Week 12 Extra Reading Notes: The Forest Fire

The Forest Fire

There was a mother and a father quail who had seven baby quails.
The mother quail instructed the chicks to be good.
If they were good, she and the father would bring them back worms, insects, and grass seeds to eat.
Every time the mother and father brought back the food six of the chicks at the insects and worms while the same one chick only ate the grass seeds.
As a result the six chicks grew strong wings while the one who ate grass seeds wings did not grow at all.
One night, while the family of quails was sleeping, they heard a loud cry from deep in the forest.
They peeped their head out of the nest to see what made the sound.
In the distance they saw red clouds of smoke rising up from the trees.
The little birds started crying as the red clouds made crackling and hissing noises.
The littlest of the baby quails said, "See, Father, its a fire in the woods."
The fire was drawing nearer. It was destroying all the bushes and trees in its path.
The mother, father, and the six chicks with strong wings flew away.
The seventh chick got left behind.
The flames and smoke danced around the nest.
Somehow, the little bird was not afraid.
Instead he stared at the fire approaching and started talking to it.
He said, "I am small and have no wings. Why do you come to this wee nest where I am left alone.  Go your way mighty flames; there is nothing here for you."
The raging fire went away and the woods become quiet.
Voices started emerging from the trees as animals began to talk to each other.
The moon became visible again.
The little quail had a smile on his face.  He was happy and remained happy in those woods for the rest of his life.

I enjoyed this story but I am not exactly sure what it is trying to teach.  Is it a story about bravery?  Is it a story about not leaving a family member behind?  I am not sure.  It was a fun read though.

Bibliography

The Forest Fire from Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat
Image Information: What the little bird faced: National Park Service

Week 12 Lab:TV Tropes

TV Tropes

When I was searching articles on the TV Tropes website I found a page on short films.  This caught my eye because in this class we are writing short stories.  What I didn't know is that a shot film is technically a film that is between twenty and forty minutes.  Our stories are nowhere near that length, but I still learned a lot from the page.  Short films are often projects completed by film students.  Disney was the first company that brought short films popularity.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs started out as a short film until Disney realized they could make more money turning it into a full feature film.  While short films are not as popular as the large feature films, I still enjoy them.  I will always remember the short film before the PIXAR movie Monsters Inc. titled Birds on a Wire.  Short films are great, but I think short stories (mostly children's books) have been more impactful and memorable for me.  Books like Green Eggs and Ham and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Suess were some of my favorites as a kid.

Bibliography

TV Tropes Website
Image Information: PIXAR: Wikimedia Commons

Reading Notes Week 12: Seven Secrets of the Goddess B

Seven Secrets of the Goddess

In the stories of Yami and Yama, two common themes occur.
One is the association with women and sexual pleasure.
The other is about war.
Yami is the sister while Yama is the brother.
Yami approaches Yama but Yama refuses her.
Yama then dies with no offspring in the mortal world.
He gets trapped then in the world of the dead.
His rejection of sex turned him into the god of death.
Yami is very sad and turns into the goddess of the night.
She is now called Yamini.  She also is the dark river Yamuma.

There is a similar story in Polynesian mythology where Maui tries to go inside Hine, the goddess of death.  He does this to try to gain immortality.
Hine wakes up and realizes what Maui is trying to do so she bites him.

Because of these stories, men started associating women with immorality, misery, and vulnerability.

Rejection of women can be found in the Bible (reason is completely different than this argument though).

It is also found in Buddhism as Buddha rejects women to find freedom from suffering.

Women started to get looked at more like an object than a human.
They were bought and sold.
They were put into slavery.
They were abducted.
We even see this happen in the Mahabharata.
Because women became something one could own women also started selling themselves.
This is when prostitution started.
Men took over the economic world and women had nothing else to sell but their bodies if they did not have a husband.
The women became the property of the men in their life (father, brother, uncle, son).
The father would choose who his daughter married.

Learning about all of this is quite sad.  I feel bad for all the things women endured through history and how poorly they were treated.  The world is so sex saturated.  Sex, meant for bringing two people together in intimacy, seems to have lost its value.


Bibliography

Seven Secrets of the Goddess by Pattanaik
Image Information: Yami and Yama: Wikimedia Commons

Reading Notes Week 12: Seven Secrets of the Goddess A

Seven Secrets of the Goddess

Gaia is the earth mother in Greek Mythology
Her children were Uranus, who clung to her, Aphrodite, goddess of love, and the Erines, goddesses of retribution.
Kronos, their father ate all of his children so that they could not overpower him.
Gaia saves one son named Zeus.
Eventually Zeus attacks and kills Kronos.
Zeus then calls himself the god of men and takes his position at the throne of Mount Olympus.
Gaia stays respected but she is distant.

Adya is the mother god of India.
She took form as a bird and laid three unfertilized eggs.
These ended up giving rise to Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
Adya wished to unite (marry) with the three male gods she created.
Brahma refused because he only saw Adya as a mother.  Adya then cursed him so there would be no temples or shrines in his honor.
Adya found that Vishnu was too shrewd for her.
Shiva agreed but only if Adya gave him her third eye.
Adya agreed and gave Shiva her eye.  Shiva in return used the eye to set her on fire and turn her to ash.
Three goddesses rose from the ash.  These goddesses became the wives of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.

One thing that I really love about this video series is that it not only covers the history of the gods in India but also the gods from other cultures.  Many of these gods are very different from each other while others are quite similar.  Details are often different, but overarching themes are often the same.
The images used in the videos are also great.  I'm sure it took a lot of time and hard work for the writers to find these.

I was surprised that in many ancient cultures, there were periods of time where women had more authority than men.  This is just the opposite of what I have learned in world history books.

Bibliography

Seven Secrets of the Goddess by Pattanaik
Image Information: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva: Wikimedia commons