Notes - better start / bridge-like image / Eliade / descendants to be noted /

         You woke up better than yesterday, had breakfast and read the paper, then you took time to clean small dark spots from who knows what in the carpet. Carol is still reading the paper. Daily chores most people would not even think about but to you they are mostly annoyances in living. Why is that? - Amorella

         0916 hours. I don’t know. Household chores are not something I hate and though they are annoyances it felt good to clean up the carpet spots I’ve been noting at them for a month. Most of it was around the dining room table so I suppose it was food. We need a one-floor house with a small basement (mostly for tornado protection), two to three bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. One of the bedrooms could be used for Carol’s study and library. Kim is going to take my books, most of them anyway, for her own business office/study. The rest I’ll take to Half Price books; well, I’ll keep a few for sentimental reasons.

         You want to work on Grandma Seven today and be done with it by Monday. – Amorella

         0932 hours. True, I do, but I am looking forward to it. Once I am engrossed in the story I am having fun. Nothing is as much fun as working on a story.

         Post. – Amorella

         1013 hours. Cleaned the kitchen and living room. Doug sent a photo of the Great Wall of China ending at the sea and while delighted with the photo and article I thought about the first rebellion and the start of the bridge across the Styx. This is pretty much my picture of it in my head. Very cool. I assume I saw a similar picture many years ago and that’s what gave me the concept of the bridge in the story. Sounds reasonable in any case.

Where ideas might come from

China wall but looks like the Styx in my head

         More apt to be coincidence, boy, but your enthusiasm for creative moments is stirred nevertheless. Post. - Amorella

         You had a long bath most aren’t noted anymore and most are not long soakers. You hoped an idea popped up as they sometimes do while soaking but nothing this time. It rather fits with The Sacred and the Profane does it not? – Amorella

         1212 hours. I love Mircea Eliade’s book. Here are some of the concepts from Wikipedia.

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Sacred and profane

Moses taking off his shoes in front of the burning bush. Eliade argues that religious thought in general rests on a sharp distinction between the Sacred and the profane; whether it takes the form of God, gods, or mythical Ancestors, the Sacred contains all "reality", or value, and other things acquire "reality" only to the extent that they participate in the sacred.

Eliade's understanding of religion centers on his concept of hierophany (manifestation of the Sacred)—a concept that includes, but is not limited to, the older and more restrictive concept of theophany (manifestation of a god). From the perspective of religious thought, Eliade argues, hierophanies give structure and orientation to the world, establishing a sacred order. The "profane" space of nonreligious experience can only be divided up geometrically: it has no "qualitative differentiation and, hence, no orientation [is] given by virtue of its inherent structure". Thus, profane space gives man no pattern for his behavior. In contrast to profane space, the site of a hierophany has a sacred structure to which religious man conforms himself.

         A hierophany amounts to a "revelation of an absolute reality, opposed to the non-reality of the vast surrounding expanse". As an example of "sacred space" demanding a certain response from man, Eliade gives the story of Moses halting before Yahweh’s manifestation as a burning bush (Exodus 3:5) and taking off his shoes.

Origin myths and sacred time        

         Eliade notes that, in traditional societies, myth represents the absolute truth about primordial time. According to the myths, this was the time when the Sacred first appeared, establishing the world's structure—myths claim to describe the primordial events that made society and the natural world be that which they are. Eliade argues that all myths are, in that sense, origin myths: "myth, then, is always an account of a creation".

         Many traditional societies believe that the power of a thing lies in its origin. If origin is equivalent to power, then "it is the first manifestation of a thing that is significant and valid" (a thing's reality and value therefore lies only in its first appearance).

         According to Eliade's theory, only the Sacred has value, only a thing's first appearance has value and, therefore, only the Sacred's first appearance has value. Myth describes the Sacred's first appearance; therefore, the mythical age is sacred time, the only time of value: "primitive man was interested only in the beginnings [...] to him it mattered little what had happened to himself, or to others like him, in more or less distant times" Eliade postulated this as the reason for the “nostalgia for origins" that appears in many religions, the desire to return to a primordial Paradise.

Selected and edited from – Wikipedia – Mircea Eliade

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         1224 hours. I had a good lecture on Eliade’s book at the beginning of my Mythology course at Indian Hill. My students had not really heard of such things. The lecture related to the ancient myths not modern religions. On the interpretation of personal space. Many said those places were their bedrooms or garden or car. They gave interesting interpretations from their own lives which is just what I wanted.

         You’re rambling, boy. Time for another break. You and Carol are talking lunch. Later, my man. - Amorella

         1646 hours. I have about 750 words for Grandma 7 but I need to bring the piece together in another draft or two. The English Saxon side has about 190 words while the Norse side has 250. I need to feed in data about who is related to whom. This is going to take some work but it ought to be interesting – almost like working on one’s own ancestors but these are all fiction. Bringing those neither living nor dead to life is a challenge all its own. And, the problem – life in a character to me is not necessarily life in a character to the reader.

         You took some time to re-read and study Grandma Six in the original draft from book two in order to get the ancestors straight and who is first of importance. One point you need to continue is the table to mark which side of the family had it first. This will take some more time but the reader has to be able to follow the descendents up through to the Brothers in the twenty-first century. – Amorella

         I need to keep an ancestry chart up through all these Grandma segments.

         For now you just need to account in each chapter who goes with whom back to the twin brothers of Sir Thomas, son of Criteria and Renaldo. – Amorella

         2220 hours. I agree. The family focus has to remain in each segment for the reader to follow.

         Post. - Amorella