Living Myth
Prologue
Footsteps echo a man entering an elevator. He nervously straightens his tie and clears his throat.
* * * * *
The past ten years were brutal, with countries threatening to rage wars, deaths from terrorism, diseases spreading, and escalated crime. Gaia, one of the eldest gods, stares out a Mount Olympus palace window, looking down on her home, legacy, and gift to humans. Earth. Holding back tears and feeling nauseous, she asks herself, "how did it get like this?" She feels a presence behind her and straightens her tunic. "Zeus." She turns, seeing her grandson's eyes sparking with rage. "We need to go, you're the last one they're waiting for," the supreme god grumbles. He grabs Gaia's arm and they walk to the dining hall.
When they arrive, several pairs of eyes direct themselves to Gaia and Zeus. He walks to the seat at the head of the table, declaring "we can start now. Humanity is…not what it once was."
"Brother, why dance around the subject?" Poseidon, shaker of the earth bellowed. "The humans are disrespecting the very earth we have carved for them. We need to make them see the errors of their ways!"
"Do we need to resort to violence? There must be another way." The gray-eyed Athena tries to calm the brothers down.
"Oh, that's incredibly rich coming from you. You're such a-"
"Is there something you'd like to say to me?" Athena interrupts Aphrodite.
"Enough!" Zeus glared at his gods, lightning appearing in the clouds from his volume. "We must intervene. The devastation has gone on long enough."
"Zeus. Why must we fight fire with more fire? We need to resolve this, not make it worse." Themis, the goddess of justice speaks. "Gaia. What are your thoughts?" Gaia had been looking at her bruised arms the entire discourse. Collecting her thoughts, she says, "I agree action must be taken. But this affects me more than anyone here. We do not need to destroy Earth-"
"I have the final say," Zeus cuts her off. He walks to Gaia at the other end of the table. He looks her in the eye and cuts his hand through the air, eliciting a storm. He stretches his fingers, directing strong winds to countries who don't typically suffer from such extreme weather. He dismisses the gods, who either are disgruntled or fascinated. When Zeus disappears, Gaia clutches the table and starts to feel pain in her chest.
Earth suffers for many more years. Pan and Artemis roll their eyes as animals lose their habitats. Helios cackles, piercing his gaze as cooler countries creep up in temperature and melt glaciers. Demeter sobs as the seasons change, affecting how often she sees her daughter.
* * * * *
Epilogue
1988. Gaia, unseen, finds a seat at the back of Congress. She catches Dr. James Hansen mid-sentence, "…in my opinion, the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now. My team and I consider this climate change."
Analysis
My living myth tells the origin story of climate change. I use the ancient Greek gods and goddesses to aid in telling this story, sharing their powers and personality traits. To begin, Gaia is essentially the protagonist of this myth. As I mentioned, Gaia is among the eldest gods, and is held in very high regard as all things exist and live through her (HH. 30). She is essentially the Greek mythological iteration of Mother Nature. This is why when Earth is being treated poorly with wars, disease, and crime, along with the climate change initiated by the gods, I wrote it to harm Gaia too. The preliminary disasters can be interpreted as the fall of Earth and its ruin (Hes. Theog. 687-712), which I humanize as Gaia’s symptoms throughout the myth, such as nausea, bruises, and chest pain. The latter is specifically caused by her grandson, Zeus, who began the new disastrous weather affecting Gaia's health (Nonnus, Dion. 48.6). He ends the gods’ meeting with pain in Gaia’s chest after he starts a storm. This direct interaction references their tension experienced in ancient myth, such as Gaia using the Gigantes to defeat Zeus and the Titans (Ap. Rhod. Argon, 2.25-54; Apollod. Bibl. 1.34-39). I wanted to bring their dynamic to my living myth, starting even when he meets her. This is also evident when Zeus overrides how Gaia feels in the meeting, almost immediately inciting a storm against her wishes, which ultimately causes her pain.
The meeting was organized by Zeus on Mount Olympus, where all the gods live (Hom. Il, 4.1-2). I thought it would make sense to set the myth here as many of them live here. Zeus is considered king of the gods and the most powerful (HH. 23). When he makes it clear why he gathered them, there are mixed reactions. Poseidon, god of the sea (HH. 22), is the first to speak up, pushing for wreckage to punish humanity while Athena immediately disagrees. As goddess of wisdom and good counsel, she knows this is not a good idea which is why I have her question Zeus' violent tactics (Hom. Od. 13.324-339). I use her epitaph ‘gray-eyed’ as this is a common description for the goddess, so I wanted to honour the storytellers before me by using their description of her intellect (Hom. Il, 18.217). However, Aphrodite cuts in, considering Athena’s view ironic as she is also the goddess of war and battle strategy, which should make her side with Zeus instead of criticizing him in this case. I gave her this biting tone to talk back to Athena because these goddesses have past rivalries, including when Athena gave Diomedes super strength to fight in the Trojan war. She told him not to challenge any of the gods on the battlefield except Aphrodite. Athena wanted to teach her a lesson that she should not be on the field and Diomedes wounded her (Hom. Il, 5.318-352). Also, Aphrodite is bitter to Athena after she challenged her to a weaving contest and Athena easily beat Aphrodite, even laughing at her (Nonnus, Dion. 24. 254-275).
Zeus ends the quarrelling with a crack of lightning, as he is god of the sky and can control the weather. His angry voice alone can light the clouds (Hymn. Orph. 20) and he reminds the others who is really in charge. Next, Themis calmly proposes a solution. She is the goddess of justice and order, which is why I have her act as one of the voices of reason against Zeus' plan (Diod. Sic. Bibl. 5.67.3). The Homeric Hymn to Zeus also shows disagreement between Themis and Zeus as they are at odds (HH. 23), even diverging in opinion on how to move forward with the events on Earth. Additionally, Themis is the only one to ask Gaia her thoughts on proceeding with matters on Earth. This shows Themis is fair and considerate while also knowing Gaia is wise, so consulting her is a good idea (Hes. Theog. 617-43). The fact that the meeting could not start without Gaia shows her position among the rest of the gods. However, she was not able to speak much without Zeus interrupting. He ultimately decided to move forward with the slow destruction of Earth, harming Gaia by doing so.
More gods participate in this, whether they agree with Zeus or not because they know to follow the supreme god. Pan and Artemis, deities of wild animals and hunting are surprisingly nonchalant about animals losing their homes as a result of climate change. In Greek myth, wild animals are symbolic to both, especially with Pan having a half-goat body and a tortoise being a sacred animal to him. People recognize these animals are sacred to him and do not capture them (Paus. Description of Greece 8. 54.6). Pan even warned a shepherd to leave Othrys because of an imminent, severe winter that could make the animals suffer. The shepherd did not listen, and he lost his flock in the snow (Ant. Lib. Met. 22). Additionally, Artemis finds thrill in hunting animals, even called ‘a lion among women,’ and is always seen with her bow (HH. 27; Hom. Il. 21.470 & 483-485). Taken together, wild animals and hunting are clearly of importance to Pan and Artemis in Greek myth. Traditional Pan and Artemis would be upset if these animals died in my myth, as Pan would not have any animals to protect and Artemis would not have any to hunt. In my myth, I wanted to shift their attitudes and make them indifferent when animals lose their habitats and eventually die.
Moreover, Helios is the god of the sun in Greek mythology and uses his eyes to radiate heat and bright rays (HH. 31; Hom. Od. 12.175-180). In my myth, Helios uses his powers to slowly increase the Earth’s temperature. Climate change was initially known as global warming for many years. A specific aspect of such is the greenhouse effect, consisting of gases in the atmosphere trapping heat in the Earth (Hansen). Therefore, it made sense for Helios in my myth to raise the temperature of the Earth, aiding gases to trap his heat. The increased temperature also contributes to melting glaciers, leading to rising sea levels. The consequences of such include flooding and erosion on coastal countries, hurricanes leading to destructive storm surges, and forcing people to leave their homes in search for high ground (Nunez). In my myth, these could very well be caused by Helios and Zeus due to their own methods of destruction.
Lastly, Demeter is devastated in how the seasons are affected, disrupting agriculture. She herself is the goddess of harvest and fertility of the earth (Hymn. Orph. 40). These are beyond her control during climate change and she is actually horrified at the droughts, making the seasons aggressive and ruining crops. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter tells the tragic story of Demeter’s relationship with her daughter Persephone being torn apart by Persephone’s forced marriage to Hades. When Demeter first loses her daughter, she is devastated and inadvertently abandons her honour, meaning Greek agriculture suffers immensely without her (HH. 2.90-168, 302-333). Zeus eventually strikes a deal where Persephone can visit her mother for half the year as long as she spends the other half in the Underworld with Hades (HH. 2.390-469). This ultimately creates the seasons when Persephone rises from the Underworld and Demeter rules agriculture. I decided to include this in my myth and but show that the longer winters and shorter summers result in droughts and famine, also impacting how often Demeter gets to see her daughter.
In the epilogue, Gaia attends a meeting at Congress in 1988. In this time, Dr. James Hansen was one of the leading voices for warning people about climate change. He spoke at the U.S. Senate Committee regarding Energy and Natural Resources (Hansen). The first half of the quote I used is from his actual testimony, warning Congress about the damage of the Earth at the time. I wanted to incorporate him into my myth as Dr. Hansen marked the beginning of various complications with the environment in 1988. While the myth occurs on Mount Olympus for the most part, I changed the setting to Earth at the end because I wanted Gaia to watch and see what would be done if Dr. Hansen can make a change for the world.
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