fall at random. When I opened my eyes, my finger was on this passage, a speech of Oberon's to Titania:

How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, 
Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night
From Perigenia, whom he ravished?
And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?

I had forgotten all about the connection of the play to Theseus, whose impending marriage to Hippolyta is the springboard for the plot. Ariadne, the Minotaur, and the labyrinth are all mentioned in the notes. It was a nice bit of synchronicity to be reminded of all this, and it might even be important for my research.

This play is my favorite of Shakespeare's comedies, the lightest, dreamiest, most summery one of all. My imagination has been reaching for summer. When things veer too much toward Hamlet, it's time for some fun in the woods, where things come out all right in the end, and what seemed like tragedy is revealed by a sudden sleight of hand to be comedy instead. As for Puck, I think he's been hanging around for quite some time anyway.

A Celtic Fairy Tale

(Adapted from "The Corpse Watchers," as recorded by Patrick Kennedy, 1866)

Once upon a time, there was a woman who had three daughters. One by one they came to her and asked her blessing as each set out to seek her fortune. The first two were selfish and inconsiderate, and neither girl obtained their mother's blessing. Nor did they take advantage of opportunities that came their way. Both cursed an old woman on the road who begged for a crust of bread, and both failed at the task of sitting up with the body of a young man newly dead. Some failure of nerve can be forgiven here, since the young man, dead or not, had the nasty habit of sitting up in the middle of the night and addressing each girl with the remark, "All alone, fair maid." If they did not reply, he turned them into flagstones.

The youngest daughter, though, was made of different stuff. She made sure to obtain her mother's blessing before setting out, and she gladly shared her lunch with the old woman on the road (who was really a good fairy in disguise). She came upon the house with the grieving mother and her son and agreed to sit up with the body. The mistress of the house gave her apples and nuts to eat while she kept her vigil; the young lady considered the corpse while cracking nuts and thought it a pity that he had died, since dead or not, he was still pretty hot. 

OK, you know the rest: when it was late at night, he suddenly sprang up, as he had with the other two, and hit her with "All alone, fair maid," to which she replied:

All alone I am not

For I have little dog Douse, and Pussy, the cat

And apples to roast, and nuts to crack

And all alone I am not.

Seeing that she had spirit, the young man said to her, "Well, I can see you're gutsy -- but I bet you don't have enough guts to follow me where I need to go."

"Oh, I said I'd watch you, and watch you I will," she shot back.

"Ah, well, did I mention I'll be going by way of the poisonous bog, the burning forest, the cave of terror, the glass hill, and the Sea of the Dead? What do you say to that, missy?"

"After you," she replied.

Well, he wasn't just whistling Dixie. He jumped though the window, and she followed, until they came to the Green Hills and the edge of the poisonous bog. Since he was insubstantial, he was able to hop right across, but the girl was stymied until the good fairy appeared and touched her shoes with a wand, causing them to spread and grow flat. She was easily able to cross then with her new marsh-skimming shoes.

Next, they came to the burning forest, and once again, the good fairy intervened, spreading her thick cloak over the girl as she passed through the flames. The cave of terror was filled with the stuff of nightmares, snakes and slimy things, and there were terrible screams and yells, but the girl was prevented from hearing them because the good fairy stuffed her ears with wax. (I watch scary movies with the sound turned down, and I can vouch that it really does cut down on the scare factor.)

So far so good, until they came to the glass hill. The young man bounded ahead, but the girl remained at the bottom, wondering what to do, until the good fairy came back and once again touched her shoes with her wand until they grew sticky on the bottom, so that she was easily able to cling to the glass and scale it. At the top, the young man told her to go back and tell his mother how far she had come, then plunged into the Sea of the Dead. It's unclear whether she yelled, "Turn back? -- I don't think so!" or "Geronimo!" but in any event, she jumped in after him without giving it a second thought.

They both sank deeper and deeper, and everything was confused, and she couldn't breathe, but then she seemed to be in a beautiful meadow with a green sky above, resting against the young man's shoulder, half asleep. Then she thought she was asleep, and she was asleep, and then she was awake, once more in the young man's house, and the young man and his mother were sitting by the bedside, watching her.

Now the truth came out. The young man had been cursed with a deathlike condition by a witch who was resentful when he refused to marry her. The curse could only be broken by a girl brave enough to do what needed doing. At her request, the young man turned the sisters from flagstones back into girls, and he gave himself to her as her husband. And as the story says, if they didn't live happily ever after, at least may we.

I had to tell this story in a class a couple of years ago. I didn't psychoanalyze it at the time, but now that I've had a while to think about it, here's what I get out of it:

1. Try to start out with at least a blessing and lunch, because both will come in handy.

2. Try to help those you meet in life; someday, you will need help yourself. (Especially, never, ever forget to share your bread with withered, beggarly old women; these are almost always fairies.)

3. Just in case your fairy doesn't show up, try to have a variety of shoes suitable for all occasions. The same goes for outerwear and ear accessories. 

4. Learn to swim.

5. If you see a good thing, keep it in sight.

6. Be nice to your relatives, even if they're gold-diggers. It makes for nicer photos at the wedding, and your mother will appreciate it.

7. Not mentioned in the story, but I suggest a good foot massage and pedicure before starting any adventures. Your feet will do the walking, after all.

Mother's Day

I went with some friends this week to see a movie called The Back-up Plan. I probably would never have seen this movie except that someone had free tickets, and it turned into a good excuse for a night out. In this movie, the main character, Zoe, gets tired of waiting for Mr. Right and turns to a sperm donor to get pregnant. Since it's a comedy, the first thing that happens when she leaves the doctor's office is that she meets Mr. Right, and complications naturally ensue.

The most memorable scene is the one in which Zoe and Mr. Right (Stan) find themselves reluctantly present at the childbirth of one of Zoe's Single Mothers' Support Group acquaintances. The scene involves a water-filled wading pool, drumming, lots of physical comedy, and some rather primal screaming. I told my friends afterwards that it left me feeling not so bad about not having any babies.

When I was 10, I had a crush on Charlton Heston. I had a fantasy about marrying him and having seven children (the result of a cross-pollination between Planet of the Apes and The Sound of Music that didn't seem at all odd at the time). That was a little girl fantasy that went along with my dolls, my play kitchen, and my Easy-Bake oven. In my teens and early 20s, I had a less ambitious but still naive vision of married life with two children. Though I experienced overt anxiety when this didn't happen, part of me was probably relieved. On some level, I knew I had things to do that couldn't happen if I had someone else to take care of. I had seen how heavily motherhood weighed on my grandmothers, both of whom had many children, and on my own mother, who would have lived a very different life if she hadn't become the mother of three.

In Greek mythology, it always seemed to me that the unattached goddesses, Athena and Artemis, had the most freedom (and the most fun). While it was too bad that they had to be stuck as maidens, they at least had a wide scope of action and independence. Athena was wise and strong, and Artemis got to run around in the woods at night. The predominant image of a mother goddess was Demeter, whose main attribute seemed to be terrible suffering when her daughter was taken from her. Her lot hardly seemed desirable.

Now I know that all of these roles are available, no matter what a person's outward status is. I'm thinking about one of the most maternal people I know, a friend who is a nun; though she's without biological children, she's been the nurturer of countless other people's children. I've done a little mothering, too, on a small scale. I once adopted two kittens and was astonished and pleased when I realized that they regarded me as their mom after the first time I fed them. When they died years later, I suffered terribly. My nephew told me a few years ago that when he was little, he thought I was Mary Poppins because I was always showing up to take him places. Mary Poppins is a form of the Great Mother disguised as a nanny: she's stern, powerful, and a little scary but underneath it ultimately nurturing.

I was looking this week at pictures of my goddaughter dressed up for her prom. I was both amazed that she is already so grown up and glamorous but also wistful thinking about how close she and her mother, my old college friend, seem to be. I admire my friends with kids and have come to appreciate realistically how much self-sacrifice is involved in being a mother. No doubt it's a good thing I didn't take this on when I was still trying to learn how to mother myself.

I told someone the other day that I rarely dream about my mother, who died three years ago. But just the other night, I dreamed that I was rearranging some of my belongings when I saw a pale woman, whom I knew to be very ill, sitting nearby. A friend brought her a gift, a small pin with a vibrant red rose on it, and the sick woman was happy. Her happiness, and the vivid color of the rose, are the main things I remember. This morning I realized the pin looked a lot like one my mother once gave me (which I still have).

I haven't finished thinking about this dream, but it occurs to me that while I was moving some things around, rearranging what I already had, someone else came along with a gift of life, a beautiful rose, which was exactly what the ailing woman (some part of myself?) needed. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence that this looked so much like the pin my mother gave me -- but probably not.

I'm a Stranger Here Myself

It's a wet and stormy Sunday, and plans to see a movie with a friend were washed out by his flooded basement this afternoon. Instead, I decided to go out somewhere to sit with my book and a latte.

I ended up at a Starbucks I haven't been to in ages. A pleasant surprise: there was a roomy, comfortable seating area that I didn't remember from before. There were plenty of students with laptops, including a few who must have been in grad school since they were surrounded by big stacks of books, and people who looked like they had dropped in from the neighborhood. A nice mix. My inner antenna sent the message: you fit in here. I was able to get a seat in the quiet area facing the window, where I could look out on the watery world. The music was audible but not too loud for reading or thinking: Bonnie Raitt, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon.

The issue of "environment" has been a continuing one for me. Having a mother from another country and living in a different state for much of my childhood is responsible, I'm sure, for some of the strangeness I feel about where I live. Also, I'm single in a couples-oriented community. On top of that, I'm an INFP on the Myers-Briggs test, a rare personality type (Introverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving, less than 5 percent -- some say 1 percent -- of the population).

The book I was reading in Starbucks is James Hollis's Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path, a book I picked up in L.A. last week. I bought one of Hollis's other books the first time I visited PGI when I was thinking of enrolling there, and it was a fateful encounter. That book was part of what cemented my decision to pursue myth studies.

I almost feel that rather than just reading this new book, I'm having a conversation with it. So many questions I've been thinking about, issues that have worried me lately, have come up in these pages that this book feels like a fateful encounter, too.

One of the things Hollis stresses is the unavoidability of suffering and the possibility of finding meaning in it. For Hollis, as for Jung, the second half of life is when things really start to get interesting. The conscious individual, having established a strong ego by building a more or less conventional life in the years of early adulthood, is in a position to turn inward in midlife. A person learns to recognize the patterns at work in his life, to accept himself as he (or she) is, to stop projecting so much onto others, and to read the messages sent from the unconscious in dreams, bodily symptoms, and the small occurrences of daily life. It boils down to becoming the co-creator of your own life rather than continuing to be driven by unconscious issues.

This is always a work in progress, never fully achieved, but when you're working with your inner nature, instead of against it, there's a feeling of flow. I have a friend who calls it "riding a wave." Surfing is a good analogy for individuation, because it acknowledges the depth and force of what buoys you up but recognizes that you can roll with it, ride it in your own unique way, and allow it to take you to shore.

While reading Hollis's book, I thought of something someone said to me recently. He said it was important to remember that wherever you are now (regardless of where you may go in the future) is where you are meant to be. That's the same thing Hollis is saying. The ego may or may not like what's happening at the time, but that's not necessarily the measure of the situation. If you're on a wave, ride it, instead of wishing you were on a mountaintop. Rather than spending too much time on questions that can't be answered immediately -- Where should I live? Will I ever get married? -- I can think instead about what I can, by living with integrity, bring to the situation I'm in.

It's good to be in a place where you feel understood and at ease, but I hear Hollis saying that it's sometimes more important to understand than to be understood. My capacity to bring something valuable to a situation or a place may outweigh my need for comfort, as much as I might wish it were otherwise.

More About Personality Types

The Freeway Method of Enlightenment

I've been in L.A. since Thursday for some events connected with the publication of Jung's Red Book, but it hasn't been all scholarly activity. I've spent a lot of time exploring: looking for places to eat, shopping, walking, driving, and just plain looking. Lots of walking, lots of driving. The thing about writing about labyrinths is that you start to notice them more and more, both the ones that are clearly marked and the ones that aren't.

Yesterday I drove down to Laguna Beach, chancing the freeways of Orange County. Laguna Beach, with its curving boardwalk and garden-like cliffside path, sparkled under a cloudless sky. I made time for a labyrinth at an Episcopal Church in Laguna Hills, finding it after only one wrong turn on a street named El Toro. This church is next to a busy road, with the freeway humming not far away, so the labyrinth is an oasis of calm in the midst of much activity.

I left that labyrinth only to enter a larger one, the freeway system of Southern California. Despite driving down from L.A. without a hitch, I missed my freeway entrance on the way back and ended up on the I-5 instead -- so the way in was not the way out. I was trying to get back to L.A. in time to stop by the Jung Center, where a colleague from school had offered to show me around if I was in the neighborhood, and I would have made it if not for taking that wrong turn (or was it the right turn?). I ended up seeing parts of L.A. that I wouldn't have seen otherwise but missed the Jung Center altogether.

Then things got really complicated this morning, after I had what seemed like a simple idea. I thought it might be nice to visit an old church I once discovered near Olvera Street in downtown L.A. Olvera Street is all I saw of L.A. the first time I visited years ago, so it's where all my explorations here began. I even gave up breakfast at my hotel to try to get to the church by 8 a.m., which is saying something considering how much I like those Urth Cafe danishes.

I knew I needed to get on the I-10 from Cloverfield, and even though I knew it, I turned onto Olympic instead and missed the entrance. I cut over to Pico and headed for what I knew was another entry to the I-10. I almost missed this one as well since it came up sooner than I expected, but I saw the sign at the last minute. I had memorized the series of moves I needed to make downtown and didn't consider it to be big deal since I had gone this way many times. But somehow the directions didn't work, and I found myself on a strange freeway, heading toward Santa Ana, with downtown fading into the distance and the sky turning a grim industrial gray that made me think of East Germany behind the Iron Curtain. According to my map, I was southeast of L.A., but I felt like I was in Mordor, or at least in one of Dante's lower circles. Sometimes the descent happens just that fast.

I figured the best thing to do was to stay on the freeway and wait until it connected with a road I knew. This happened eventually, but not until I had crossed all the way back to the 405 and then the I-10, retracing my route from earlier. I obviously wasn't going to make the Mass, but I could still visit the church, and this time, following my own hunch, I exited at the right place and found it. I addressed myself to Mary, Queen of the Angels, since she was the one I had come to see, put money in the poor box, and lit a candle. Then I walked over to Olvera Street and had breakfast.

I was supposed to meet friends at 11:30 at the Hammer Museum, and at that point I still had adequate time. Not wanting to risk getting lost again, I asked the parking lot attendant the best way to get back to I-10; either I misunderstood him or he had things a bit scrambled, because the way he told me to go ended at a dead end. Then I got on the freeway, but it was going the wrong way. I got off and traveled the surface roads until I saw a sign for I-10 West, and I was just congratulating myself on spotting one when I realized (right after getting on the freeway) that I was almost out of gas. After a quick exit and a panicked search for a gas station that refused to appear until I was almost running on fumes, I found one at the corner of Pico and Vermont, jumped back on the I-10, and sailed on, making it to my destination 45 minutes later than I had planned.

I was still early for the event but too far back in line to see my friends. I was silently berating myself for undertaking such a wild scheme that morning when a man who had joined me in line struck up a conversation. We ended up talking during much of the hour and 40-minute wait before the event started. He had a background in film and writing, and I was struck by the ways our stories were alike as well as the ways they differed. I had once wanted to be a psychologist; he actually was one. We had both written unpublished children's stories. I told him about the recent "big dream" I had about my grandmother, and he picked up on an aspect of it that I had overlooked. He talked about his wife helping to design the facility we were standing in. He had just joined the Hammer Museum as a member and kindly offered to let me enter as his guest so I would be sure of getting a seat in the auditorium instead of the overflow gallery.

I wouldn't have met this man and had this conversation if I hadn't been lost and running late. So was I really lost and late, or did I arrive just when I was supposed to? Perhaps there was something he said that I needed to hear. One of the things he told me was that in his own life he was trying to listen to the universe, trust it, and live in the flow. That is a Jungian idea, and I agree with it, but as I said to him, it's hard to know sometimes just how to do that. He agreed that it is a challenge.

While we were waiting, I saw my friend from the Jung Center at a distance, and we waved at each other across a sea of people. One connection missed . . . but another one made. I found the friends I came to meet, and we decided to get together in the courtyard afterwards. The talk itself, a conversation between James Hillman and Sonu Shamdasani, editor of the Red Book, was rich and fascinating, but it was only one of several remarkable things that happened on this trip.

After the talk, the Red Book exhibit, and a visit with my friends, I drove toward the ocean, feeling pensive. I went for a walk in the canyon neighborhood that I somehow think of as mine, though I don't own an inch of property there. A bit of melancholy had hung over this trip, retreating and returning at intervals, and it came back now as I faced my last evening here. After the walk, I drove down to the Pacific Coast Highway, thinking of having dinner downtown. Instead, I found myself in a lane that only turned right, once again forced in a direction contrary to my intention. I sat at that long light feeling both annoyed and tired, though there was nothing to do but go with the traffic.

When the light changed, and I turned onto the highway, I saw what I could not see before -- the rays of the setting sun streaming down from behind a bank of clouds, forming a shining path on the ocean and the land in a spectacular interplay of light, sky, water, and earth that I would have had my back to had I gone the way I intended.

I've walked so many of these labyrinths, always considering it a conscious choice, something for research, the path to my dissertation -- meaningful, of course -- but really my own doing. But right now I'm beginning to wonder: Am I walking them, or are they walking me? Both, maybe?

Like a Bolt Out of the Blue

Yesterday I was on my way to Cincinnati to hear a lecture on Jung and alchemy when I had an unexpected visitation. I had just started down the big hill on the slow glide into Cincinnati when I heard a loud bang coming from somewhere very close. I knew I hadn't hit anything, and after a few suspenseful seconds I could tell the car was running normally . . . but something had definitely happened.

There was a vehicle several car lengths behind me, and a truck with a tarp about 50 feet ahead, but no one near me. It was a seriously scary and sudden bang, and so mysterious that I was completely bewildered; I was even more perturbed a minute or so later when I spotted a semicircular crack in almost the exact center of my windshield.

I got to the church where the lecture was being held still in a little bit of shock. I literally didn't know what had hit me and was now facing a windshield repair, so I was feeling pretty cross -- not to mention rattled -- when I left my car and walked down the street. Once I got inside and sat down (safe for the time being from falling objects), I felt a little calmer and better able to reflect. It seemed highly coincidental to have such an experience on the way to a talk about Jung, who said so much about synchronicity and the way outer events sometimes reflect inner reality.

Jung once defined God as "the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse." Whatever cracked my windshield certainly had some of those qualities.

Our speaker, Richard Sweeney, talked about Jung's research into medieval alchemy and his interest in the way its processes mirrored the psychological processes of individuation. There are fancy names for these stages, including calcinatio (burning), coagulatio (hardening), and separatio (separating). Of all the processes, the one that seemed to resonate most for me was coagulatio, which has to do with getting down to earth and solidifying what has been overly conceptual or ephemeral. This stage evokes images of rocks, stones, and other solid things, such as mysterious objects that might smash into your windshield while you're driving.

According to Dr. Sweeney, coagulatio eventually leads to another stage, mortificatio (killing or destroying), in which the ego or one of its attitudes is defeated by the Self, which always persists in pushing us in the direction we need to go. The idea is that something that's holding us back, an attitude or belief that we cling to, may have to die before we can move ahead. I'm sure there are many ways in which this is true for me, and maybe the weeks and months ahead will reveal why I needed to be brained by falling rocks to realize it.

Whatever the real explanation for the incident, there's definitely a lot the imagination (my imagination, anyway) can do with a bolt from the blue. Debris from the road that somehow bounced up and smacked my glass? Possibly, but kind of boring. A tiny chunk of ice from a passing plane? Oww! The hammer of the gods? OK, they have my attention. Dust from a falling star that I once wished on, finally come to earth to find me? I like that one, but I have to say I somehow imagined stardust to be a little lighter and more delicate.

I'm just glad I don't have a sunroof.

When You Wish Upon a Star (Louis Armstrong version)

Thin Places

I've been thinking about an article I read yesterday by Jungian analyst Jerry Wright called "Thin Places and Thin Times." The title refers to the Celtic belief that there is but a curtain separating the everyday world from the world of faerie. The otherworld is the realm of the Tuatha De Danann, the magical people of legend in Ireland. Although Celtic spirituality holds that the everyday world is interpenetrated with spirit, some slight separation occurs, largely for practical reasons. It's said that because mortals found the constant mingling of the visible and invisible worlds distressing, the curtain was created long ago to separate them.

This curtain is really an illusion, since the two worlds always coexist, but the division reduced stress among the mortal folk, who must have been a little bedazzled by constantly bumping into mythic personages in the pre-curtain days. They wanted someplace a little more solid in which to carry on their everyday affairs, and they got it.

Still, there are certain places where the curtain is especially sheer and the passage between worlds is particularly easy. Certain wells, shrines, or crossroads, certain "fairy mounds" in the woods, are known to be "thin places" in Ireland. (There are also "thin times," like Samhain, which we call Halloween.) All kinds of wonderful things can happen in and around these thin places and times; one is apt to go for a walk and encounter a god sitting on a stile or be kidnapped by the faerie people and end up living for years in the otherworld.

Although the faerie people are often benign, they can be dangerous, especially if not given their due. In Jungian terms, the otherworld corresponds to the unconscious, so a particularly fluid connection to the unconscious corresponds to a Celtic thin place.

It might have been thinking about thin places that made me restless this weekend. I was walking through the neighborhood yesterday, enjoying the weather and the flowers and the blue sky, when I had the urge to go somewhere. I was a little frustrated when I couldn't think of a place that seemed right. I thought of driving to the Abbey at Gethsemani, where I have sometimes gone to sit and think, but in the end, it seemed too far to go.

Without putting a lot of thought into it, I ended up at the cemetery, which sounds like an odd place to be on a pretty April weekend, except that the cemetery here is beautiful in early spring. It's like an arboretum, with ponds, geese, tulips, flowering trees, and birdsong. A cemetery certainly is a borderland between life and death and would be considered "thin" by any standard -- not that I encountered anything there except sunshine and mild breezes.

Sometimes you can walk into a thin place without knowing it. I visited a bookstore last week, on a little street where Santa Monica and Venice come together, a few blocks from the sea. I had been there two years ago, when I bought a used copy of a novel by Kate Mosse called Labyrinth, Jorge Luis Borges' collection of writings called Labyrinths, and an anthology on Jung in literature. I liked the coziness of the small, crowded space and the kind, low-key manner of the proprietor, who exuded a sort of counterculture faerie king persona with his flowing hair and sage manner.

Last Saturday, when I walked in, the proprietor was sitting in the same place as before, and he greeted me in the same calm way. As I drifted toward the poetry section, I was startled to hear the opening chords of a moderately obscure pop song from the 1960s that carries a special weight for me. At the cash register, when the proprietor pointed out that one of the books I was buying was signed, I opened it to the inscription and saw my own name: "For Mary, wishing you bliss." The book, which I bought largely on the strength of the title, is called Bliss, Danger & Gods: Quotes of Risk & Passion, and it was signed more than 20 years ago.

Synchronicity, a little slippage between the visible and invisible in a liminal place, the curtain blown aside by a slight breeze from the sea? Or mere coincidence, a little trick of the mind to pass the time? The Irish say that when you have a numinous experience, a visitation from the gods, the appropriate thing to do is bow. So here is my bow, acknowledging a bit of bookstore magic on a sunny afternoon by the sea.

I Am Your Labyrinth

I visited the Descanso Gardens this morning to celebrate Easter. It's a little off the beaten track, requiring the negotiation of several freeways and a stomach for wild driving. It was a windy, cool day, with the sun and clouds chasing each other and people shivering a little in their Easter finery. I had brought a wide-brimmed hat that I don't wear at home, since it never seems appropriate anywhere, but it was perfect today with my silky rose cardigan, floaty white blouse, and movie-star sunglasses. It's nice when the wardrobe gods smile. (That must be chiefly Athena, whose department included weaving and textiles.)

I've sometimes wondered why I bought that hat, which has been languishing in my room for several years, looking a little superfluous. This proves there was never anything wrong with the hat -- it just lacked the right setting.

Anyway, there we all were at Descanso, zooming around amid the blooms in our spring attire, looking a little bit like flowers ourselves. Naturally, I couldn't help thinking about what the philosopher Slavoj Zizek said about flowers. I was introduced to his work by my ex-boyfriend, and although I find some of his thinking hard to penetrate, I always remember what he said about the true purpose of flowers and the reason for their showiness. He remarked (tongue in cheek, I think) that flowers are inappropriate for children. There were many children of all ages in the garden today, excited about the Easter Egg hunt that was underway, oblivious of philosophers and their subversive ideas . . . but Zizek is right about one thing. Spring is about Eros.

Descanso is less manicured than my long-time favorite, the Huntington Gardens, a bit wilder and more rustic. Over the course of a two-hour ramble, I encountered such sights as a long, gorgeous bed of tulips in every spring hue imaginable; trails leading into wooded areas with views of the surrounding hills; native wildflowers; delicate roses; camellias of all kinds; blossoming cherry trees; a Japanese garden with a curved orange bridge; and a one-acre lilac garden. Also, a couple of surprises: the children's garden had a small hedge maze, and there was even a labyrinth of sorts. The research just won't leave me alone.

I wasn't looking for labyrinths today, but this one found me. Looking down into a clearing amid tall trees in the camellia garden, I saw what looked like a collection of small stone piers. When I went down to investigate, I found a plaque explaining the importance of the spiral in nature and the Fibonacci sequence, the numeral description of the spiral's shape. I had been standing in the center of the spiral for several minutes, looking around, when a little boy came by with his grandmother. She was trying to read the plaque and explain the math part of it, but his first instinct was to run into the middle of the spiral, yelling.

Watching him reminded me of how much I loved curving paths when I was little. When I was six or seven, my parents used to sometimes have business at an office building with a small enclosed courtyard. A walkway spiraled sinuously through the center of this courtyard, and I used to amuse myself by following it in and out, over and over, while my parents were inside. It was something about the shape of the path, so much more magical than a straight line, that drew me in, like the flowers draw in the bees. I imagined I was following the Yellow Brick Road.

To me, the labyrinth resembles a flower, a rose or a camellia, with its ever-tightening whorls protecting a mysterious center. A maze is another story, something more of a wild card and a puzzle than the regular and predictable unicursal labyrinth. I think they represent two different things, or maybe two different ways of thinking about the same thing. The children flinging themselves at them today treated them both like games, and maybe that's what they are. The labyrinth seems tamer, since there's only one way in and one way out (usually). But that simplicity, like Zizek's flowers, might mask a great secret. It's probably never good to underestimate what seems simple. Labyrinths can surprise you.

For instance: I was amazed to learn a few days ago that the Huntington Gardens has a labyrinth. What! Are you sure? I love the Huntington and have been there several times, but I have never heard of this labyrinth. It's a turf one, so it's even possible that I, the great labyrinth investigator, walked right over it. I would have said I had been all over those grounds, but I didn't have a clue this labyrinth existed. Hidden in plain sight . . . there's a lesson there.

So, another labyrinth for another day.

The Queen of Tarts

I went for a walk after the rain this afternoon, looking for signs of spring. From a winter landscape of brown and gray, green grass and yellow daffodils are starting to emerge. I even saw a few tulips and was imagining how things will look in a week or so, when the redbuds and weeping cherries are in bloom. After the walk, I went to see Alice in Wonderland, and maybe I'm color-starved, but I was more struck by the use of color in the movie than anything else.

The predominant colors in the film are red and white, the colors of the two opposing queens. Despite patches of color in Underland (aptly named), much of the landscape is blasted and black, a picture of nuclear winter. Although the Red Queen is the wicked one, it's almost a relief when Alice makes it to her palace, which is colorful indoors and out, an effect heightened by the lavish use of red in the costumes and decor. Red is a color of appetite, and I could almost taste the Queen's missing squimberry tarts, which I imagine as a particularly luscious kind of raspberry pastry.

Alice spends most of the film wearing blue, which goes with her dreamy youthfulness. In the Red Queen's palace, though, she gets clothes done up from red curtains that are much more fashion-forward and fun than the pale blue ones. When she escapes the palace and ends up in the castle of the White Queen, her clothes become pale and silvery again. Like the White Queen herself and her surroundings, Alice looks ghostly and ethereal.

All of this makes me think of alchemy, which Jung explored as a symbol for individuation. In this system, the substance to be refined begins in blackness. You might say this is the wasteland, the period of darkness and unconsciousness, the wintertime of the soul. It's hard to move from the blackness to the state of albedo, the whiteness. This only occurs through repeated trial and error as the individual moves ahead and falls back again and again. In albedo, the person gradually attains objectivity and inner peace as he or she integrates more and more of the material of the unconscious.

All of this is on the way to the rubedo, the redness. The rubedo is the heart awakening, the point at which individuation really begins. The heat for the reddening is supplied by emotion, so that the person feels the change in a concrete way as a newly kindled passion for life.

Alice starts out in the desolation of the blackening, but the rest of the process is out of whack. She proceeds first to the Red Queen and then to the White. As beautiful as the White Queen is, there is something chilly about her and her surroundings. It's hard to imagine living for long in her palace; the most appealing scene is the one in which the Queen and her household walk outside between two rows of what appear to be blooming cherry trees; the pink blossoms are a welcome touch of color.

The White Queen, who could use some reddening, is too ineffectual to defeat the Jabberwocky herself, and it falls to Alice to be her champion. She slays the monster, which results in the banishing of the Red Queen and the restoration of the White. While this goes against an alchemical reading, it is true that Alice has to drink the blood of the Red Queen's champion in order to return to her ordinary life (the blood itself is purple and looks more like grape juice, but close enough). Alice returns to the upper world stronger and ready to chart her own path.

This was a Disney film, so I guess a dampening down of the fire was inevitable. This is a sanitized family movie, so you're only going to see so much libido, though Tim Burton did include subversive touches: the White Queen is a little scary in her own way, even passive-aggressive, and the Red Queen has a commendable appetite for tarts. She is, after all, the Queen of Hearts (though maybe too passionate about the wrong things), and she does give Alice a styling set of new clothes.

Alice begins and ends the movie wearing blue, a color signifying spirit rather than passion. I would have liked to see her sailing into her new life wearing that red party dress snipped out of curtains, but I realize that's asking a bit much of Disney.

On a final note, I'd like to say that although I'm not the one who ate the squimberry tarts, I would have been if I had found them.

Rainy Day Mnemosyne

I’m reading a book called Ariadne's Thread, in which author J. Hillis Miller uses the associated metaphors of thread and line to examine narrative. I've been thinking so much about the labyrinth itself that I had forgotten the aftermath of the story until Miller reminded me. After escaping the labyrinth, Theseus abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos.

Without Ariadne's help, Theseus could not have defeated the Minotuar and found his way out of the labyrinth. Despite this, he doesn't feel obligated to stick with her and ends up marrying her sister instead. That's Theseus's little white sail in the painting above, as he hightails it out of Naxos. Ariadne has just realized she's been betrayed when Dionysus shows up with his retinue, telling her to forget about Theseus, that he himself is her rightful husband.

This painting reminds me of my first conscious encounter with mythology. I must have been about four, and I was fascinated by an ad in a magazine for what, as I remember it, was chewing gum. The ad was full of fantastical figures – gods, goddesses, nymphs, cupids with arrows – crowded together in a busy tableau. I couldn’t stop looking at it. I didn’t quite know who they were, but I think what enchanted me was the energy and variety; they had human characteristics but were obviously not people. I was in awe of this not-quite-human cast and the dynamic interplay.

The chapter I’ve been reading in Miller discusses character in literature and the problem of “self.” Miller examines the assumptions we make about the unity of self and casts doubt on them. He is only taking up the thread, so to speak, of other critics before him who deny that we can speak of the self as a distinct, consistent entity, believing instead that identity is a "necessary fiction."

In spite of the attempts of so many philosophers to dispense with the self, for me the idea sticks. I do experience myself as a consistent identity, with attitudes and ways of thinking that persist from day to day. I think most people do the same. Ten years from now, I will be able to remember tonight, just like I can now remember myself as a four-year-old.

Mnemosyne, one of the oldest of the immortals, is Memory in Greek mythology. She is the mother of the nine Muses (and may even have been somewhere in that fascinating ad all those years ago). Memory makes identity possible, so maybe Memory is Ariadne’s thread, the constant matter out of which a life is woven. This is Memory not just in the sense of what I consciously remember but also in the sense of instinctual and biological memories buried in my cells.

When I first encountered Ariadne and Dionysus in this myth, they seemed like a strange couple. But if myth is really a reflection of lived experience, their belonging together makes sense. Ariadne holds the thread that makes inspiration possible. This thread allows Theseus to penetrate deep into a mystery he couldn’t have managed otherwise, but back in the light of day, he discards the thread. Theseus is, after all, a warrior, and lives by the sword, not by inspiration. Dionysus, a vegetation god, embodies creative life force, ecstasy, song, and dance. Cross him with inspiration, and that makes art. Maybe if you follow the thread back far enough, you always meet Dionysus.

Earthbound Angels

Two reasons to feel happy: I got an email from a potential reader for my dissertation committee, and I just finished The Divine Comedy, all 100 cantos. Either of these is cause for celebration, so with both, I should be in seventh heaven. Or, as Dante would probably put me, somewhere between the Sphere of Saturn and the Sphere of the Fixed Stars.

The geography in Paradiso is hard to get a grip on, and I've been puzzling over it. Rather than following a path, Dante and Beatrice just seem to float upwards and meet people in the neighborhood, like St. Bonaventure, John the Evangelist, and the angel Gabriel. Some of the passages are beautiful, as when Dante describes the dazzling river of light and the view of the Earth from a great height, but mostly it's hard to visualize, unlike the torrid scenes in Inferno and the less chilling but still vivid episodes in Purgatorio.

Dante recognizes this difficulty, because at the beginning of Paradiso he calls on Apollo, the god of poetry, to help him describe what he acknowledges is beyond the power of words to convey.

If I were to pick the place in Dante's entire landscape where I'd rather be, it would not be Heaven but the Earthly Paradise, at the peak of Mount Purgatory. This is the actual Garden of Eden, and it has flowering trees, scented grass, and clear streams; you can walk around, pick fruit, and feel the breeze on your skin. It seems a more comfortable place, more fleshed out and human, than Paradiso. This is not where Dante wants you to stay, but even he admits that few will be able to follow him when he crosses the border into Heaven.

This whole thing for me goes back to Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo is the heady intellectual god of astronomy, epic poetry, and mathematics; Dionysus is the god of earthbound pleasures, of wine, song, and the loosening of boundaries. Apollo is more severe; I imagine he has a crew-cut and looks like an airline pilot; Dionysus has long flowing locks and looks like Roger Daltrey. You are more likely to encounter Apollo in a space lab and Dionysus in a blues club. In some circles, Dionysus has a bad reputation, but he has his place in the scheme of things.

Since Apollo is a sky god, it's natural that Dante calls on him. Nowhere do I hear him calling on Dionysus. I think that's part of the problem with Dante's vision, that everything is directed toward the spirit and not enough toward the human world, which includes shadows as well as light. For Heaven to seem real, it should have street buskers in addition to popes. In Paradiso, it's a little top-heavy on fathers of the Church and medieval princes.

I'm thinking about a movie I once saw called Wings of Desire, in which an angel falls in love with a mortal woman, a trapeze artist. In this film, the angels are beautiful, compassionate beings, but their bodiless existence is very lonely. This angel, Damiel, longs to experience the world of the senses the way humans do. He slums at rock concerts and watches Marion, the trapeze girl, tenderly. He is moving in the opposite direction from Dante, trying not to reach the Empyrean, but the Earth. He finally gets his wish and falls from the sky with a clunk, his wings suddenly metallic and heavy. As I remember it, he is overwhelmed by the experience of holding a cup of coffee.

Come to think of it, this movie was directed by Wim Wenders, whose film, "The Soul of a Man," made such an impression on me when it was on PBS as part of The Blues series several years ago. It was eerie and mystical and featured a haunting performance of Blind Willie Johnson's "John the Revelator" that I still have stuck in my head. Apparently Willie Johnson got to a part of Heaven that Dante missed but met some of the same people, just singing different songs.

If it wasn't so late, I'd eat another piece of chocolate.

Dante vs. Bad Blake

I'm watching movie stars walk down the red carpet in the rain outside the Kodak Theatre. That's OK, it was raining the day I was there, too. I took a $20 tour when I was in L.A. and got to practice my own red carpet walk, though what I'll need it for is unclear -- unless they start giving out Oscars to librarians. Well, you never know.

In between bouts of reading The Divine Comedy this weekend, I made it out to see Crazy Heart in an attempt to catch up on Oscar-nominated films. That movie is a sneaky one, in my opinion. It's a quiet character study and doesn't seem to have a lot of fireworks, BUT . . . I walked out of the theater thinking, wow, I didn't see that coming. The song, "The Weary Kind," was in my head all day yesterday. Meanwhile, I finished "Inferno" last night and read the first nine cantos of "Purgatorio" this morning. I've don't usually associate Jeff Bridges with Dante, but that's what happens when you mix genres.

When Dante goes off the path at the start of the poem, he's hopelessly lost until Beatrice sends him a guide. He winds through nine circles of hell and climbs the steep mountain of Purgatory on his way to Paradise with her image always before him.

If not for Beatrice, Dante's downhill slide would have ended badly. Virgil tells Cato, in the first canto of "Purgatorio," "This man had yet to see his final evening; but, through his folly, little time was left before he did--he was so close to it." The nature of Dante's difficulty isn't stated, but it's clear he has lost his compass. He is middle-aged and worn down by personal turmoil -- a lot like country music outlaw Bad Blake in Crazy Heart (this is where Jeff Bridges comes in).

Bad Blake is something like the character in Chris Smither's song, "Don't Call Me Stranger," who says, "I'm not evil, I'm just bad." He's a sympathetic character in many ways, with a wry sense of humor and an affable nature. His main problem is whiskey. Nevertheless, despite being too drunk to stand in one scene, he remembers to dedicate a song to the stranger who befriended him earlier that day; he remembers the man's name, and his wife's name. I knew that whether he remembered or forgot to do this would say a lot about him, and it did.

Bad is wandering in his own dark wood. This really becomes an issue when he meets Jean, a smart and pretty music writer. Suddenly, he's caught. "I wanna talk about how bad you make this room look. I never knew what a dump it was until you came in here" is Bad's version of Dante's "Her eyes surpassed the splendor of the star's," etc. Bad and Jean begin a love affair, and Bad shows a softer side. His songs start to sound different, too.

Unfortunately, Bad's addiction to alcohol is at least as strong as his growing love for Jean. When he loses sight of her little boy one day while drinking, she puts an end to things. Despite the sympathy Bad engenders, it's obvious she can't do anything else. This event shocks Bad into confronting his alcoholism and inaugurates a new phase in his life. Eventually, even his musical fortunes improve as one of his new songs becomes a hit and a moneymaker.

Jean is behind all this, even though she has refused to see Bad again. Months pass before they meet, at the end of the movie (spoiler alert!). To Bad's surprise (and mine) she is now married to someone else. However, Bad has grown up; he accepts the news gracefully and grants Jean the interview she asks for. They walk off together as the camera pans to take in the wider landscape. It's all very noble -- and heartbreaking!

In a way, Crazy Heart is not a tragedy; Bad has a lot more going for him at the end than he did at the beginning. Like Dante, he's back on the path. But it's a bittersweet victory because it comes too late to save his romance with Jean, the thing that started it all. I sometimes complain about movies being too "Hollywood," but I wanted the Hollywood ending on this one.

Actually, Dante has nothing on Bad in the romance department. He didn't get a Hollywood ending either, because Beatrice was already dead by the time he got lost in the wood. It's her spirit that guides him. Although, like Bad, he has a reunion with his lost love, it's only temporary, and he must eventually continue without her. Like Bad, Dante derives artistic inspiration from his beloved, who acts as a kind of Muse. But I wonder if Dante would have traded The Divine Comedy for another crack at Beatrice. Maybe, and maybe not, since his poetic stature obviously meant a lot to him (he modestly mentions his own greatness in the poem). And, after all, he did get a Masterpiece of World Literature out of it.

This is where I think Bad Blake, an earthier kind of guy, differs from Dante. His only tour of hell, heaven, and points in between is the one he has in the here and now, and it's enough for him. I'm pretty sure he would have traded the song and the success to have Jean back. I'm with him.

Sorry, Dante, I love you, and you're in my dissertation, but Bad trumps you on that one.

Lacking in Latin

What's really on my mind is the book I finished last night, The Name of the Rose. This is the second time I've read it, but the first time was years ago -- it must have been '83 or '84, since I had already read the book when the film came out in 1986.

The introduction says that many people initially advised author Umberto Eco to drastically reduce the first 100 pages, which contain an elaborate back story purporting to explain the "discovery" of the manuscript of Adso of Melk. Adso is the story's narrator; a novice when the main action occurs, he is the assistant to William of Baskerville, a monk who has been sent to an Italian abbey on a diplomatic mission. Eco kept these pages in, saying that navigating them is an initiation that lets the reader understand the rest of the book.

The story takes place in the 14th century amid the swirl of intrigue surrounding the Catholic Church, the Pope, and the Holy Roman Emperor and features long theological debates, descriptions of monastic life, passages in Latin and, in short, all varieties of the erudite minutiae Eco is famous for. It's also a compelling murder mystery and a very human drama. And there's a labyrinth! At the heart of the story is the abbey's library, which has been cunningly designed to conceal a great mystery.

I was not a librarian the first time I read this book, but I am now, so I'm coming at the library angle with personal experience. We haven't found many bodies in the library I work in (maybe we're not looking hard enough), but the abbey library generates corpses on a regular basis. It all centers on a missing book. In my library, we frequently have missing books, and desperate people, but the books are usually in someone's office underneath a pile of papers, and that's the end of the story.

The abbey presents an interesting model of knowledge management in that the whole idea is to keep the library's contents safe from potential users. The librarian decides when and if a requested book will be retrieved, based on his evaluation of its contents. This library gives closed stacks a whole new meaning, since the catalog is a riddle, the layout is a labyrinth, and the rooms contain many surprises (not all of them pleasant) in addition to an "amazing" collection of books.

William of Baskerville has a different idea of what a library should be. He wants books to be read and discussed and does not think anyone -- librarian, abbot, or pope -- should hamper the pursuit of knowledge. He has a humanistic faith in learning and philosophy, but his faith is crushed by the events of the novel. Young Adso, who is very traditional in his thinking and sometimes scandalized by William's irreverence, is the one who really learns something worth knowing. To me, he -- and not the learned theologians -- actually has the last word.

I remembered from my first reading the incident that causes Adso so much agitation, but I didn't remember how beautifully it's described. Adso's encounter with the peasant girl in the kitchen only lasts a few pages, but in a way it's the high point of the novel. Adso is immediately sorry about breaking his monastic vow and confesses at the first opportunity. William advises him to avoid feeling too bad about it.

Even more significant than the event itself is the lasting impact it has on Adso. He speaks the next day of looking at the world with different, more knowing eyes. "The truth is that I 'saw' the girl, I saw her in the branches of the bare tree that stirred lightly . . . I saw her in the eyes of the heifers that came out of the barn, and I heard her in the bleating of the sheep that crossed my erratic path. It was as if all creation spoke to me of her . . ."

Adso's awareness of the beauty of life has come to him through the auspices of a young girl in a union totally unsanctioned by the laws of the Church. It's an unexpected act of grace that makes all the difference for Adso. In spite of the ugliness of later events and the ruin that even William's philosophy can do nothing to prevent, this experience gives Adso a different kind of wisdom. His openness to this gift seems to me to be the real answer to the brutality and insanity of the times.

I know that the meaning of the book's title is an open question and that the author meant it to be that way. There is apparently an allusion to a possible meaning in the novel's final words, which are in Latin. My Latin is very basic, so it may be that that drove me to look for a clearer answer somewhere else. I thought I found it on page 314, where Adso, thinking of the girl, observes that "the humblest rose becomes a gloss of our terrestrial progress." For me, the name of the rose is the particular way the universe has of reaching out and grabbing each person by the neck. However, this may be the fault of my rudimentary Latin.

Looking for the Beat

One of my biggest adjustments in the last six months has been to having free time again. Three years of full-time work and full-time school left little room for anything extra until I finished my classes in August. After that, I had time again to read frivolous novels, catch up with friends, go to arts events, or even do nothing. I didn't have to feel that every minute spent on something besides classwork was stolen time.

This time last year, I was spending hours just gathering images for presentations in my Egyptian Mythology class, not counting time spent doing research for those same presentations. And that was just one class; I had two others that were nearly as demanding. If I wasn't trying to wrap my head around Sufi mysticism I was reading Paul's letters to the Corinthians on my lunch hour or looking at pictures of Byzantine art. I was thinking recently that last winter didn't seem as gray as this one -- but even if it was, I may not have had time to notice it.

So I enjoyed my free time this fall, but by Thanksgiving, I was starting to miss the sense of purpose and drive that carried me through my coursework. Now that I'm in the dissertation period, I'm happy to be starting my research and settling into the process, which has its own pace. I'm also anxious. It's solitary, for one thing. You have to find your own beat, because no one is there to enforce a schedule or tell you what to do. It actually reminds me of my first semester in college.

I'm still looking for the balance of work and play. Ideally, work is play, when things are going well. Coming off a period of relative leisure, I'm working to find the intensity again, and I'm sensing there may be an ebb and flow. Today, for instance, I was in no hurry to get up, even though I had things to do. I answered emails, read the newspaper online, and watched videos on YouTube before settling down to read up to page 204 in The Name of the Rose. After a couple of hours of reading, I still had to go to the grocery store and take the garbage out. Then the afternoon was sunny, and spring fever set in. I went for a walk, getting back in time to meet friends for dinner.

I got home tonight in time to watch ice dancing and get ready for another work week. I just saw skier Bode Miller climb the podium to receive a gold medal, his first. He looks happy and proud (and maybe a little stunned), just the way I imagine feeling the day I defend my dissertation.

But I have to get it written first, and the journey promises to be eventful. The rest of my life won't stop for the project and will probably find a way into it. That seems to be the nature of the thing.

My Funny Valentine

Facing Valentine's Day with a cold and a headache, but all is not lost. I looked in my cabinet a while ago and found four varieties of drinking chocolate: Green & Black's Organic, Dagoba Xocolatl with chilies and cinnamon, Cadbury Original, and (my favorite) Ghirardelli Premium Double Chocolate. I also have my latest discovery in eating chocolate: Lindt Dark with a Touch of Sea Salt, subtle but deadly. The chocolate situation is under control.

And for a nice romantic finish, there's Olympic pairs skating on TV tonight. I just saw the Chinese couple, Shen and Zhao, and I liked their story and their lyrical style. I hope they get their gold medal.

I once did a Jungian analysis of a fairy tale for a class. In my story, "The Raven" (sometimes called "The Glass Mountain"), a princess is turned into a bird by an enchantment. A man is walking in the forest one day and hears her calling. She tells him she can be freed with his help, if he refrains from eating, drinking, or sleeping until she comes to him. He fails three times, despite swearing that he will do it.

Apparently seeing more in him than meets the eye, she leaves him some magical objects (an inexhaustible loaf of bread, meat, and jug of wine) and a letter, saying that even though he isn't quite there yet, she has faith in him. If he still wants to try, he is to seek her in a certain faraway castle. She also leaves her gold ring as a token.

The man sets off to find her, eventually encountering giants deep in the forest. These giants are dangerous, but the funny thing is, they have a lot in common with the man -- their appetites, for one thing. This is just one point in the story where external events mirror the man's own situation. The giants also have hidden resources: access to maps that reveal the location of the castle. The man uses his inexhaustible food and drink to wine and dine the giants and convince them not to eat him. Not only do they help him locate the castle, but one of them carries him many leagues and drops him off in the neighborhood.

The castle is on top of a big glass mountain, which even an Olympic skier would find impossible to climb. The man knows the princess is up there, but he is forced to bide his time, watching and waiting. He's been there a whole year when three robbers come by, arguing over three magical objects they've obtained: a stick that opens any door, a horse that can go anywhere, and a cloak that makes its wearer invisible. Seizing the moment and the objects, the man grabs the stick, mounts the horse, throws on the cloak, and rides swiftly to the top of the mountain.

He enters the locked castle with the stick, makes his way invisibly (presumably on the lookout for threshold guardians), and throws the girl's ring into her cup. Going outside to await events, he is soon joined by the princess, who has recognized him by her ring. She tells him that she is now free and that the next day will be their wedding day.

This story is about the harnessing of appetites and emotions, which, according to Jung's theory, fuels transformation on the journey of individuation. No one has to undergo this journey: It's a choice. Anyone can remain unconscious, and many people do. I like this story because of the man's persistence despite the hugeness of the task, his coolness in the face of giants, and his ability to use what comes his way. He can ride a horse, too, like a cowboy.

If this went into a personal ad, it might sound like this: Woman seeking man. Must be mature, willing to go the distance, street smart, unafraid of giants, good at negotiating slippery slopes. Must be willing to learn from experience. Must know his way around a forest. Must love travel. Must understand the importance of chocolate. (I made that last part up.)

A Goddess Decides

Last Monday, on vacation, I visited Malibu's Getty Villa, where even the driveway was inspired by the streets of ancient Rome (it's like driving on cobblestones). I wandered early on into the Outer Peristyle, a beautiful garden with covered walkways and strategically placed statuary. In a niche at the end of the peristyle was a "touchable" Aphrodite/Venus. It's the only piece, as far as I know, that visitors are encouraged to touch, so that they can experience the varied textures of the stone. Rather shyly, I touched the most innocuous spots I could think of, an arm and a leg. For one thing, it felt strange to be touching anything in a museum, even a copy. For another -- well, after all, it's Aphrodite, a goddess. And not just any goddess, either. Boy, is that ever true.

Of course, the gods and goddesses are only personifications of forces, but the ancients revered them, and the forces themselves are real enough. That feeling of attraction toward a special someone? A love of flowers, chocolate, and gourmet dining? The urge toward adornment and the appreciation of beautiful things? All Aphrodite. I am probably more of an Athena in general; I am a little out of my depth with Aphrodite (except for the chocolate), and you can be sure she's quite aware of that.

After touching the statue, I almost felt I'd committed a sacrilege, or at least a social blunder, and everybody knows how testy the immortals could be over even the tiniest things. Did someone make Aphrodite mad? Well, they might be torn apart by rampaging horses, for starters. When someone dissed her (or she even thought they had), she took swift action. So what would Aphrodite think of a tourist putting fingerprints on her marble limbs? Would she think a mythologist, of all people, should know better? I was ever so slightly uneasy.

As it happens, I was visiting a city that celebrates all things Aphrodite pretty unashamedly. A lot of places are suspicious of Aphrodite, but I don't think L.A. is. What a lot of people criticize as shallow or vacuous in L.A. culture, at least as it's popularly conceived, are things I associate with Aphrodite -- the worship of physical beauty, for instance. This isn't bad in itself, but it can be if over indulged. It's all about balance. You can just as easily be running an Aphrodite deficit as an excess; the former is my usual condition -- and probably part of the reason L.A. appeals to me.

Aphrodite does has a generous side, and because of that, or maybe just because she's a little vain and likes attention, I did not turn into a flock of goats. Instead, I believe she decided to take me under her wing. I developed a propensity for taking scented baths in my jetted spa. I've never craved spas before, but -- presented with the opportunity -- I was suddenly enamored. That's the first thing I noticed. Next, I sought out a three-course meal in a restaurant that had previously intimidated me, ending with a fabulous chocolate dessert that was pure Aphrodite. It had her fingerprints all over it.

As the week went on, things got more interesting. I saw a car near the inn with a license plate that said O EROS. Even my labyrinth researches got the Aphrodite touch. I drove down to Palos Verdes one day to seek out a labyrinth-by-the-sea that I had heard about. It was a long way and not easy to find, but something made me go, and after getting very close to it once and doubling back on my tracks (that labyrinth thing again), I finally found it. It was behind a church on a little promenade overlooking the Pacific, the most Venusian labyrinth I have ever seen, a glowing pink and coral surface with the emblem of a shell at its center. Standing on the shell, with the sea breeze on my back and surfers down below, I closed my eyes and thought about Botticelli. For the first time, I had a visceral sense of that painting.

Of course, it was inevitable that the urge to shop would kick in. On Tuesday, I made a preliminary sortie into Anthropologie, but the jacket that caught my eye didn't fit. On Wednesday, I bought gifts of bath salts on Montana Avenue even as my laundry tumbled in the dryer. On Thursday, I set out to visit a boutique that promised personal attention from the staff, who would size you up and bring you clothes to try. Momentarily daunted when I found out movie stars went there, I recovered with Aphrodite's help and pressed on, letting the stylish, boa-wearing shop girl bring me armloads of items, some of them a bit out of my normal comfort range, until I left an hour later with two new outfits and a dent in my credit card. No, it was not self-indulgence, but a necessary wardrobe corrective (besides, it was good for the economy).

On Friday, I found myself in Silver Lake (in a pouring rain, no less) eyeing hand-crafted jewelry, cosmetics, lace and silk, flowers, and chocolate. I bought a few things, things I didn't strictly need according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- but of course, that's the whole point.

I think I fixed my Aphrodite deficit, at least temporarily. I'm pretty sure she thinks I did OK for a novice. So maybe my hesitant bumbling, which I took as an affront, she took as supplication. Maybe she has a soft spot for librarians. Or graduate students. She did such a good job on me that even on my last morning, at the airport, I was looking at the shoes of every girl that walked by, searching for the style of boots that would go with my new pants.

I think the moral of the story is . . . when in Rome, do as the Romans do; when at the Getty Villa, do as the tourists do; and when in L.A. -- live a little.

Aphrodite Rising; Birthday Wishes

I'm in California, tucked into my room at the inn in time to celebrate my birthday with a gas-burning fireplace and a fancy bathroom. (I've never had a bathroom with a daybed in it, and I can't tell you how charming it is. If I rise out of the jetted spa like Aphrodite and feel the need for beauty sleep, that bed is right there. Same thing if I get the vapours while brushing my teeth.) I feel more like a guest in an English country house than a customer; it's like I'm staying with the Bennets at Longbourne. When I got here a few hours ago, the innkeeper greeted me by name and wished me a happy birthday. I got a tour of the house and was shown to my room, where the lamps were already lit and classical music was playing softly. There were cookies on a plate and a card on the little rose table addressed to me.

That's why I picked this place for a few days of vacation, because I thought it would be homey. For the first time in my life, I have completely unpacked my suitcase for a hotel stay.

I flew out to attend a conference at my school, where I saw friends and reconnected with my community of mythologists. It had been six months since I was there, but when I drove through the foothills to campus Thursday evening, it was like I had only been gone a week. I visited both of our campuses, where almost every corner was packed with memories of friends, teachers, animated conversations, long walks, and work accomplished. It felt like part of me had been there all along, waiting, and got up to meet me when I came back.

A theme that came up in numerous talks with friends over the last few days was the archetype of home, which may (or may not) seem strange since most of us were far from our actual homes. I had lunch today with three women, and it turned out all of us were yearning at some level to find our place in the sun, though there were good reasons for not making changes right now. I have wondered for a long time if California might be that place for me. Visiting is not the same as living here, I'm only too aware. I've spent a lot of time out here looking around, wondering how I would feel about this beautiful place if I lived here all the time.

As it happened, I stopped this afternoon to visit a town I came close to living in seven years ago. I had dropped in to visit on the way to the conference and was so intrigued by what I found that I stopped again on the way back. What I remembered as a very quiet place, almost dead on the weekend, was buzzing with people and energy. I found a Main Street on a human scale, numerous shops and restaurants (all open on a Sunday), people relaxing in sidewalk cafes, music pouring out of competing venues, even a place to buy chocolates. The friendly baristas at the local Starbucks wished me an enthusiastic "Happy Birthday" when I went in for my free drink; I sat and read for a while, with a window on the passing scene.

I went into a store I remembered visiting seven years ago, a shop full of angel gifts. The same shopkeeper was still there, a lively lady who just happened to be telling other customers about a local church labyrinth. I told her about my dissertation, and she grew even more excited, telling me about her experiences with the labyrinth and those of people she knew. She gave me her card and asked me to email her and tell her what happened to me when I walked it.

I followed her very good directions and got to the church not long before sunset. The gate was unlocked like she said, so I went in and gathered my thoughts. It was a very soft, somehow feminine labyrinth, in shades of rose and pink stone. I walked slowly, enjoying the meditative rhythm and the quiet. When I got to the center, I paused for a few minutes, thinking about all my unanswered questions. Then I turned and faced each of the four directions, noting what I saw there (I will tell you: a fountain and a tree, a hospital, a set of double doors, and a light next to a tree). When I left, the sky was streaked with the pinks and violets of a beautiful sunset.

Will the turning of my life take me to that spot again? I don't know, but I'm interested.

Naturally, it's no accident that I'm writing about wanderers turning this way and that. Theseus, Odysseus, Dante, Lancelot, Ishmael, William -- they're all looking for something and may or may not end up where they began. For some of them, the end result might be, as T.S. Eliot says, "to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Others will land in some different country, or perhaps never find True North. I hope the latter isn't true for me; I made a birthday wish (which I wrote down and ritualized) that I would find my right place and be wise enough to know it when I see it.

Birthday wishes have extra mana, right? Especially if sealed with chocolate.

Sympathy for Lancelot

" 'Lancelot, this forest is vast and labyrinthine in its depths; a knight can ride a whole day long and never find a house or refuge.' " -- The Quest of the Holy Grail, Matarasso translation.

This week I've been reading the Grail legend. There are many versions of the story, but this version treats the Quest as a spiritual journey of Christian knights, most of whom fail miserably in their attempts to find the Grail. Perceval, Bors, and Galahad are the most virtuous knights and the only ones to succeed; two of them achieve a mystical state that makes ordinary life impossible thereafter. They never return to Camelot.

I first read this story when I was nine. I remember the set of maroon bound classics, which had everything from Alice in Wonderland to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I ate the books raw; it was extreme pleasure, a whole vista of imaginary realms accessible only through the mind's eye. Especially, I remember the King Arthur stories. I sprawled on the living room floor on a rainy Sunday (much like today, actually), lost in a landscape unlike anything I'd come across before.

The Arthurian world was somehow adult in a way other stories were not. For one thing, the main characters were all adults. For another, it was a mysterious, indeterminate place, full of chapels, monks, references to the Pentecost, and other Christian symbolism, but it had an otherwordly, somewhat eerie atmosphere. A mysterious cup, draped in white samite, floats over people's heads in the dining hall at Camelot, striking everyone dumb and filling the hall with an incredible sweetness. A hand and forearm, clothed in (what else?) samite, passes through a chapel, bearing a candlestick and perplexing Sir Gawain and Sir Hector. Belligerent knights appear out of nowhere, visions abound, hermitages hidden deep in the forest harbor strange ceremonies. Everything happens; nothing is explained.

I know these stories are likely a mix of myths and legends from several sources, an explanation that accounts for the layers of meaning but doesn't diminish the magic. I also understand the archetypal nature of the symbols -- the Grail itself, the lances, the swords, the castle, the maidens -- and of the Quest, a type of story that appears in many guises. The Grail Quest is a type of labyrinth. (Or is it a maze? Very important question.)

Finding an edition of this story that is like the one I remember (that first book being long gone) has been a quest in itself; "the right version" has taken on aspects of the Grail in both allure and elusiveness. The translation I'm reading comes very close; the elegant diction has the right solemnity and tone. I always pictured the events taking place in a misty, watery sort of atmosphere, either because the book created that impression or the day I started reading it was (in my memory) dark and rainy.

The characters, though, raise more questions than they used to. Aha! Rather than seeing just a group of knights, I am noticing how tortured Lancelot is, how hearty and plain-spoken Gawain is, and how agreeable Hector is. Galahad and Perceval are virtuous and irritating, though Perceval does have the decency to be nearly seduced by a woman who is not at all what she appears to be. He makes a hairsbreadth escape in an episode that also features a winged serpent and a lion.

I feel bad for Lancelot; I think his passionate love for Guinevere is what makes him human. His suffering is more compelling than Galahad's cool composure, at least so far. Galahad, the perfect knight, is the product of another illicit union, that of Lancelot and Elaine. He waltzes into Camelot and usurps his father's position as foremost knight, and that is supposed to be right and just. All I can think of is how hard that must be for Lancelot, and how annoying complete virtue is when you really think about it.

What it amounts to is that I can't enter the story the way I used to. I was once enchanted by the difficulty with which the Grail was achieved. I still am, but now I'm wondering if I would really want to be one of the knights who found it but never came back. Poof, enlightenment, and poof, you're gone. Ouch. I think the Grail is something different for me than it is for those knights, and I'm working that out bit by bit. That's why it's in my dissertation. That and the fact that I'd still like to know what samite is.

Getting the Box

I have television again for the first time since last February. A friend who knows how much I love the Olympics offered to pick up a converter box at Radio Shack and set it up for me so I'd be ready for the Vancouver Games. Wonderful! I've been dithering for months, not able to decide if I should get cable or go with the box. I had heard that some people got bad reception with a converter box, but I didn't like the idea of paying for cable.

I'm probably unusual in the fact that never in my adult life have I had cable TV, except for a brief period years ago when my apartment building was being renovated after a fire. My room at Extended Stay America had cable, and I watched TV all summer. I was surprised at how fast I got hooked on certain things. I could watch The Weather Channel by the hour, and Animal Planet had the power to nearly hypnotize me, especially if the program featured puppies or kittens. I decided it wasn't something I needed long-term.

I grew up watching television, which didn't prevent me from also reading a lot. I've never liked being without a TV; it's always nice to be able to switch it on, even if you don't do it often. The longest summer of my life was my first summer away from home, after my junior year of college, in my first apartment -- with no TV. This last year, I hardly missed it, since I didn't have the spare time to watch it anyway. But after Steve got the box set up yesterday and the picture suddenly came on, crystal-clear and sharp, I was pleasantly surprised. It's nice to have this eye on the world open once again.

So what am I doing with my first night of TV in almost a year, my dissertation clock ticking in the background? OK, I admit it. I'm not watching the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, I'm watching movie stars accepting Golden Globes, with the sound turned down (I did turn it up to listen to Meryl Streep accept an award for Julie and Julia and to hear Martin Scorsese speak). I don't think I've ever watched this show before, but it's actually livelier than the Oscars. On a rainy winter night, after a sad week in the world, it's fun to see some sparkle and color.

If movies are the modern version of fairy tales, this awards ceremony is a little like seeing a raft of characters from Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen show up all together at Cinderella's ball: it may be a little awkward, but it's magical (and the ball gowns are half the fun). As a testament to the primacy of films in the public imagination, I can say that despite three years of having my nose in the books for graduate school, I recognize nearly all of the faces, old and new.

The only ones I don't recognize are from television, and even some of them look familiar.

Popcorn and Apocalypse

I started reading Borges' Labyrinths this week, in the midst of a spell of bitter cold weather and gray days. Borges is no Jimmy Buffett. He's not the guy to cajole you out of the January blues, but his book has been staring at me accusingly for some time from the top of a stack of dissertation reading. The silent reproach only got worse after January 1, so on Monday, I dutifully picked the book up and began reading on my lunch hour. The stories are clever and intriguing but usually quite dark. Yikes, just the thing for a vitamin D deficiency.

Last night I did a smart thing and watched Kenneth Branaugh's version of As You Like It, which had the Forest of Arden set in Japan, for some reason. It didn't matter, since the cast was charming and all the lovers ended up with the right people at the finale. A great antidote to the winter blahs.

This morning, I decided to get my reading and chores done early so I could go out to a movie and maybe take a walk. It worked out fine, except that the movie I chose to see was The Road. I had a feeling it was going to be rough going, and it was. It's well-made and well-acted but very, very harrowing. I realized toward the end that I was sitting a little twisted in my seat, as if unable to face it head-on. Popcorn and a cherry coke seemed totally beside the point; it was an underworld journey from beginning to end, and I escaped into daylight feeling extremely somber.

Some people have compared this story to a Homeric odyssey, but I think it's closer in tone to Dante's Inferno, crossed perhaps with Childe Roland. The end reminded me of the last scene in Inferno, where Dante has gone as low as he can go, only to find himself -- without changing direction -- climbing out and up, and seeing the stars.

The same thing happened to me when I walked out of the theater into bright sunlight. I decided that a walk was more important than ever since I needed the illumination in more ways than one. I was muffled up in warm attire, and 19 degrees didn't seem so bad under patches of blue sky (and without cannibals chasing me). I thought about the film's post-apocalyptic vision and was just happy to see the familiar neighborhood quiet under the snow, to smell woodsmoke, and to see my own path down a westward running street glowing with reflected light as I walked straight toward the sun.

I appreciate the working of myth in art and life and the mirroring that takes place, but enough is enough with the minotaurs and dark descents for one week. I came home, fixed pot roast with vegetables, danced to the Blasters in my living room, and ate some dark chocolate with ginger. When I turned the radio on, the song playing was "California Dreamin.' " Right now, I'm listening to Italian pop music on the Putumayo World Music Hour and thinking about how this morning was the last eight o'clock sunrise for this winter. Tomorrow, sunrise comes at 7:59, and since the sunsets have already started coming later, it won't be long before the days are noticeably longer.

It's always darkest before the light, but next week, I'm going to see a comedy.

Are We Ready?

I told someone the other day that my clock was starting on January 1, and he asked if I meant my biological clock. No, no -- different clock, I said. My dissertation clock, to be exact, which is now ticking and will continue to do so for the next two years. I've never written a dissertation, have spent most of my life not expecting to write one, and don't know what to expect from the process.

I think the trouble started about four years ago when I was completing a survey from the Special Libraries Association about career aspirations and came across the question, "Do you have any plans to get a doctorate?" I thought that was one of the easier questions to answer, and I clicked the button that said "No" without a second thought. In my fanciful moments, I wonder if that answer, given so emphatically, might have attracted the attention of one of the Fates, lounging idly somewhere in the vicinity of my computer. What's certain is that within months of that day, a chain of events had led to my enrollment in a graduate program on the other side of the country, in a field totally unrelated to my day job. (Or is it?)

After three years of coursework, I'm heading now into terra incognita. My vision is to write something fresh, creative, and connected to real life. That's my hope.

I discovered something. When it came time to write my first paper for Greek and Roman Mythology, I found I had to overcome some resistance to the whole idea of Outlining an Argument, Surveying the Literature, and Employing MLA Citation Format. Those are the tools of the scholarly trade, of course, and I'm familiar with them. In the past I taught composition and earned a master's degree in English. I'm good at editing and the mechanics of writing. But from some hidden place, right at the start, this little scamp reared his head and insisted, "I want to play!" I realized that the part of writing I really enjoy is making leaps and fitting the words together to make a picture. Hard work is involved, but it starts with play.

I know enough about writing (and psychology) to know that that child is precious and that nothing of significance will happen unless he's happy. I even think I know what he looks like. He's the little blond curly-haired boy who gazed so wistfully over his father's shoulder in one of my dreams. I took care of him this fall by playing with labyrinths, walking as many of them as I could for an in-the-body and out-of-the-head experience. I even got my shoes muddy walking a corn maze.

Pretty soon the writing, rewriting, and negotiating will begin. Today, I primed the pump by going to a movie with a friend and eating the fudge he had secreted in his pocket. A little chocolate can never hurt.