Th Other Place

The other place. What is this other place?  

Is it where the wild things are? Is it where the mind wants us to go?

This place, is where my soul can meet his home. Where creation took place. 

I go to this place like a bird leaves for winter. A cycle. That is unbreakable.

This place, the place where kids can run free. Where animals surround every corner.

Where love is all around. Where the air is very distinct. Where family matters, no Steve Erkel.

My love for this place grows and cannot do anything else.

Once there, the air hits me like a snare penetrated by a bear. Hard. Very hard.

The beautiful site, only enhances my eyesight. More and more as I become present.

Every visit only becomes better and better. To both your morals and entertainment.

Last time I visited was unforgettable, truly none can be forgetten here.

Always sunny, dry, warm, and comfortable. Comfortable, but not too comfortable.

A comfortable feeling of familiarity. Where the word its self has what matters most in Spanish.

Familia. Family. Sprechen Zee Douche? I thought so.

This origin of Me. Where I originated. The place, who made me who I am now.

This home away from home is truly and literally another home away from my home in the U.S.

Where my family thrives. Grows. Bonds. Fights. And most importantly, loves.

Fear is afraid of this place. Happiness becomes happy there. And love goes in.

My heritage grew there and will keep on growing for the many years to come.

As a bird does, I return in a cycle, like as if it jeopardizes the matter of life or death.

Forever will I be grateful of this place.

My life started there and my life will end here.

Thank you Mexico.

Community Blog (To Austin Shwartz' Unforgettable Blog)

 “The Blake Blog that's Better than the ‘Best Blake Blog’” posted by Austin Schwartz, Erika Hewgley, Veronica Sanchez, and MJ Roy, is a very dependable blog for those who want to learn more about William Blake. This blog is actually able to represent its name because it is packed with so much helpful information. I would recommend this blog to anyone who is looking for interpretations and information on William Blake.

If you want to magically open this amazing blog, click here.

I like this blog because it’s funny but at the same time very helpful. I find it interesting how much information it has about the influence of William Blake’s poetry among our pop culture today. It is very well organized and has a good theme. After looking over this blog, I myself have learned many new things about William Blake that I did not know. I didn’t know that “V for Vendetta” or “The Watchmen” was highly influenced by William Blake’s poetry. Or that the band U2, made a song called “Bullet in the Sky”, that is very similar to “America a Prophecy” by William Blake. This blog is important for someone who doesn’t know about William Blake because it does a very good job of both describing Blake’s poetic ways and the way he has impacted us. The blog will teach them about some of his most famous poems and provides examples of interpretations of his poems. For those who have trouble interpreting what his poems mean. A strong point about this blog is its humor. The name itself is really funny and the sidebar comments on the group members are also very funny. Along with humorous entertainment, it also presents great information. The way it is set up is also very good. Its background, the examples of images and examples of his painting go along with the theme very well. Its organization is very well put together and it is easy to maneuver around the website. I am very glad to have this blog as a part of our community because it has the same subject area as this blog. Again, this is a very great blog and I would highly recommend it.

“America a Prophecy” By William Blake

“America a Prophecy” by William Blake is the first of the continental prophecies from his “Lambeth Books” written in 1793. It describes the encouragement of rebellion in the Americas by the birth child of “Los” and “Enitharmon”, “Orc”. In the poem, the king of England is a witness to this rebellion. But “Orc” has a counterpart that is has to get through. “Urizen”, who is like Jehovah, Zeus and other leaders of god, is the creator of religion. “Urizen” is represented as white, colorlessness, atheism and the unknown where on the other hand, “Orc”, is the representation of revolution, blood, rage and passion. Even though they are very different, they are interconnected because “Orc” is the new force in the life cycle and “Urizen” is the old version of “Orc” in the end of the life cycle. Although there is goal of rebellion, there is no actual freedom at the end of the poem.

"America a Prophecy" has a very close connection to the other continental prophecies but it has more to do with “Visions of the Daughters of Albion” by William Blake. In this poem, “Oothoon”, a female character is in love with “Theotormon”, who represents the chaste man filled with righteousness, and is raped by another male character named “Bromion”. After “Oothoon” is raped, neither “Theotormon” or “Bromion” wants her anymore due to the expectations of society. The poem represents “Oothoon” as she is trapped by a philosophical system created by John Locke and no one can hear her pleas other than the daughters of “Albion”.  This is almost a mirror image of how the king of England is scared when “Orc” is spreading its rebellion among the Americas.

William Blake had many expectations about the American Revolution and described it in a prophetic way within his poem. Blake was very disappointed when he had seen no sensual liberation in the Americas and believed that Americans would start treating George Washington as a God. Due to how the French treated Napoleon Bonaparte and the English treated King George III. The belief of an apocalyptic state was still in Blake’s mind but he no longer believed that “Orc” man, the leader of the revolution, would be the agent who caused the apocalypse. But would instead believe that God could only exist in men.

"The Book of Los" By William Blake

The prophecy of Asia is foretold in the “The Book of Los” by William Blake. “The Book of Los” is the last of the continental prophecies and also tells the story of Africa. Africa is the first half of the “The Book of Los” and Asia is the ending half. The story begins in Africa, with “Los” singing of “Adam”, “Noah”, and “Moses” as they were witnesses to “Urizen” granting laws to humanity. The laws involve concepts and ideas being granted to Socrates, Pythagoras, and Plato, gospel being given to Jesus, a bible for Mohamet and a book on war given to Odin, who is the mythological God of war, poetry, knowledge and wisdom. The last of the laws are those of the five senses, which were given to John Locke, a philosopher who believed that all knowledge is created from sensory experience, and to Isaac Newton, one of the world’s most famous physicists who discovered the laws of motion and gravity. In Newtonian belief, the material universe is connected through an unconscious power. That puts imagination and intellectual in the realm of accidental aspects. All of these laws were what bound the mind and caused the world. “The Book of Los” is meant to describe how Newtonian reason and the view of the universe traps imagination.

The end of “The Book of Los” is set in Asia. In this part of the book, “Orc”, which is the birth child of “Los” and his emanation “Enitharmon”, creates fires in the mind that provokes a thought revolution. “Los” is the creator of life systems and of the sexes in the prophecies, which leads to the creation of his partner “Enitharmon”. Eventually, humans are created after consciousness appears and “Orc” is born as an evolution of life. This causes the kings of the world to be startled and an apocalypse of different sorts has begun. “The Book of Los” is the last of all the books and is said to be a revision of “The Book of Urizen.” The book is critical to the ideas of imagination that William Blake believes in. But like all of the other books, it was made to make people partake in the construction of meaning.

Europe: A Prophecy By William Blake

William Blake’s “Europe: A Prophecy”, produced in 1794, is not intended to be a prophecy, other than a way to expose the hidden motives and consequences of human decisions. Blake uses mythical creatures he has created to depict the country’s history.  “Los” is the imagination and eventful source of redemption. Blake uses an old bearded man named “Urizen”, that is the reasonable and vengeful Jehovah of the Old Testament as a front piece to his prophecy. Apart from “Urizen”, there is “Luvah”, which represents the senses, and “Tharmas”, which represents the emotions of the Old Testament. Each one of these characters has a female being that is commonly a negative character trying to dominate their male counterpart. The epic poem describes Europe seeing the interaction between “Los” and his emanation “Enitharmon”, who represents pity. This interaction results in the birth of “Orc”, the spirit of energy, adding importance to salvation. “Orc’s” birth angers “Urizen” and makes “Los” jealous, which consequently makes “Orc” bound. The poem describes “Enitharmon’s” dream as she sleeps for eighteen-hundred years. It opens with the birth of a “secret child” which is a reference to the birth of Jesus Christ and closes with “Orc” being free from bondage and appearing in the “vineyards of red France” as an apocalyptic second coming.

When people view Europe against the other Continental Prophecies, they see it as a glorification of the French Revolution, publicizing a close end to the old world order and the beginning of a universal liberation of mankind. But that is only one common theory people assume out of this poem. Competing theories suggest that Blake may have intended his Continental Prophecies to inherit the political views and revolutions of many. Blake uses the “Principle of rhetorical indeterminacy”, which is the principle of vague ideals, where the reader is forced into an active role of having to interpret the poem. This makes people participate in the construction of meaning, which is what Blake is trying to do. William Blake’s Europe prophecy is intended to tell the story of the industrialism of Europe. Twisting historical events to make them apart of his mythical story. But his story serves a purpose. It shows how certain ideals have influenced Europe throughout history in a non beneficial way according to religion and motives. These intentions and motives are always going to be interpreted, as long as William Blake’s prophecies exist.

"The Revolutionary Vison of William Blake" by Thomas J. J. Altizer (Reading Response)

"The Revolutionary Vision of William Blake" by Thomas J. J. Altizer is a very in depth article about the belief's of William Blake. The article depicts how Blake views the institutionalism of Christianity. These prophecies reflect how he views the modern world’s own self annihilation of God. Blake’s prophecies, beliefs and poetry have revolutionarily changed the way poetry is represented. Altizer states, “Even so, he has had virtually no influence upon either our politics or our religion, and this despite the fact that he is hailed as our greatest modern prophet.”, thus, making Blake a very renowned person. Blake’s coincidentia oppositorum, which is Latin for the unity of opposites, is the main focus of the article. In which he unites the body God with the body of Satin. His prophecy of the Christian Doctrine relates to all of his prophecies because Christianity is one of the world’s most popular religions. Altizer sums up the works of other major poets and philosophers in which Blake was influenced by and also influenced, like for example, Dante, Milton, G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud. By compiling the works of other poets and philosophers, Blake, is able to come up with his own belief about the Christian Doctrine. Blake believes that the self-alienation of God is the calling forth of the dead body of god, which is the body of Satan, making Satan and God the same being in a sense. Altizer clarifies by saying “Self-alienation of God, wherein Absolute Being becomes its own ‘other,’ thereby withdrawing into itself and becoming self-centered or ‘evil.’ That self alienation culminates in death, a death that is the death of the alienation or evil of the divine Being.” In other words, God has lost his own true connection to himself, which is no different then Satin, making God project a fake being to others. Modern day people are also so lost within industrialism, that we have lost our touch with our true selves and project a fake being to others. This causes us to be self centered and make things like Christianity, be projected the wrong way. Satan’s self alienation ties along with that of Christian believers, thus making him contribute to modern day believers, which again makes him no different than God.

My own idea about the article is that Blake is clearly pointing out what we have done to Christianity. People these day’s do not reflect a true being and cannot be intact with their inner selves. This makes the religion of Christianity contradict itself due it its followers and believers. For example, the article proclaims “The death of Christ was the death of God.” I view it as God not thinking of himself and thinking of others because the sacrifice of Christ was for the people. But thinking of others before yourself is nearly impossible when you don’t know your true self. In a sense, Christ was projecting a false being to others and making his followers believe a false divine being. Over the years, people have been making God play a role that was not intended to be. I think this has caused the institutionalism of Christianity because people have been adding there own theories throughout the birth of Christianity. These theories and ideas are also reflections of people’s self alienation. Putting non radical ideas into a very new religion. I think that Blake’s prophecy of the Christine Doctrine is a very well educated and philosophical belief. Relating to the way religion its self can be contradicted would be people who are very close minded in their beliefs. Religion is supposed to be open minded and people shouldn’t care about other people’s business because focusing on oneself is much more important. This article relates to one of Blake’s most famous quotes, “The most sublime act is to set another before you." This would mean that the most inspiring act would be setting another before oneself. It’s so empyreal because Blake believes that we have lost our true selves and setting another person before we even know who we are, is the most sublime act there could be. It relates because God is setting forth the people before he even knows what he is himself is and what he has created. William Blake’s foretold prophecies are very hard to be examined and explained but they will always be some of the most astonishing works in the history of poetry.