"Our long voyage of discovery is over and our bark has drooped her weary sails in port at last. Once more we take the road to Nemi."(The Golden Bough, 827)

Our last official day of class was lovely, though not untinged by the bitterness of parting. Though as Corrin observes in her final blog so wonderfully, we are mythologically fated never to part. In the words of Eliot we must be still and still moving into another intensity for a further union, a deeper communion, through the dark cold and the empty desolation.

Michelle's observation of her readings of Dawkins and Hitchins was as telling as Mary Sean's. It brings up the need for understanding what is true and what is True. These authors, militant atheists as they are, feel that religion(which at a fundamental level is indistinguishable from myth)must be combated for the evil it has done to the human race--which cannot be denied, because it does exist. The dark side of myth can be very dark. But Dawkins and Hitchins make the same error that religious fundamentalists of every stripe do. They treat something as "true" that really is "True". Eliade said that myth is a True Story. And so it is, and so resides the power and eternal relevance of it.

Kari has enjoyed this class enormously. The rest is silence--Great Silence!

"For it is a common belief that the effect of contact with a sacred object must be removed, by washing or otherwise, before a man is free to mingle with his fellows. Thus the Jews wash their hands after reading the sacred scriptures."(The Golden Bough: Osiris as a Pig)

Day two of presentations went swimmingly. Even though Melinda may have dreaded having so many presentations on Henderson the Rain king, this was unfounded due to the sheer variety of interpretations that people came up with. Great presentation with a great aid, by the way Melinda.

I was impressed particularly with Mary Sean's presentation on what she had learned; namely, that mythology did not threaten her Catholicism but actually complimented it in a deeply enriching way(it probably should be said, if your faith was threatened or destroyed by hearing stories from Ovid or reading about the ritualistic killing of the King in Frazer, than your faith probably wasn't that deep to begin with). Her's paired nicely with Sally's on her own personal life expectations of literal eschatology and coming to understand that the world is actually ending all the time and we just didn't know it. This is illuminated by a line of Gerard Manly Hopkins': "Each day dies with sleep."

Way to go everyone, and read blogs for the final exam!