Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

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  • The Sea Peoples and The Collapse of Civilization

    The Sea Peoples: The Mysterious Nomads Who Ushered in the Iron AgeThe Sea Peoples: The Mysterious Nomads Who Ushered in the Iron Age by Charles River Editors

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    In the passage of history, there have always been great transitions marking epochs of civilizations that have changed the structure and course of world history fundamentally, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the Industrial Revolution. However, before these epoch-making events, before the birth of city states, such as Thebes, Athens, or Sparta, and even before the time of Alexander the Great, there was a collapse of a great ancient civilization during the late 13th and early 12th centuries of the Bronze Age that shook down the diplomatic and political systems of kingdoms of the Aegean, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Near East regions, dawning the age of the Iron Age. At the center of this momentous drama of human civilization, there were mysterious Sea Peoples. The Sea Peoples: The Mysterious Nomads Who Ushered in the Iron Age by Charles River Editors describes unsolved mystery of these invaders who wreaked havoc across the Near East during the late Bronze Period.

    In 1200 BC, before the arrival of the Sea Peoples, a political and social stability was existent between the major powers of the region, which were Egypt, Hatti, the Aegean, and the eastern Mediterranean kingdoms under the modus operandi carefully crafted through a combination of diplomacy and military conquest. During this period, Egyptians, Hittites, Mesopotamians, Semites, and Mycenaeans on the Greek Mainland formed a kind of multiple interconnected societies and maintained an international hierarchy by means of trading goods and exchanging cultural artifacts. However, all of sudden, the Sea Peoples from the Mediterranean and the Near East raided the region at the end of this period by dismantling the stability of the region, as the catalyst for the collapse of the Bronze Age and thus changed the face of the ancient world forever. Then who are these Sea Peoples? What prompted them to raid the region?

    It’s the Egyptian hieroglyphic texts (writing with pictures) that first and foremost depicted these mysterious people because the Egyptians fought them off three times successfully; however, it was Pyrrhic Victory eventually bringing out a butterfly effect to the region by greatly affecting the international trades one by one among the interconnected states. According to the Egyptian historiography – also known as “The Papyrus Harris” – of the nine Sea Peoples, the following are the most known of all:

    • The Lydian: a tribe from a modern day Libya
    • The Sherden/Shardana: a tribe from today’s Sardinia
    • The Peleset: a major participant of the raid , believed to be originated from today’s Palestine
    • The Tjeker: a tribe that claimed to be descendants of Troy from Sicily
    • The Teresh: a tribe originated in Asia Minor then moved to Italy to become the Etruscan
    • The Ekwesh: Achaean/Mycenaean Greeks

    Between 1200 and 1050 BC, these Sea People with new innovative military tactics of mercenary services and weapons, such as swords, shields, and helmets made out of metals from the Balkan, began to move into the inland of the Near East with the influx of peoples from Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and the Greek Mainland possibly due to catastrophic drought and other environmental factors, including disastrous earthquakes on the Greek Mainland as recorded by Herodotus’s writing a thousand years later. Also, there was a precipitous increase in the population of southeastern Europe, which might have propelled the invasion of the Sea Peoples. In fact, it is known that some invasions of Sea Peoples accompanied civilians and even cattle, which betokened a possible migration intention following from such events. Besides, this was also the period when the epic city of Troy was besieged and finally destroyed by the Achaean/Mycenaean/Ekwesh raiders as recorded by Homer.

    Subsequently, the repeated raids of the Sea Peoples in the course of time resulted in a dispersion of the new cultural, political, and social customs throughout the Ancient Near East, weakening the stable system of a coalition of states that was mostly provided by  Hittites and Egyptians who relied on extremely archaic political and military system, such as relying on chariots at warfare, and a feudal system. Moreover, a succession of ineffective rulers, declining trading volumes, and crop failure in the regions might have contributed to the demise of the Bronze Age, which was only precipitated by the pesky invasions of the Sea Peoples.

    There are many other theories of how exactly the Bronze Age came to an end as to the relation of these mysterious Sea Peoples and their impacts on the collapse of the great ancient civilization. Nonetheless, what is viewed herein is considered as a widely accepted theory of the end of the Bronze Age as comprehensively chronicled in The Sea Peoples: The Mysterious Nomads Who Ushered in the Iron Age. By understanding the cause and the result of this unknown, mysterious epoch, we can also relate it to the diplomatic and political situations of our time that do not seem remotely distant but disarmingly similar and thus learn something about human nature that does not seem to be changed after all these years.

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  • The Enterprising Spirits

    After years of working as seamstress and nanny with a trust fund her paternal grandmother Mrs. Molly Miller bequeathed to her in a magically discovered will, Sally’s mother Mrs. Mary Lamb bought a three-story house building in Charlottestown. It is indeed a revelation of lucky stars winking at the Lamb who have believed that heaven help those who help themselves as asserted by Benjamin Franklin. Not that the meaning of life aims at a pursuit of happiness, such as manifested in the realization of having a property now the Lamb possess, but that it is rather a by-product of their making efforts to live meaningful life simply by fulfilling demands placed upon their daily dealings with the world because to the Lamb materialistic bliss is not the ends of their life thanks to the influence of Logotheraphy, established by a great Austrian psychoanalyst Viktor E. Frankl whose book entitled, Man’s Search for Meaning Sally Wrote about in Serendipity, a kind of Reader’s Digest-like literary magazine of Charlottestown.

    IMG_3826
    Mary Lamb, Sally’s mom

    It is a big leap from the cozy and pastoral Avonlea where the mother and the daughter were comfortably accustomed to the modes of life for long. But that was exactly why Mary had decided to move to Charlottestown, a coastal city 5 miles off the Pacific Ocean where seas are bluer and deeper and wider, and the skies higher and clearer, with people bustling with many different lives and daily episodes. She wanted to become a pioneer woman and wanted her only daughter Sally to mark herself in such world, triumphing over her obscurity and self-doubt as awriter of her own.

     

     

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    Sally Lamb, before getting off for the intervie

    Sally seems to like her new surroundings, adjusting herself thereto with her face radiated with a new sense of purpose and cheerful moods that were seldom surfaced to bloom back in Avonlea. But is she really content with their newly acquired state of material affluence with a house and a bakery, and even a car? Why not? It would be hypocrisy to deny what it is given, whether or not it’s favorable, especially if it is conducive to the invigoration of new energy that stimulates your mind growth to discover a wide panoramic view of life, a vista for what life asks you to do.

     

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    Bonnie Baker, Bakery’s new attendant/cashier

    With a hereditary sense of business acumen aided by philanthropist streaks in her family line, Mary made the first floor a bakery where delicious cakes and freshly brewing coffee are made on premise (that is, in her kitchen on the second floor), all of which are served with genial courtesy and amiable smile of Bonnie Baker, a new attendant at the shop whom Mary hired last week. Bonnie is a sister of her two baby siblings, Nena and Neno, all left orphaned by the death of their parents from a tragic car accident in Kingsbridge two years ago. The Baker used to live with their maternal aunt Brenda, but Bonnie did not get along with her because of her curmudgeonly temperament and depressive emotional tendency. Hence, when she saw an advertisement on The Traveler’s Times, seeking for a reliable, affable bakery shop attendant/cashier, without hesitation and with guts of confidence and adventuresomeness, Bonnie applied for the position, met with Mary, who liked her instantly, and got the job.

    To her amazement, Mary even volunteered to take care of the babies when Bonnie is at work. However, when Mary is also working on her mobile Candy Shop, her niece Sophie babysits them.

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    Sally’s ready to drive her very first car to her job interview.

    Sally is on her way to her job interview at Buena Vista, a literary magazine that covers a wide scope of literature from book and film reviews to poetry, to essays, and to letters from readers, all except matters concerning Politics. Surely, this is an outright betrayal of Aristotle’s dictum that anyone who’s not interested in politics must be either a beast or a divine being. But talking and writing about politics in public only disintegrates a stability of societal codes of conduct and builds up walls between one another and makes a clan of itself… So for this reason, Sally is elated to be selected for an interview by her favorite magazine. She feels her time has finally arrived, the time when her ability as a writer gets a recognition at last…. She feels that the auspicious interview notice is a foregone result – that is, she has a precognition that this position is to be had only for the asking. So off our Sally goes to the magazine company, which is located at 101 Fifth Avenue, 10th floor in Manhasset, 20 miles off Charlottestwon linked by the Thomas Jefferson Bridge.

    Sally, being easily moved into tears at the sight of people in need, also gives a ride home to Laura Collie, who with a heavy basket full of groceries is grateful for her act of kindness. Best Wishes for Sally’s job interview, or maybe we should congratulate her on the new job? Why not? What You Think and Believe Becomes Reality.

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  • The Wishful Pegasus

    ies
    courtesy of google. com

    If I could only know where to begin
    to turn over everything from within,
    running through this wind of vortex,
    with my hands clenched in coldness,

    If I could only find where the Fates
    live to demand my justice of the witches
    who spun the Wheel of Shattered Dreams,
    Silent Wishes, All in Epicycle, Orb in Orb, As Always,

    With a great flapping of the wings of a new spirit,
    I would fly away, far away, without limit.
    With a light pair of eyes to see the reality,
    I would fly higher, see farther for the beauty.

  • Mystic Solitude

    Once upon a time, by the sea far away from here,
In a castle made by crystal, there lived a lady
With Diamond Eyes and a Glass Heart as pure
As the chaste high Moon on a wintry night sky,
As delicate as the dewdrops on the leaves of
Flowers in the meadow where nymphs of
Dainty beauty danced with gods of winds.

The lady in the crystal castle heard the merriment
Of the nymphs and the winds in frivolous levity
That grew loud and grew louder as the winds
Blew hard and blew harder as their fiery gaiety
Reached the demise of the frivolity finally as
The great waves outside the castle were lulled away,
Becoming a sweet lullaby of tidal waves peaceful ever,
Caressing her spirit inviolate, her soul incorruptible ever.

Alone, all alone – was she lonely? Not ever! Never!
For she had two ravens named Thought and Sense
That sat on her shoulders and told her of the tales of
Day and Night, of Heroes and Gods, of Spirits and Sibyls,
And then flew away when their mistress fell into slumber
To deliver her message of her Thought and Sense Urbi et Orbi
That she spurned the frivolities of the world in the guise of
Romance, Reason, and Reality – the Virtual Vagaries as ever,
In the crystal castle enameled with her mystic solitude as ever.

  • For Love of Fate: Book review on Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

    Man's Search for MeaningMan’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    Many books are to be tasted or swallowed, whereas certain books are to be chewed and digested for the nourishment of our minds and souls, such as Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, the founder of Logotheraphy, the third Viennese School of Psychoanalysis, along with Freudian psychoanalysis and Adler’s individual psychology, that deserves of its recognition of being one of the books of our time for its content as well as its origin. This book is not of survival literature of the Holocaust but of a memoir of a courageous human soul that did not succumb to despondency. It is less about what he suffered and lost as a prisoner at four concentration camps during World War II than it is about the sources of his intention to live through it, attesting to the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

    Man’s Search for Meaning is a fruit of Frankl’s resilient soul ever resisting the existential horrors of situations that life could afford; whenever the miserable conditions of the camp suppressed the spirit, Frankl diverted such negative energy to reconstructing the manuscript which he had lost in the disinfection chamber of Auschwitz and scribbling the key words in shorthand on tiny scraps of paper. In fact, it was a way of intensifying his inner life full of intellectual resources and spiritual freedom to which he could retreat from his terrible surroundings by forcing his thoughts to turn to another subject, which made him enable to rise above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment.

    In addition to the willful act of deluding anxiety and negative feelings, Frankl ensures us that a sense of humor is another of the soul’s weapon in the fight for self-preservation and can afford an aloofness and an ability to transcend any situation, for developing a sense of humor and seeing things in humorous light is a kind of trick learned while mastering “the art of living.” That is, by laughing about any sordid or callous situation, we ease our mental distress and are able to take on a different stance on the situation in a less negative way that is essentially not overwhelmingly stressful or unbearable. After all, humans are the only biological organism that can laugh, and thus this sense of humor is our prerogative as human.

    It is also interesting to learn that the prisoners who did their utmost best to look good even in the sordid surrounding survived the dreadful experience because they looked “fit” for survival. This act of grooming links to will to meaning – that is, a will to live- that has physiological bases of psychic energy which rejuvenates the body and the spirit to see a why to live. On the other hand, there was a young inmate in the camp whose sudden loss of hope and courage to live affected his already typhus-stricken body so adversely that such mental condition lowered the man’s temperature and resistance against typhus, which ultimately caused his premature death. This episode shows us that what we believe becomes our truth and thus can alter our reality with another one, a virtual reality as a product of psychosomatic effect, which also links to the three sources for meaning of life as follows:

    • Creative Value – Doing something meaningful, such as Frankl’s scribbling the manuscript
    • Experiential Value – Appreciating beauty of the Arts or love, such as his thinking of his wife in another camp whenever he was on the verge of falling into an emotional distress; and
    • Attitudinal Value – Triumphing over biological, social, and cultural inhibitions during difficult times, such as Frankl’s endless efforts to divert his thought to another object of lofty value. It is this value that gives to our sufferings meaning by the way in which we respond to.

    Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl testifies to Nietzsche’s dictum as aforesaid that suffering can grow out of existential frustration in the sense that there is a point to sufferings, that there is a hidden meaning in the guise of suffering, as there is only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand. The essence of existence, which is search for meaning of life, underlies our awareness of a possibility against the background of reality – that is, what we can do about our given situations, not depending on the happenstances. Our emotions, which are interpreted as suffering, cease to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it by applying the three sources for meaning of life. Viewed in this light, this book is a veritable guide to how to overcome the struggles of our lives and achieve demands imposed upon our daily tasks however insurmountable they seem, which gains utmost credibility against the backgrounds of his own anguish in Auschwitz.

     

  • Herculean Rhapsody

    horses
    Courtesy of google.com

    Thousands of years ago when gods and goddesses
    Lived among the mortal and made love to them,
    There lived a man in Greece across the oceans
    Whose muscles invincible, confidence supernatural,
    His spirit all greatness, all sincerity, all eagerness,
    Untainted by the vanity of his divine heritage of Zeus.

    A fruit of lustful possession of the mortal beauty
    Named Alcmena by Zeus, the god of gods, in slumber,
    The son of god, the infant prodigy toying with a snake,
    Grew out to be on a par with the strength and esteem of gods
    That was the sacred prerogative exclusive to the Olympian.

    But lo! It was nothing but the elitism of the gods, for he could
    Threaten the Sun to make it cool, waves when his boat’s tossed at seas,
    And his music teacher for forcing him to play the lute against his will.
    But alas, this man of incorruptible pride, of exceptional valor
    Was to be pierced by the unquenchable flame of jealousy and
    Hatred of Hera, the wife of Zeus, for his being the love child of
    Her ever amorous husband whose objects of passion knew
    No boundary between the mortal and immortal evermore,
    Which she couldn’t bear at the sight of Heracles, nevermore.

    Thus, Hera cast the spell of Madness upon the son of Zeus,
    Making him blind with terrible rage, talking sound and fury,
    And exciting him to slay his wife and their three sons with a sword
    smeared with their blood so crimson, so warm with their last breaths,
    Leaving the wretched man in a bottomless pit of guilt and shame
    In his awakening from the bewitched madness driven by the sulphurous
    Envy of the wife of god, who sired this son of god, who loved his mother.

    The great surge of remorse swept over Heracles with wells of tears,
    The sublime wish to expiate his sin suddenly urged him to go
    To the Oracle of Delphi for Apollo’s guidance for his penance,
    Where the sacred priestess in fits of divine frenzy told him to
    Eurystheus, King of Mycenae, his cousin, the inferior to his being
    To purge out his sins of Matricide, Uxoricide, Prolicide, and Filicide,
    Once for all, in the name of Apollo, god of the Sun, Truth, and Healing.

    Thus obeyed Heracles, our wretched but genuine man of courage,
    Who, at the command of Eurystheus, his loyal cousin, undertook
    The Twelve Great Labors so impossible, so unthinkable, so incredible
    By himself, alone, in act of penitence that was so brutal, so primordial as thus:

    Killing the Lion was met by vanquishing the Hydra;
    Then he had to capture the Stag and the Boar;
    He even deigned to clean the filthy Stables in a single day
    To kill the monster Bids, followed by capturing of the bull;
    Thereupon, he rounded up the Mares to steal the Girdle;
    Herded the Cattle so unmanageable and untamable;
    Went to fetch the Apples and then captured the Dog of the Underworld.

    The Greatness of the Spirit, the Purity of the Soul,
    Far excellent, far above the Reason clothed in cowardly pride,
    Far higher than arrogance and hypocrisy in the guise of intelligence,
    Was the name of Heracles to whom no fear and intimidation did appear,
    Nor the impossibility, nor injustice did exist in therein eternally evermore
    enshrined in the memory of the half-man, half-god who once lived among us.

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