The Greeks did it BEST!

Photo Credit : Google 

I don’t know if I can find the words to describe what I felt about the Greek Mythology seminar on Saturday.  Awesome, Amazing, Fantastic those words just don’t seem to do it justice. Whenever I’d watch a movie or some TV show and I catch a hint of some kind of Greek mythology I would instantly go and research it and then tell my mom all about what I discovered. I remember after watching Alexander the Great for the first time one Saturday morning I was curious to know why Angelina Jolie’s character of Alexander’s mom was so fixated on snakes. So I researched it online and I found that it is believed that Medusa is Alexander the Greats Mother. MIND BLOWING!  So yesterday in the seminar I was excited to just listen to Mrs. White share her knowledge about Greek Mythology.  I love when I hear the passion people have in something that they know; it’s so inspiring!!

Mrs. White told us that these myths have been interpreted in many different ways as they were shared throughout the generations. There are religious, literary, artistic, and dramatic works that are rooted in these stories.  A little bit of history on Greek Mythology, Greeks stole the mythology from the Mesopotamians.  Much of the Roman mythology was adopted and adapted from the cultures that they conquered. The Romans took the Greek gods and used them as symbols rather than the humanistic and involved deities for the Greeks. The Greeks used these myths to explain the universe around them. The basis of all these myths starts with Chaos and Gaia and from them starts the lineage of different gods and goddesses and the stories come to life.  Chaos has more of the passions and strains of the mind and heart and Gaia is the Earth.  Mrs. White told us all that in Greek Mythology the ultimate belief is that the universe created the gods, not the other way around.  Gods in Greek mythology are very humanistic they have as many flaws as humans do. In the stories that were mentioned during the seminar there was a lot of paranoia, back stabbing, envy, and jealousy which are things that people have today as normal human beings.  Greek Mythology is so dramatic and every story is connected with another story it’s addicting to learn and read about.

Photo Credit : Wikipedia

After learning about the history of Greek Mythology my fellow competitors and I made our way towards the computer lab to research a Greek myth and do a mini presentation on it to the class. There are so many amazing stories I didn’t know which one I was going to pick. Eventually after a few games of eeny meeny miny moe with myself, I decided to do a presentation on Atlas. I remember learning about Atlas in middle school and I remembered seeing a sculpture of him in Rockefeller center in New York.  Atlas was born a Titan and he took the side of the titans during the Titan vs. Olympian war. He stormed on the heavens and when the Titans lost, Zeus as punishment, had Atlas hold the sky on his shoulders for all eternity.  As I researched more I saw that it is believed that Mt. Atlas in northern Africa is where he supposedly held up the sky. It just proves that these stories and characters are still used as symbols and they are everywhere. When I hear about stories like these that show a real place that I can see it sparks something inside of me that just makes me want to keep learning more because it’s just so addicting.   

Photo Credit : Amazon 

I can honestly say that I was very disappointed when the class ended I was having fun listening to Mrs.White. As soon as I got in the car I started to share everything that I learned in the class with my mom.  As I was telling my mom a couple of the stories that Mrs. White told me in the seminar I did realize that when you tell a story it does change a slight bit. You always either add to it or leave something out but the person you told the story to will keep passing it on. I want to thank Mrs. White for inspiring me. I definitely want to study literature when I get into college I want to explore that hidden meaning literature holds. As I finish writing this blog post I am online looking at Greek Mythology books on amazon. Thank you!  Mrs. White for the inspiration.

-Courtney Bucknor