Ancient Archive-for topics 5-6 mos old

[tannhaus]

My username is short for Tannhauser. Most people know that Richard Wagner wrote an opera named Tannhauser but they don't know the story behind it.

Tannhauser was the last great pagan myth. It was written in the area that is now Germany when Christianity was sweeping Europe and eradicating pagan religions. In my opinion, it's right up there with another pagan myth: Beowulf.

It's interesting in that the pagans included the new christian influence into the myth. Tannhauser was a knight. He went on a quest to find mother earth...gaia. He went through several ordeals to find her. Eventually he reached the center of the mountain where she resides and found her. He stayed with her for a time, but began feeling guilty because he had accepted christianity and here he was consorting with pagans. So, he left the mountain even though by this time he has a wife and kid..he leaves them behind because they are pagans.

He first goes to the village priest, tells his story and asks forgiveness. The village priest tells him that living in the pagan society with Gaia was heinous...and he can't forgive him. He tells him he must travel to the Archbishop. So, Tannhauser travels to the archbishop. He tells Tannhauser the same thing..and that he can't forgive him. He must travel to the Pope himself...he's the only one that can forgive him.

So, Tannhauser travels to the Pope. The Pope hears his story and immediately exclaims "I will no sooner forgive you than the walking staff you're carrying sprouts leaves!" Dejected, Tannhauser finds a place on the side of the road to sleep.

As he sleeps, he dreams of a loving vision of Gaia, his beautiful wife, and precious child. When he awakes, he reaches to get his walking staff, only to discover that it has not only sprouted leaves, it has sprouted branches as well as beautiful roses. He returns to the mountain and is never heard from again.

Of course, the idea behind that is that whereas the Christian priests either did not have the power or inclination to accept his request and forgive him, Gaia forgave him without him even having to ask.

An interesting thing to note: In germany in one of the churches, there is a suit of armor on top of a grave. That was common when burying knights, their suit of armor was laid on top. The grave is the grave of Tannhauser. They've used Xrays to scan the grave and there is no body in it...only a suit of armor on top. So, not only is there a grave to the knight in the myth, the body is unaccounted for....off resting in the arms of Gaia.

[vertigo]

Oh well I really love both the movie and the song "Vertigo", and I love the sound of the word...... so I started to used it as my forum name in any kind of forum.

And the meaning of the word vertigo is also really cool (as long as you are not suffering from it!).

I like the fact that is not gender-related, it's cool to keep people guessing, though I haven't done that in this forum.....

[vertigo]

Hey guys,

Today I was updating my lj interests to add... well, guess what ;P

I noticed there are only a handfull of people into this whole crazy thing that is eating our lives away, so I decided to see if there's anyone here who's an lj-er!

I'm galadrielnewen there!

[Callawang]

i too waste my life with the abyess known as EL JAY!

[vertigo]

i too waste my life with the abyess known as EL JAY!

Sometimes I do feel like it's only a waste of time and wish it would just explode..... and a few days later, I'm back.

It's like being a watcher, in a way.....

[quikstrike98]

"Quickstrike" is tangentially related to the USMC Light Armored Reconnaissance community; I was a LAV-25 crewman for a few years; when I went through Crewman's Course many moons ago, there was a training film by that name.

[romanceismusic]

quickstrike98 reminds me of some type of computer program. lol. sorry.

[tannhaus]

If it gets me votes, I'll PM you the full pic

Ummmm how about just PMing me the full pic for fun?

[tannhaus]

Well, I was reading this before bed...but after seeing nillawafers, romanceismusic, and dlruss....I'm wide awake!

[space girl lost]

i'm there, but everything that is personal is locked up. same name as here.

[Nora Volkova]

lg15 is definitely more popular among the MySpace galaxy than it is among the LJ Nebula.

[Mirage]

tannhaus, that's awesome! You know, I totally didn't catch the Tannhauser refrence until you mentioned it. I knew of the opera, but not what it's about. I've played Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within way too many times. If you've never heard of it, you should atleast check it out, the opera was composed by Robert Holmes (awesome) and the game was written (and the libretto) by his wife, Jane Jensen.
...
Can you tell I'm a fan?


Hmm, lets see, Mirage. I suppose I could give y'all some snappy psychological meaning, like I hide who I am from the outside world, yada yada. But the truth is right before I joined the Lost forum I'm on, I watched The Incredibles. You know, with Mirage? So I stuck "Lost" in front of it, grabbed a pic of her for an avatar, and off I went. So now all my user names have had Mirage in them somehow.

[Kasdeja]

There's three flutists already... wow

Make that 4!

My username is one I use on all forums, or a variation of it. It's one of the Watchers in the Book of Enoch.

[space girl lost]

doesn't mean anything really. just liked the sound of it.

[sovietkitsch]

unicyclephysics