Man, Myth, Magic and Me

A Literary Collage By Sam Grant-Williams

Of Gods and Heroes

Ever sense I was a child I have always had
a fascination with world cultures specifically their
spiritual traditions and religious ideologies. This
unending love was born out of my love for the
various mythologies of the ancient world; my
personal favorites at the time were Ancient Greek
and Ancient Egyptians. I remember the day my
mom bought me a book simply titled Egyptian Myths by Jacqueline Morley, she world read it to me
every until we had finished it. I remember her siting me on her lap as we sat on the bed, who she would
hold the book in front of us as she world read the characters lines in funny voices. I AM THE
MONEING AND EVENING STAR AND I AM THE SUN THE ALL MIGHITY RA! she would
bellow out in a fake deep voice in a humorous attempt to sound manly. As she read it I became
enthralled my the stories held within the book and wanted to grow up and get a job in Egyptology.

My next big obsession would be good old Greek and

Roman myths, this was born from a trip to the library at my
elementary school. It was there that I found a book on Greek
myths. As a read, and read, I became so amazed at just how meany gods and goddesses the Greeks and
Romans had. My favorite gods were Erebus god of darkness, Iris goddess of rainbows and Hecate
goddess of magic. Besides studying units on mythology at school, my mother and grandmother took
me frequently to the library, museums, plays, ballets, poetry readings, movies, and many cultural fairs
as they were very supportive of this fascination. I can still remember who my grandmother took me to

see a production of The Odyssey. I can still imagine my grandma squeezing my hand to comfort me
because I was afraid of the many monsters. This fear however only lead to love as my enjoyment of
Greek myths continued.

Being a Good Jew

My own background as a Jew also contributed to a
fascination with mysticism and mythic stories.
Because my mother converted to Judaism when she
was in her 20s was born a proper Jew because it
was my mother who was Jewish as is the traditional
requirement. When I was younger I was very proud
to be a Jew as there were not a lot of Jews left In the
world, this made me feel unique and because of this I
wanted to be the best Jew ever! I had even wanted to
become a Rabbi. As an expression of this
I started wearing my Yamaka to school,
this did not end well. This is because I
was bullied so much by my fellow
students. They would yell at me and call
my things like devil worshiper and Christ
killer. They world play keep away with
my Yamaka and they why I tried to get it
back they wold lie to the teacher so I got
punished. Because of this I grow so ashamed that to this day I am slightly sad when ever it is
mentioned that I was Jewish.
As part of the Hebrew tradition I had my Bar Mitzvah or right of passage at the age of thirteen.
To this day I still have very mixed feelings about the event. Part of me is still mad that at mother for
making do it, as I wanted the money that went into the ceremony to go to me getting braces, I still have

bad teeth to this day. But none the less my mom felt that this was more important. The hardest part
about it was reading from the Torah as I did not do well learning Hebrew in Sunday school. To
compensate for this I had to memorize the text written in English syllables and say it like a speech on
stage. But I did it and it was a very empowering experience.

Faith around the world

Because of such stores as the Golem of Prague; I have had a
fascination with Other Religions and one what was really cool to me
was Christianity as many of my extended family members were
Christian I was often told that many stories in our Torah were also
included in the Christian Bible but I wasnt sure which ones and if
they took the same form.
These questions led me to first study the Judeo-Christian
religion which led to further questions about other cultures such as Celtic, Norse, Aztec/ Mayan /Inca,
and then many Asian religions and cultures, back to pre-Christian civilizations, and then to the Jewish
Kabbala. Then when I realized that I am a gay male I felt alienated from Judeo-Christian, and Islamic
religions believing that there was no place for people whose sexuality was defined as anything other
then straight and married. I began to wonder how these other cultures and religions dealt with gender/
sexuality issues and this led to new realms of study and interpretation.