PRIMORDIAL GODS - THE GENESIS OF THE GREEK GODS (BQ)

Our ancestors made sense of reality by telling each other stories of their gods. This is our attempt to bring those tales back to life. I am limitless. I am the unborn power. I am the chasm, the void. I am the wellspring. I am a source. I am unbound potential, unmatched power. I am. I am thought of as female as I am fecund. Yet others say I am a concept. I am all and nothing at the same time. Formless, featureless, without agency. I create as is my role. I suffer an endless age alone. Then it is time. I bring that which is to be into being. I pass on my power. I give birth to the architects of this new reality. I give birth to the forces of the world, those who would be called the primordials. I give birth first to Gaea, my mightiest daughter. I pass my fecundity to her. She springs from me whole, yet her form is up to her to decide. And so, she forms into the first firmament, the first planet, the world that will be. From her will flow life and laughter, yet also tragedy that only a mother can mourn. For she will be the mother of the gods, the beings that will play on the stage. I give birth next to Tartarus. He takes my ire and hate, my loneliness, my doleful son. Despite his sibling and those to follow, he is alone. He delves into the form of Gaea. He mines into her and covers his passing. Deeper and deeper he digs until he nears her fiery center. There he sets his stand and creates his realm, a place of terror and darkness. It reflects his shattered and twisted soul. He merges with it, this world within a world, and his fate is set. Forevermore will his realm be that place used as confinement and punishment. He awaits the war that he knows will eventually be his. I give birth to Eros, the will to live, to create, to be, to love. A counter to the spite of Tartarus, a power above the children that will spring from my son and daughter of dusk and shadow. The life urge, the will to progress, but more than this. Eros is perhaps the most influential of all primordial forces, for none shall be proof to his blandishments. Inevitably, so many will curse his name, yet they would not exist nor ever find peace without his tender caress. For none can live without love, save my firstborn son, Tartarus. None. I give birth to Nyx, the primordial of the night, and I give birth to her husband-to-be, Erebus, primordial of darkness, darkness and night. They are the first to enjoy the bounty of Eros, for they are soon lovers, compatible in all ways, one nary present without the other in tow. Together they continue the path set, the greater work of forming that which is. From their union, or alone, come many offspring, the forces required to supplement the children of Gaia. My role performed. I yield to the primary movers on the stage that I have set. I am Gaia. I am the world. I choose my form so that I could support the life that will come from me, will teem across my surface. I look to my siblings. Tartarus has burrowed into my very core. He sets his domain within my depths. I look to my siblings, Nyx and Erebus, how happy they are, forever entwined in joy of mind, body and soul. They are as one. Yet, the effect of my brother, Eros, forces pangs of need for a union as sweet as theirs. Thus, do I find there is no equal to myself, no partner for Gaia. So, I begin my role, my place and pattern in reality. I create. From my longing, I birth my consort, the being that I dream I shall spend all of eternity with. I birth my first and most powerful sun, Uranus, the sky. He wraps himself around me in his embrace. He holds onto me so tightly, I can feel his warmth. Though luscious, verdant, my form was characterless. Thus, I give birth to Aurea, the mountains. No more are my features dominated by huge plains alone. And I give birth to Pontus. The deepest furrows of my form are filled with lakes and oceans. He that is lord of the seas. Yet, my husband does not feel as I feel. He is king as I am queen. Yet, he is jealous and judgmental, and he fears and is repulsed by many of our offspring. Our unions first create the three Hectonicaries, the fifty-headed, hundred-handed ones. They are insane, their power too much for them. Next, I birth the three Cyclopes, builders and shapers. They are mighty, they are useful. Yet, they are unlovely, their faces containing only one eye. And their father despised both of these litters of our children. He hunted them and overpowered them, taking them as the first tenants of my brother's realm. My willful husband throws our children into Tartarus, placing a dragon at its door to keep them within. Yet, he need not have done so, for my brother Tartarus would not yield his first lodgers so easily. I coupled with Pontus and give birth to Nereus, Thaumus, Phorses, Sato and Eurybia. Pontus is lesser to my husband, so our children are not as mighty. Thus, they do not draw the fear or ire of my husband, Uranus the king. Many children more did I have, of myself alone, of couplings with lesser beings, but none match the import of the children of my husband. So, their tales will need to wait for another day to tell. Uranus and I were married, thus we couple again and again. Yet, the issue from these subsequent pairings was different somehow. Oceanus, Coas, Creus, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Menezeny, Phoebe, Tethys, those who would be called the Titans. Somehow, Uranus knows, he can feel it as well as I, so he takes them from me and drags them to my brother's clutches. Our children are thrust into Tartarus, yet they are too potent. Though my brother will never let them go, nor can he control their exploits, justified tantrums, I ache with the pain of them inside me. I am thrashed and bitten and scratched as they tear at the walls of Tartarus, as they tear also at my innards, and with each forlorn cry of turmoil that comes from them, I shed tears of bitter hate. Uranus, god of the sky, king of the heavens, how I grew to hate him, my own husband, he who I created to be my one and only for all eternity. He took every one of our children from me. I hate him, and I will be revenged upon him. I am darkness. I am Erebus. I am Nyx. I am night. We are darkness and night, and we are as one. We dance across the firmament that is our sister, bringing our effects to the world that is. We fly through the sky and bring the anathema of our two children, for they are day and brightness, and we are night and darkness. We are mighty, for we are of the first generation, and thus so are those we sire. Thus are daughters. Hermia is day, and Ether is light. But it was not always the two of us, for Nyx was the greater. She told me that it was my influence, but I cannot agree. Though we began in light, it was ever our role, our destiny, to become that which we became, for Nyx gave birth to one after another. But in their siring, she expressed her descent into my own clutches, for I am darkness. But at first, our union was such a joy, for Nyx gave birth to the Philotees, those beings of pure affection, then Hypnos and Oneiroi, who were blessed sleep and holy dream. They were gifts to all and those to come, for they would have such need of respite, of rest and dreams. But soon, her exertions darkened her pattern, or was it my presence in her life, as her guard during those birthings? Did I do this? Unwittingly? Unwillingly? Did I do this? It was not you. It was ordained. It was always meant to be. Next she bore Moros, who is doom, and Momos, who is blame. Then on to Eres, who is strife. Then the three Moroi, Arapes, Clotho, and Lachesis, who are the Fates. Doom, blame, and fate. The structure of reality was becoming before my very eyes. Their presence seeping into all of the heavens, merging with it. And downward she spiraled, as she birthed all of those forces that were needed, but perhaps not wanted. Selflessly, she birthed that which was required, not that which was pretty, as did Gaia. For next she bore Nemesis, who is retribution. And then Apaté, who is deceit. And Oysis, who is distress. On she went to Keres, the goddesses who would not slay, but feasted on the dead of those who met violent ends. Those who were spawned to be handmaidens to the will of the Moroi, the Fates. Then finally, in a marathon to gain completion, in her will to make all balanced, to populate our domain, our hunting place, the darkness of the night, she bore Geras, who is aging. Charon, the ferryman to be. And finally, Dread Thanatos, who is death. And our immediate need was fulfilled. We had brought balance and counterbalance in the form of our primordial children. Second generation though they were, still, they became bedrocks of that which is and would be. The forces of the world, as much as those birthed by Gaia and her line, despite not personifying as often, and thus ended, yet not even begun. I yield the telling of the tale back to the first daughter, to Gaia. Uranus, he visited me still, despite knowing my cold resentment, and he put another titan in my belly. He is a weapon for my revenge. He is Kronos, my youngest son, my brightest star. I approach all of my sons to strike down their father, but only in him, in Kronos, his loyalty to mother more than fear of the father. For I arm him with an adamantine sickle, hardest and sharpest of all weapons, and I bid him wait until his father accosts me again. We have not long to wait, as Uranus is potent in all ways. When he attempts to mount me again, our sons fall upon him, all but Oceanus, one for each of his limbs. They hold him taut, but none would strike. This is left to Kronos, who cut his scrotum from his father's frame. My husband, the sky, is king no more. His power is shattered, his worth denuded, his power broken. Thus castrated, the link between sky and earth is severed, his predominance sliced away, as was his flesh. Uranus is defeated, his power broken, and with this, my children are freed from Tartarus, space now permitting, and their jailer humbled. The last creative powers of Uranus ebbs into the seas, and from his last seed, the goddess Aphrodite, who would be called Urania, is born, beauty entering the world, and his blood gives birth with my influence. The Gigantes are formed, the giants, and the melee, and the Erinyes, the Ashnymphs and the Furies, and with that, he is cast down, and is held as sky alone. No power has he, but to exist. My lastborn son, Kronos, now takes the throne. He rules all, his siblings, the Titans, as his court, and from them comes the second generation of Titans. But all was not well, for all we did was trade one brute for another. Kronos, now the king of the heavens, reflects his father, holding the same brutality and spite. So, eventually, it was to my grandson that I looked for my revenge on another monarch. But that is a war, and a tale, for another time. Living mythology is our attempt to bring the stories of our ancestors back to life. They explained their universe through the medium of their religions. Their gods were not distant beings of academic study. They were living, breathing entities that reflected the wants, needs, good and evil in the very heart of humanity. We only wish to encourage others to study the deep and rich cultures of our forebears. We hope you have enjoyed our labors. If so, then do consider liking and subscribing. If you wish to support improvement in our endeavor, then we do have a Patreon as well. Until next time, be good to all, but most especially, yourself.