Machu Picchu and Myth-Tenses

 I have been unable to return to this space for a month. Of course, as they do, many things happened that I have wanted to write about. 

For instance, my visit to the Machu Picchu exhibit remains most memorable. The ubiquitous gold was impressive but fails to leave a lasting impression; I have seen a lot of it, especially dazzling from behind untouchable cases of museums and palaces. The Machu Picchu exhibit has left a lasting impression of the epic story of Ai Apaec, the Andean hero who travels all three realms, fighting animal monsters and gaining their powers, even as he loses parts of himself. I found the idea of the fertile dead fascinating. Finally, of course, the architecture is breathtakingly innovative, symmetrical, and beautiful. 

I wished for a refresher to Incan mythology, a course a colleague teaches his middle school class. 

Again, I wish for my dream job, being part of a research team that excavates the myths of the world to create present day movies for kids or TV serials. Being a part of a plot-writers' team working on Hindi serials is a close second, of course. 

However, since I see no path, crooked or otherwise that could lead me to these destinies, it might be better to stick to the present continuous and the present perfect continuous tenses. Obsessing over using the past perfect to fuel future modals of low probabilities seems a pointless exercise. 

Yes, patient reader. The most that I have done is figured out different ways of reviewing the 12 tenses of English. I also taught a few weeks of basic Word & Power Point, much to the delight of students and amusement of my staff. 

I used to teach 6 hours of Magic in my courses (a lot of it based on The Golden Bough, Jung, and many others, of course). I miss that like a wound. In the present tenses (all 4 of them), watching the glitter in a student's eyes as she changes the design of her power point presentation is the nearest I get to the magic I used to teach. The magic of spell-casting has been replaced with the rules of spelling. The Machu Picchu exhibit, with its myths of spirals, animal hierarchies, and the many connections between spiritual realities and the transient physical world humans inhabited reminded me of the magic of the land that defines Arthuriana, in which two realities occupy and fight over a single geography.

Experiencing the Andean myths was like being suddenly aware of the subdued text that shines through a palimpsest, insisting on being read. 

Has this exhibit changed something in me? I don't know. It has, however and definitely, added to my thirsts and yearnings. Now, I yearn for more stories from a different people. 

Again, I ask myself, what use are the stories? Maybe I can use them, somehow, to teach the perfect and perfect continuous past tenses and past modals? 

Then again, facing the continuous tense of myths is like facing the ocean. And of what use can an ocean be?