placemaking - kimmy

Horses served a multitude of practical, cultural, and spiritual purposes for the Pazyryk people, making them an undeniably important feature in their lives. Yet overall, "smaller-scale, embodied, emotional interspecies interactions fed into larger social structures and cosmological meanings" (190). Argent points out that these individual interactions are important for archaeologists to consider, especially considering the impact that these interspecies relationships have on human societies as a whole.

      In this chapter, we get to learn more about the Dragons, and specifically, what happens to them when their speech gets taken away.  Sparrowhawk, after they pass a dying dragon comments, “’They have been driven mad. Their speech has been taken from them. They who spoke before men spoke, they who are older than any living thing, the Children of Segoy -they have been driven to the dumb terror of the beasts,’” (Guin). I think in this context that the Dragons not only had their voices taken away, but possibly part of their sanity as well, maybe as a result of their speech taken away. Without the ability to freely express themselves and communicate, they end up killing each other and acting out of fear. Beyond just losing the expression of themselves, they actually start to lose a bit of themselves as well. I think this makes them unhappy because there is such a close connection between you and your words, or methods of expression. What you create, do and say is often synonymous with who you are and the legacy you leave behind. If you lose self-expression, then how can you be sure of who you are? We see this all across the world where people don’t have the same freedom of speech that we have in the states. There are limitations in creativity, what you say out loud about certain people or even online, and even limitations in the ability to read and write to those deemed unworthy. In the U.S., losing words might not be as obvious as the oppression in other countries, but it is still unfortunately there. I think that for us, this is mostly represented in power; those that have power have more of a voice, which really goes against everything the founding fathers wanted. Those people that are in minorities or poorer might have a political voice on paper, but there are much more inequalities and obstacles that are in their way compared to those that are in a rich majority. Not being able to have that freedom of expression and influence in the real world makes people unhappy, just like the dragons in Earthsea. Those are just a few of my ideas regarding what it means to lose words and how that connects to our current world.

In terms of losing words, I definitely agree for the dragons and wizards of Earthsea, it is much like losing power/agency. Like you mentioned, minority groups might be able to say as much as they want, but if their words have no impact, they have no real power. For example, with something like the #MeToo movement, men claim to be losing words because they are unable to talk to women without the fear of being accused of sexual assault. However, the overwhelming majority of assaulted and rapists never face any consequences even when victims do share their experiences. Thus, we might consider the victims to be the ones who have lost words - like when Arren’s father tells him, “I said the words, but I do not know if they had meaning” (Le Guin 5).

The Hall of the Throne, from Ursula Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan

The Holy Roman Empire, while sharing very little similarities with its original form, also bares relation to the Karg Empire.  Though the political formation of the societies involved is not nearly as connected as the previous example. the religious structure is even more so.  While many ruled their bubbles as they pleased, the Church holds kingdom and court over all, no one more so than the speaker of the heavens himself, the Pope.  Karg, similarly, holds the Eaten One above all other mortals, even if their emperor may not want to admit so.  Even the formation of the modern ruling ideals of the empire reminds me of much of the middle period of the HRE, with Manan stating that, “…’there were a lot of lesser kings, princes, chiefs. They were always quarreling with each other. And they’d come here to settle their quarrels. That was how it was, they’d come from our land Atuan, and from Karego-At, and Atnini, and even from Hur-at-Hur, all the chiefs and princes with their servants and their armies. And they’d ask you what to do’” (Guin 25).  This rings shockingly close to how much of Western Europe was structured and interacted with each other as well as the function and importance of the Pope during the 11th to 13th centuries.

Gont - Hut Designs

Earthsea was and still is one of my favourite book series, because it has no epic fantasy war going on (this gets old tbh), I like the overall travelling theme - especially travelling the sea - the ‘magic system’ and the dragons (willing to do Kalessin aswell, the scene of him sitting in the mist after they had beaten Cob).

Been reading the earthsea books for the first time. There are so many short bits of prose that evoke huge, atmospheric settings or moods, I couldn’t help wanting to draw them.

Start work recently on a series of illustration based off the awesome Earthsea books by Ursula Le Guin. Amazing books, check em out! Heres the first two paintings. Check out the Hi-res versions on my art station: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lnmqO

I cannot explain how much I love Ursula K. LeGuin ‘s Earthsea cycle. Those books are amazing and once you’ve read them you are changed forever.

I’m reading the Earthsea books for the first time… super recommend the first one to anyone in need of a heartfelt story of discovery and self acceptance… wow 😭

I approached reading Le Guin’s version of the Dao de Jing with a bit of apprehension, because I researched her background beforehand and learned that she indeed does not know Chinese. She does, however, provide a well-crafted afterward that explains her stance and humbly recognizes her place in this scholarship as a non-Chinese speaker. She also makes an incredible effort in recognizing scholars before her that have made her work possible. Overall Le Guin works not to situate her interpretation of one of the most important works in Chinese literary history as anything profound or “better” than her predecessors–she simply wanted to undertake the task, and so she did, and accordingly acknowledges how this decision may-or-may-not-be respected. On page 110 of the text, though, she illustrates a great honor and appreciation for the text and Lao Tzu: “by confusing [his] mysticism with imprecision, [other] such versions betray the spirit of the book and its marvelously pungent, laconic, beautiful language.” This statement, that mysticism should not be misconstrued as imprecision, is profound to me, and acknowledges the inherent flaws in non-native speakers attempting to translate or interpret works.