Dharma, Karma’s lesser known cousin

Dharma is like the road map of your life, and the road is different for everyone based on your caste and your status. Similar to the idea of fate, dharma is the key to stop the spinning of the wheel of reincarnation, by following our dharma we acquire good karma, and once we acquire enough, once we have grasped the true meaning of life and understanding of the universe we can achieve a higher state. There are times when it is easier for people to follow and understand their dharma. In the Krita Yuga, the first age in the Maha Yuga, it is said that men follow their dharma without any problems. However, as the ages pass it becomes harder and harder for people to understand their dharma because it is being overpowered by greed and materialism.
Dharma plays a significant role in the story of Rama. Rama is an example from the gods as to how we should understand our dharma, and how to follow it. Valmiki said that Rama would have the following attributes: “ integrity, bravery, righteousness, gratitude, dedication to his beliefs, a flawless character, compassion for all living, learning, skill, beauty, courage beyond bravery, radiance, control over his anger and his desires, serenity, a lack of envy, and valor to awe Indra’s Devas.” (p. 4)
Understanding our dharma is difficult because of Maya, which is basically our desire to be separate from our reality and prevents us from becoming “one” with the rest of our kind. Sita’s father had embraced his dharma, he knew that he needed to ensure that only the very most worthy man was able to marry his daughter, and though he questioned his decisions he was ultimately rewarded with Rama easily stringing Shiva’s bow.

Lost Girl-Bo Rules!!!

For those of you who have never heard of the television show Lost Girl, you are about to get a crash-course in one of the most no-nonsense, butt-kicking, heart-stealing female heroines of all time. There are five seasons of Lost Girl so I will only be covering season one. Bo, (short for Isabeau), is a 28 year old dark-haired beauty who makes her home in the ordinary human world. However, she must frequently skip town on murder charges because somehow all her lovers wind up dead after a night together. Bo’s call to adventure occurs when she rescues a human girl, Kenzi, from a would-be date rapist, killing him in the process. The cops called to the scene are not human cops, they are Fae, and work in the human police force to sweep Fae kills under the rug. They catch up to Bo and the result is the revealing of her true self, she belongs to a different species, the Fae. With the help of the Light Fae doctor, Lauren, Bo discovers that she is a succubus who feeds off of people’s sexual energy (explaining all the accidental dead lovers). The Fae are split into two societies, Light and Dark. When Bo is asked to pick a side she refuses, choosing instead to remain free of the ties that would bind her.
Bo’s call to adventure comes in the form of whispers of a threat to the Fae. An old enemy has been rumored to be around again and mysterious happenings begin in the Fae world. Only someone who is neither Light nor Dark is able to unite the Fae. Bo initially refuses the call, believing that since she has no alliance it is not her responsibility. This changes after she is confided in by Trick, (Fitzpatrick McCorrigan), the bartender and way-station keeper for the Fae. He confides in her that he knows the threat to the Fae, it is the Blood King’s daughter, Aife. Trick knows her motivations and her goals and he gives the knowledge to Bo to convince her that Aife is a threat to everyone’s way of life. Bo crosses the threshold when she is kidnapped by Aife, who turns out to be a fellow succubus that had befriended Bo previously in order to gain her trust. More is revealed when Bo discovers that Aife is, in fact, her biological mother who abandoned her as a baby. Bo escapes and tries to come up with a plan to stop Aife, while also bringing her back to the path of goodness.
The test begins when Aife’s plans come to fruition. A terrorist attack on the Light Fae elders that leaves the leader of the Light Fae fighting for his life. Bo teams up with Kenzi (her now best friend), Dyson (part wolf, part love interest), Hale (Dyson’s partner), Lauren (Light Fae doctor), and Trick (mentor). The ordeal is set in motion when Bo takes off on her own to stop Aife. Unbeknownst to Bo, Dyson also sets off on a mission. He goes to see a Norn, a powerful Fae to help Bo defeat Aife. She tricks him, agreeing to give his strength to Bo for the fight, but costing him his love of her to do it. Since she received Dyson’s strength Bo is able to eventually defeat Aife and save the Fae. On the road back it is revealed that Aife’s body has disappeared, (which is explained in a later season), and Bo and Dyson’s relationship is effectively ended by the Norn. The return with elixir is bittersweet; heartbroken over Dyson, Bo turns to Lauren, beginning an entirely new set of complications. The positive note is that Bo received the first answer to the mystery of who she is. After being abandoned as a baby and raised by humans, Bo’s main focus has been finding her family. Although the reunion with her mother was not a warm and fuzzy event, it does give her an essential piece to the puzzle, and allows her to continue her search with new information about her father.

Below is a clip capturing some of the best scenes from Lost Girl, most of which include Bo fighting some insane monster.

The Hero’s Twelve Step Program

All of us have grown up hearing stories about heroes. Thanks to modern day cinema we are closer to our heroes than ever before. Superman, The Flash, Harry Potter, Tris Prior, King Leonidas, Thor, or even Oh, the purple alien who finds his courage and saves the planet in the new Disney movie Home, all of these characters, though different at first glance, share one major characteristic; they are all heroes. According to Campbell all heroes must journey through twelve distinct steps, not unlike Herakles twelve labors. The hero begins in the ordinary world, in their ordinary life. The monotony of daily life is broken by the Call to Adventure, usually brought forth by a herald of some sort. After the Call, the hero is plagued by doubts, fears, or trials and has second thoughts or is swayed from their path. This changes when the hero accepts their fate and begins their journey. Before the quest can truly begin our hero meets with a mentor who gives them the tools they need, and finally our hero crosses the threshold from the ordinary world into the adventure world. While in the adventure world the hero experiences test, and gains allies and enemies who help or hinder them on their journey. Then the main battle or test begins: our hero approaches the inmost cave preparing to meet their greatest fear, and then the hero battles with the other force in a desperate fight which the hero narrowly wins or escapes. After the fearsome battle it’s time for our hero to collect their well-deserved reward, and start the journey on the road back. After this adventure life can never be the same for our hero, so even though they return to the ordinary world their life is forever changed. After this realization comes the resurrection, either literal or figurative where the hero is brought back and finally completes his quest with the return of the elixir, or whatever our hero started out their quest in search of.
Theseus and Herakles are two very well-known heroes who had very different hero journeys. Theseus was the son of a king and Herakles was the son of Zeus. Theseus’ call to adventure occurred when he volunteered as a tribute to the Minotaur. Herakles began his cycle of killing and cleansing with the death of his music tutor and was sent to his step-father’s ranch to grow up, where he eventually killed the Kithairon lion and led to his first wife Megara. Theseus’ refusal of the call came in the form of his father who he was recently reunited with. Herakles’ was the temporary happy life he lived with Megara and their children, the only time he took a break from heroics. This lasted until his first fit of temporary insanity, after which he left on his quest for cleansing. Theseus’ meeting with the mentor was in the form of a go-between. Daedalus gave Theseus the idea he needed to defeat the Minotaur through King Minos’ daughter, Ariadne. Herakles mentor was the Oracle at Delphi who set him on the road to redemption with the assignment of becoming his cousin’s servant. Theseus crosses the threshold from the ordinary world into the special world by stepping into the labyrinth, Herakles sets out to begin his labors for his cousin Eurystheus. Over the course of their beginning adventure Herakles and Theseus overcome many trials, Theseus defeats the Minotaur, kills the fifty sons of Pallas, strengthens Athens, and joins Herakles on his quest to the Amazons. Herakles undergoes his twelve labors: the Nimean Lion, the Hydra, the Hide, The Boar, the Stables, the Birds, the Bull, the Mares, the Amazons, the Cattle of Geryon, the Golden Apples of Hesperides, and the fetching of Kerberos.
After the trials the heroes are on the path to their main ordeal. Herakles approaches the inmost cave when he is told to fetch Kerberos, Theseus when he makes a pact with Peirithoos to marry a daughter of Zeus. Herakles ordeal is in the midst of the Underworld where he takes Kerberos with Hades blessing, and then rescues Theseus. Theseus’ ordeal is intertwined with Herakles’, it takes place in the Underworld and ends with being rescued and losing his best friend. Their rewards: Theseus gets Helen through his pact, and Herakles is finally free of his sin. Both of our hero’s road back involve a lot of disappointment and tribulation. Theseus returns to find his kingdom taken from him, Herakles wins a wife, loses the wife, and spends years in a state of constant movement, never ceasing his adventures. Theseus resurrection came in the form of exile after he gave up the rights to his kingdom. Herakles was more literal, he was given immortality by the gods. Theseus return with elixir was the final revenge fated to King Minos. Herakles elixir was the happiness he was constantly denied in life. As a god he became close with his father, made peace with Hera, and married the beautiful Hebe, goddess of eternal life.

The Man Who Spins Straw into Gold

At first glance Rumpelstiltskin is nothing more than a cowardly man who sacrificed his son and his love in his self-destructive quest for power, he is the character that never learns from his mistakes and everybody loves to hate. Rumpelstiltskin demonstrates three very important characteristics that classify him as a trickster; he is morally ambiguous, often turning to distasteful means in order to fulfill his own agenda, he is a renowned shape-shifter, not only in the sense that he can disguise himself physically but because he is capable of disguising his true nature and intentions from both the villains and the heroes, and finally he is a master situation manipulator, often able to turn his losses into opportunities and capitalize on winning strategies.

In Storybrooke he is Mr. Gold, the ruthless businessman who has most of the town in his pocket. In the Enchanted Forest he is the Dark One, the last chance of the desperate and feared by all. He is ambiguous in nature, constantly changing sides, never stable in his loyalty, one moment fighting the powers of evil, the next moment double crossing the heroes in order to save his own skin. In one episode he admits “If I have to choose between everyone else and me, me wins every time” (Kitsis).

His character is constantly shifting, unpredictable, and uncontrollable but watching this all-powerful character be the instrument of his own misfortune reminds all of us of our own shortcomings and warns us about the pitfalls of going down a path of antisocial darkness. In one episode Mr. Gold gives Belle the dagger that is needed to control the powers of the Dark One, asserting that he wants her to have it because he wants her to trust him, however not long after the audience discovers that the dagger he gave Belle is fake, even though he seemed completely sincere in his desire to give her a token of his trust. Rumpelstiltskin has the ability to throw the audiences into an uproar over the different facets of his deceptions. Even while he is manipulating everything he touches, he doesn’t seem to understand the consequences of his actions until he finally loses everything, and even then he doesn’t change his ways, he just becomes even more single-mindedly determined to right the perceived wrongs he feels he has been given.

Even though he is constantly influencing the actions of others going on around him, he rarely appears to be completely in control. Even the best laid plans go awry and this happens over and over to Rumpelstiltskin. He hungers constantly for more power, and more often than not, is thwarted in his attempts. It is only on the seldom occasions that he truly joins forces with the heroes of the story that he is able to accomplish anything of note, such as his use of Emma and Henry to finally be reunited with Baelfire, or joining up with one of his greatest enemies, Captain Hook, along with Snow White, Prince Charming, and Emma in order to rescue Henry from the clutches of Peter Pan.

Rumpelstiltskin is one of the most fascinating characters on television today, he is a classic example of a trickster and even as his character develops within the series he retains the core elements that make him what he is; a deceiver, a master of disguise, and a morally ambiguous character with a hunger for power that will never be satisfied.

Tricksters Throughout Mythology

Out of all the different aspects of world mythology that we have covered so far, the idea of the Trickster is by far my favorite. The three characteristics of Hyne’s analysis that I wanted to discuss were: The fundamentally ambiguous and anomalous personality of the trickster, which I thought Coyote from the Native American mythology portrayed perfectly, the deceiver or trick player, which describes Hermes, and the shapeshifter, which is an essential part of Loki’s character.
Coyote plays a role in so many Native American myths that his character seems to be constantly evolving and shifting. He plays tricks on humans and “gods” alike, and Iktome, who is essentially his partner in crime for several stories, seems to wind up the butt of the joke several times, such as in “What’s this? My balls for your dinner?” where Iktome’s wife gets the best of Coyote and her husband. There are stories where Coyote appears to “win” or trick his opponents, and then there are stories where he is portrayed as slightly stupid, like in “The Bluebird and Coyote” where he runs into a stump and gets covered in dirt. Coyote’s character is fully ambiguous and useful in many different settings.
Hermes, who was the great-nephew of Prometheus, is described as a great deceiver. In the story “Hermes tricks Apollo” he is supposedly a “trickster, from the moment he opened his eyes.” In Greek mythology Hermes is the god of travelers, thieves, pranksters, and many others. He is highly intelligent and uses manipulation to get what he wants from other gods and mortals alike.
Shapeshifting plays a huge role in several of Loki’s myths. He is able to not only change his species, but also his sex and this allows him to bear children while in a different form, if we remember this is how the eight-legged colt Sleipnir comes about, and several other strange children that he bears. In some myths he uses his shapechanging abilities to the advantage of the gods. He changes into a mare in order to distract the stallion of the giant building the wall around Asgard. He changes into a bird in order to rescue Ida and her golden apples from the frost giant that enslaved her. But he also uses it to deceive, especially as the myths draw nearer to Ragnarok, for instance he changes himself into an old giantess to prevent the resurrection of Baldur.
For my essay on a contemporary Trickster I am going to use the character of Rumplestilskin from the Television series Once Upon a Time. He is such a novel character with such a rich background and history, and I love the twist that the writers of the show have put on the stories surrounding him. He embodies most of the necessary characteristics needed to define a trickster including the ambiguous personality, deceiver/trick player, shapeshifter, situation invertor, and sacred/lewd bricoleur.

Apocalypse Now

Apocalyptic scenarios are a great source of entertainment in our society. Whether it is an outbreak of disease that brings on zombies (like the Walking Dead), or humanity finds itself coming back to earth 97 years after a nuclear winter (like The 100), or even the story of a young girl who finds herself thrown into a futuristic gladiator arena and is forced to become the face of a rebellion intending to overthrow a dictator (such as The Hunger Games) humans have always been obsessed with trying to determine what happens when we die, and when the world will end. One idea that I found ties in with many myths and today’s society is the idea of an eternal winter.
In Norse mythology Ragnarok, the final battle, is supposed to be preceded by long, bitter cold winters which will wipe out crops, kill game, and lead to widespread famine. Skoll, the wolf that chases the sun, will finally catch her and devour her, and when Hati catches the moon the world will be plunged into darkness. In Native American myths there are hundreds of ways for the world to end. A giant beaver gnaws at the stake that holds the world up, a woman weaves porqupine quills and a dog unravels them prolonging the inevitable, Smart Crow uses the excuse of a long hard winter to trick Plain Feather into going on a killing spree that ends with his elk guardian abandoning him. Winter was a huge obstacle for the beginning civilizations, so naturally they would see it as something dismal and malevolent.
Nowadays our society fears the same eternal winter, brought on by a nuclear war that will devastate the climate and plunge the world into an ice age. Hundreds of people all over the country spend their time preparing for this disaster, stockpiling food, water, blankets, and emergency equipment in the event that society collapses as famine and chaos eventually plunge civilization into another dark age.

Sin, Ragnarok, and the Human Condition

After reading the Norse and Greek myths I thought I had a good idea of what to expect from the Native American myths. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the differences that I found between the stories. Three main differences that I noticed after reading Deloria’s excerpt were the different ways that the Christians and Native Americans view the actual act of creation, the manner in which the different religions view the deity responsible for the creation, and the “fall” from grace that the Christians believe compared to the natural order that the Native Americans believe. In The Good Twin and the Evil Twin we see the beginning of the world with a benevolent creator and a force of darkness and greed which doesn’t seem to be essential “evil” but more of a mischievous, yet harmless, being. In comparison to the God and Satan of the Christians the Evil Twin seems downright tame, and he doesn’t bring about the doom of mankind either. The Good Twin, who is the creator of the world and of mankind, takes humanity under his wing, showing them how to plant and eat and live, and eventually how to die. He is not some omnipotent being that knows the beginning and ending of the universe, unlike the Christian deity. The deity in How Men and Women Got Together is very similar, he becomes frustrated, a very human emotion, and seems to fumble through the process of combining men and women.
The Creation of First Man and First Woman involves four gods, and two ears of corn. No rib bone, no Garden of Eden, and no fall from grace. It seems that the humans that are created in the Native American myths already have the knowledge that was kept from them by the Christian God in the Garden of Eden. They live in harmony with the rest of their god’s creations, no being is “sinful” or “in need of forgiveness”. There is no savior that must come down from heaven to die for their evil ways. We see this again in Rabbit Boy, a human that came to be through Takuskanskan, or the mysterious power of motion that has the ability to animate live. In this one there was no creator (unless you count the rabbit that decided to play with the bladder of blood).
In the Norse creation there is a beginning and an end that is foretold. Ragnarok is the Norse version of Judgement day, and there are many myths associated with it. Loki’s children, especially Fenrir, have large parts to play in the final battle. One of the Norse gods sacrificed his right hand in order to bind Fenrir. Whereas Ragnarok is a final battle, the Christian Judgement day is basically a culling process to separate the true Christians from the sinners. Christians had Jesus to save them from their sins, but the Native Americans had the Corn Mother. The mother of creation, she gave her life and her body to the earth in order to give birth to the corn that the Native Americans worshiped like a life force.

Myths about Creationism

It is so interesting to me that so many different peoples around the world came up with so many different stories detailing how the universe came to be. The excerpt from Leeming’s book showed so many separate myths that were tied together with only the most basic categorization. The Greek creation myths are automatic. Out of chaos rose Eros (attraction) and Earth (a place). Leeming categorizes the Greek creation as belonging to the “world parent” classification. Gaia and Ouranos create the universe and the earth, the following generations continue building on the groundwork of their parents, and eventually the world as we know it exists. The Greek version of the beginning of the universe is has themes that can be found in hundreds of other world mythologies, however I found it to be strikingly different from the Hebrew and Norse creation myths that we have been studying. The Hebrew myths involve creation from nothing by a supreme being, ex nihilo. The god of the Hebrews needed no other mate to create the world that we know, everything just sprang into being when he commanded it, compared to the Greek and Norse this one seems the least fantastic to me. Yahweh was not a world parent, like Ymir, whose different body parts were used by Odin and his brothers to create Midgard. One major aspect of the Hebrew myths is creating order from chaos. Even the telling of the story is ordered, first come the land and sea, the light and darkness, etc. Everything comes in its time when the creator determines it is needed. By contrast the Norse creation myth seems the most chaotic. Fire and ice combine to create a universe, where before there was only a void. To add to the randomness a giant (Ymir) and a cow are the beings that are created and the first gods come from an armpit and an ice block respectively. The concept of humans is different in all the stories as well, in the Hebrew version god created Adam and Eve “in his image”, Adam from clay, Eve from Adam’s rib bone. Odin fashioned the first humans from two separate trees, while in the Greek myths there is no myth involving the creating of humans, however, we do know that Zeus considered us not worth his time, and Prometheus was shackled for helping us. Overall, the three stories are very different and offer unique views as to the beginning of the universe and our own origins.

Drawing Connections Between Vikings and Greeks

While reading the Norse myths I saw many connections between the stories of the Vikings and the stories of the Greeks. They were also very different, which makes sense considering the two cultures were very different and had different priorities. One thing that they did have in common was the high status that warriors held in their societies. However, even that differs in extreme ways. In Greek mythology the heroes and great warriors went to the Elysian Fields after death, basically as close as you can get to our modern day version of heaven, and there they would stay until the end of time. In the Norse mythology Odin would give men strength and bravery in battle, but he would do nothing to help prevent their deaths, because when they died they went to Odin’s Hall in Asgard to train for the final battle, Ragnarok (Introduction). Odin needed as many fierce and valiant warriors as he could find to help the gods defeat the giants in the battle that was foretold.
One very defining character from Norse mythology is Loki, the half-giant brother of Odin and the notorious trickster. The closest that the Greeks have to a trickster god is Hermes, who was well known for his pranks on his divine brothers and sisters and also on unfortunate humans who crossed his path, but Loki is far more duplicitous and sinister than his Greek counterpart. Loki was responsible for the trick that the gods played on the builder/giant who offered to build a wall around Asgard in exchange for Freyja, the Sun, and the Moon (Asgard’s Wall). When the gods were on the brink of losing the wager they made Loki changed not only his shape, but his sex, and turned into a mare in order to distract the giant’s stallion that was helping to build the wall, resulting in him giving birth to an eight-legged colt that he gave to Odin. Whereas the Greeks were very open about homosexuality, the Norse made it punishable by outlawry, therefore Loki’s exploits involving changing sex, and bisexuality were seen as extremely distasteful. Both the Greek and Norse gods had some strange offspring, Zeus was well known for his escapades, Rhea (mother of Zeus), gave birth to a giant snake that she attempted to use to stop the gods from gaining control. Loki also sired a giant snake, Jormungand was so large that he wrapped entirely around Midgard and bit his own tale (Loki’s Children and the Binding of Fenrir).
Loki was also at the heart of the problem when Idun and her apples disappeared from Asgard (Theft of Idun’s Apples). Idun’s golden apples we the source of the gods’ everlasting youth so their disappearance was disastrous. The Greeks also had a few tales involving golden apples, all of which involved the gods but never as the gods’ downfalls. Whereas the Norse believed that their gods could die, Odin dies twice, and several other gods are doomed to die in Ragnarok, the Greeks believed their gods to be immortal and incapable of death. As only a small population in either culture was likely to be literate, it was important that the people could recognize pictures or paintings of their gods, therefore many of the gods were always depicted with their different gifts and powers. Zeus with his lightning bolts, Thor with his hammer, Odin and his spear, Apollo and his bow, etc. The Norse gods were given many of their gifts from the dwarves (The Treasures of the Gods), again, Loki played a key role this story. Power and cunning were essential to both cultures and you can see this in the way they depict their gods. You can tell a lot by a people by what they prioritize. The personification of the necessary traits in their gods shows the disparities between societies.

Hades: King of the Underworld

The god that I think everyone should be worshiping is Hades. I think he gets far too little credit in today’s society. As god of the Underworld and the dead Hades is powerful. The task of keeping the spirits of the dead contained to the Underworld is a full time job. Hades makes use of some very skilled servants including his giant three-headed dog Cerberus, and his daughters, the Furies, both of whom I, for one, would rather have on my side. Hades is a god not to be underestimated, when he tired of ruling his kingdom in isolation he appealed to his brother Zeus for a wife. Zeus suggested Persephone, the beautiful daughter of their sister Demeter, who is the goddess of crops and growing things. Hades was very taken with the idea and he and Zeus congratulated each other on such a grand idea, and so Hades descended Mt. Olympus and went to retrieve his new bride-to-be. Zeus and Hades overlooked one minor flaw in the plan however, they didn’t inform Demeter of this plan. So when Hades, in his golden chariot drawn by four black horses, snatched Persephone from the meadow where she was playing, Demeter was distraught! Well, Zeus would normally have told her that “what’s done is done” but unfortunately Demeter decided she wouldn’t allow anything to grow while her daughter was below with Hades. Zeus, seeing that mankind would soon starve, commanded Hades to return the girl, but Hades is cunning. He convinced Persephone to eat from a pomegranate, and since she had consumed his food she was forced to spend part of her year with Hades, serving as his queen. Now any god that gets a wife through a pomegranate is a god that everyone should be wary of. Now not only is Hades cunning and powerful, he also has a very impressive piece of armor that several Greek heroes have ventured into the Underworld to borrow. Hades has a helmet, made by cyclops, which turns the wearer completely invisible! So, you never know, if you worship him well enough, he may let you borrow it, and who doesn’t want to be invisible on occasion? Honestly I’m not sure why Hades isn’t worshipped on every street corner, he holds full control on where in the Underworld you end up. If you prove yourself worthy you could spend eternity with the other great heroes like Achilles, and Heracles. Then again, don’t pay enough respect and you could end up standing in a river up to your neck in water, punished with an eternal thirst that can never be satisfied, for every time you bow your head to drink the water recedes, just think about doing that, for all eternity. I think it’s clear which god we should all be worshipping.
Works Cited

“Hades.” Encyclopedia Mythica. 2015. Encyclopedia Mythica Online.
11 Sep. 2015 <http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hades.html&gt;.
“Hades.” 2015. Theoi Greek Mythology Exploring Mythology in Classical Literature and Art. 11 Sep. 2015<http://www.theoi.com&gt;.