Expansion Past the Classroom

More on Boundaries

After giving our presentation, as I sat in my room in reflection, I realized that had I not simultaneously been battling with the lines of Shakespeare, memorizing our lines would have created for a more impactful and memorable performance, especially in a class on oral traditions. However, that seems trivial in comparison to how it seemed semi confusing as to what exactly we had to say about boundaries. So here is a brief compilation of some of my favorite sections from the chapter that pertain to not only what we said but also perhaps what we wished we had managed to say.

"Always, the mythtellers speak of a boundary between the Otherworld where life has its source and this world where life has its manifestation. And they speak of how this boundary may, and may not, be crossed." p. 102

"Boundaries are the magic points where worlds impinge." p. 103

"If one thinks of the human body as a bounded entity, one has an idea of what boundary permits and does not permit." p. 103

"Boundaries can also be crossed invisibly. They can be crossed by words, by thoughts, and by spirits." p. 103

"This verbal power makes mythtelling a sacred art, in which the listener is virtually transported by language into the invisible world." p. 104

"Boundaries are marked differently in different mythtelling traditions, but they are always explicit." p. 105

"In this way a central boundary makes other boundaries possible in myth, often creating a complicated hierarchy of realms." p. 106

"Where two worlds come together at a boundary, the point is sacred, often becoming in later ages the focal point of organized religion." p. 107

"The care is necessary: Otherworld personalities resemble human beings in their thinking and behaviour, and they burst spontaneously into the normal world, just as human individuals are always stumbiling into the otherworld. Partly to differentiate these encroaching worlds further, the mythtellers emphasize a change that happens to whoever crosses the boundary between two realms. This change is an important and almost universal event in mythtelling." p. 110

"That change is, at the very least, a physical transfomation; at the most, a death in one world and rebirth in the other." p. 110

"That is because transformation implies, not an existence in one world and then in another; rather it implies existence in both realms simultaneously." p. 110

"One of the dangers is to be trapped in a realm which the traveller does not belong to." p. 111