Garner's Greek Mythology

EP 20: Bonus Chapter from HOMO DIVINITAS

April 24, 2021 Patrick Garner Season 2 Episode 20
Garner's Greek Mythology
EP 20: Bonus Chapter from HOMO DIVINITAS
Show Notes Transcript

New stories about the gods!  Homo Divinitas, by podcaster Patrick Garner, is now available on Amazon as an audible book!

... Welcome to Episode 20. We’re taking a short break from our usual episodes to hear Chapter 1 of the audible book, Homo Divinitas.  It has the same Greek gods you love, but they show up in the modern world where they meddle and maneuver as they always have. 

Homo Divinitas is the third book of The Winnowing trilogy. All three novels are about the Greek gods and goddesses. In Chapter 1 you’ll meet Timessa, a nymph who has been transformed by Gaia into the original Great Goddess from 40,000 years ago. 

The Great Goddess was and is more powerful than any of the Greek gods. Increasing the intrigue, the original Greek deities have also reappeared in our world, and they don’t know what to make of Timessa.

We meet her after she has become the most famous fashion model in the world. Timessa—now the Great Goddess as well—has just given up her career to live on Naxos, an island in Greece. This is lucky for us because she was having a harder and harder time balancing both roles. She had become a danger to all. 

Note that the trilogy, which include The Winnowing, Cycladic Girls and Homo Divinitas, is adult reading. This reading of Chapter 1 has been slightly modified for listeners of all ages. 

Our next episode returns to ancient Greek gods. Expect to hear about the Sphinx—not the Egyptian version but the divine sphinx that terrified the Greeks by posing impossible riddles. Those who failed to answer correctly were promptly eaten alive ...

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Tweet me comments at @Garner_images, or email any episode suggestions to patrickgarner@me.com


CHAPTER 1

The goddess Timessa stood triumphantly on the promontory of her estate on Naxos, one of the Greek Cycladic islands. To the northwest, some 20 miles away, she could see the sacred island of Delos, and to its east, the tourist mecca of Mykonos. Below her feet, where the sea in a scrum of thin tide washed against the sandy cove, she could imagine seafaring warriors in fragile triremes—narrow war galleys from millennia ago—landing in search of fresh water and respite.

The cove was shaped like a quarter moon. Five-hundred feet of sand sprawled in a lazy curve. Broken pottery still washed up from the depths, the refuse of older civilizations. Indeed, many thousands of years before, Dionysos, whom the Greeks called the wine-god, had claimed the land comprising her estate. He had married King Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, a young woman he found abandoned on this same beach. Remnants of their house lay behind Timessa. Now the property was Timessa’s, and divine energy was again thrumming through the hectares of grapevines and olive trees.

She turned her gaze toward the sun. At the same moment, Iole —her lover and devotee, whom Timessa called Io—stepped behind her, slipping her arms around Timessa’s waist. Neither spoke. They were well-attuned and speech was often unnecessary. Aware of Io’s breathing, conscious of her chest against her back, the goddess turned and smiled.

They walked back to the main house, hand in hand. Timessa knew Io was still disturbed by yesterday’s incident. A workman had left his carpentry assignment and secretly followed Timessa, Io and a half dozen of Timessa’s nymphs to the sacred grove on the estate. Surrounded by oaks that provided privacy, the girls bathed in a spring-fed pool almost daily.

He was no different than the other workers. In the course of a month, a small number would arrive in the morning and depart each afternoon. Given that Timessa was renovating the two houses and a number of outbuildings, she expected this pattern would continue into the fall.

She preferred women, but contractors in Greece were almost entirely male. This man had appeared ordinary; he came recommended by an employment agency in Athens. Like all the men, he openly watched the young women on the estate—men in Greece made little attempt to hide their interest.

Timessa had acted quickly that morning. She rarely reflected on her actions. The manner in which she had resolved the crisis—no matter how shocking to Io—had been, in her opinion, expedient.

Yesterday’s sun had been ochre and the air dry. As usual, the group walked to the shallow pool without incident. The girls removed their clothing. Unlike Artemis’s nymphs, these girls were not restricted to wearing archaic tunics. Timessa, who a year earlier had soared to extraordinary fame as a fashion model, appreciated modern clothes. She allowed the nymphs who attended her to wear dresses, skirts or jeans.

She waited until they had undressed, and then removed her own clothes. In the pool, the girls laughed and splashed each other. The goddess paused, as she always did, scanning the immediate area. Her inspections were perfunctory, and the girls were unaware of her action. Of the divinities, Timessa—now acknowledged as the Great Goddess—was the most powerful, and danger was improbable.

Yet on this morning, Timessa detected an intruder. A man—the carpenter—was approaching. She pondered whether to sound an alarm, but did not. She felt curiosity at his stupidity; no man who had seen them bathing could be allowed to live. Even Artemis had rigidly observed this basic law. 

The man hid behind one of the perimeter oaks. His excitement was obvious to her; she could read his elevated heart rate and surging adrenaline. She knew, too, that he believed no one had seen him. After all, his quarry was a half dozen naïve girls.

Within moments, he thought, he would know exactly what these girls did each morning when they disappeared into the woods. He had observed them since he began working on the estate; at the least he would return to Athens with rich stories to amuse his friends.

Timessa caught Io’s eye and hissed, “Get dressed!”

Io nodded, stepped from the pool and pulled on her clothes. At the same moment, the man slipped closer.

Timessa pointed. Io glanced to her right and saw him; he remained partially hidden but she could see his face. As Io looked at Timessa, the goddess raised her right hand head-high. Informally—even lazily—she flicked her fingers in a small clockwise circle.

The grove was silent; songbirds hushed. As Io watched, the man fragmented hair-first, as if his spine were a thin fuse over which an angry flame descended—his muscles and flesh disintegrated as the flame meandered down his hips and legs.

Timessa had struck so quickly that his only sensation was that his hair had caught fire. As he raised his hand to check, his body began to implode. Io watched it happening; the event seemed unworldly.

The nymphs in the pool, other than sensing vaguely that time had slowed, seemed unaware of the encounter. They conversed, oblivious to the workman’s death.

Io turned in horror to Timessa. The goddess shrugged slightly and splashed herself. Then, looking at the girls, she said, “Today’s bath will be short. Everyone out.” In their usual tight group, the nymphs dressed and returned to the house. The goddess never looked back.

Io had heard of Timessa’s abilities, but had never seen them used. The small act had appeared effortless. Arm in arm with the goddess as they approached the larger house, she said, “That was dreadful. What did he want?”

“Any one of us.”

“He’s dead?”

Timessa looked at her, nodding.

“Could you not have simply fired him and complained to the agency?” 

“No. It’s more complicated than that. The old rules stipulate—” 

“What?” 

“… that he could not live after seeing us.”

“So, you’re like Artemis—no one lives who has seen you bathing?” Io asked flatly.

“No one with an impure heart.” She squeezed Io’s hand, aware that the girl bathed her nightly.

“It was just so sudden.”

Timessa asked, “You’ve never seen a man die?” A moment passed and Io said, “No. What was his name?” Timessa looked at her curiously. “Stavros.”

The usual sounds on the estate seemed to have stilled. Io whispered, “Have you no remorse?” “Regret?” the goddess said quietly. “When Jackson and I killed a dozen satyrs in Charleville, I had none. Unlike this man, they were ancient beings, divine and unique. When the mighty god, Ares, died in our trap, I had no regret. Now you ask about a man who wondered which of us he might pluck as we fled in panic? His intent was detestable.”

Io said in a small voice, “Can you put him together again?” “No.”

Io viewed Timessa as infallible, a divinity whose nuances, motives and logic were often a mystery. She hoped that in time she might understand Timessa’s rationale for every action. Destroying the man seemed extreme, yet she knew the stories of similar episodes regarding Artemis.

One of the old stories the nymphs told with excitement was when Artemis had turned Aktaion, a grandson of the king of Thebes, into a stag when he saw her bathing. He, like the workman, had felt detestable desire. When Aktaion’s own hunting hounds spotted the stag, they tore it to pieces.

Perhaps, she thought, the young man’s fate in Timessa’s sacred grove was preferable to that of others who had spied on goddesses. At least he died instantly. And, she mused, there was small justice: he who would plunder had been played.… She deferred to the goddess’s wisdom.

Timessa’s transition from nymph to extraordinary goddess had taken almost a year. From the moment she became conscious of the rippling changes within herself, to the moment of fruition, nine months had passed—the gestation of a human pregnancy. Was the timing Gaia’s trickery or divine symbology? Had Gaia, the instigator and the most ancient of goddesses, anticipated Timessa’s troubling incubation?

Although Timessa asked these questions, she knew her chrysalis was hardly robotic. It had instead been fitful and uncertain. And while the outcome of her journey had been foreseen by others, the path had not.

Before fully attaining her new state, Timessa had been told by Artemis, “Your predecessor reigned 40 millennium before tiring of it all.”

The comment had struck Timessa as farcical. ‘Tiring of it,’ she thought. Yet she has returned through me.

Now obligations and duties dominated her thoughts. The mere word predecessor sounded pretentious. Instead, Timessa viewed herself as an inheritor, a being whose ancient powers were so vast that, on the slightest whim, she could destroy or create, bless or curse.

When she had been a nymph, one of Artemis’s many girls, she had been ebullient. Now, levity had vanished, seemingly replaced by a constant void. If she reacted to danger, she felt nothing. She should have anticipated as much, for Nature—which she encompassed in its entirety—has no empathy: beings rise and fall, entire species are created and destroyed.

For divinities like Timessa, mercy and sympathy were an anathema. She knew too well that emotion clouded judgment. She was as remote as the stars. She knew no feeling—none—particularly now that she had become the Great Goddess. Disinterest dominated her more than indifference. Yet.… Yet, she thought, I deceive myself, for there is Io … Io, with whom I am besotted.

Almost six months had passed since Io appeared. The girl was a dressmaker, a couturier who lived in France. Artemis had covertly selected her for Timessa years before Timessa knew of her destiny. As Artemis later explained, “Iole’s purity is ideal and her love felicitous. She will offset your emptiness.”

Indeed, before Io—and during her transition from nymph to goddess—endless fires scoured Timessa’s being, entire horizons burning in ruthless annihilation, the hot fury sweeping toward her from great distances. In the aftermath of these waking dreams, she would feel an unimaginable loneliness. Yet, she rationalized, immense power decreed immense isolation.

Then when Io appeared, Timessa had fallen in love, an event that had taken mere moments. The love itself was irreproachable; the two of them were mad for each other as if naïve schoolgirls. Before Io, Timessa had been chaste; before Timessa, Io had been wanton and amoral. Io had loved many girls. Yet now, Io offered her worldliness to the goddess as a gift.

It took less than a week after their union for Timessa to realize that the fires were lessening. Io was like water: when Timessa gazed into the girl’s eyes, the fires extinguished. Lying with Io in the early mornings on Naxos, she felt inordinate joy. The girl had largely liberated Timessa from her immense sorrows. Encumbrances fell away in the goddess’s moans. Timessa’s anger and obligations were gently absolved.

Yet Timessa could not escape being the embodiment of the Great One. In the past she had appeared in many guises and under many names, including Divine Mother, Great Goddess, Inanna, Ishtar, Cybele, Lemnos and Astarte. She had presided over a vast region of peaceful societies, all matriarchies, assuring her devotees of crop fertility and fulsome pregnancies.

At one point Io asked over dinner, “And then what happened?”

“I, too, was puzzled at first,” Timessa responded. “But Gaia, near the end of my transition, explained that constant waves of patriarchal tribes had swept into old Europe. The Great One resisted them at first, but grew weary of the warfare, She needed to use increasing violence. The hordes became larger. Resistance became slaughter.” 

“Couldn’t she have smashed them all?”

 “Easily, but I—” Timessa caught herself. “—the Great One tired of the bloodshed.”

“But then,” Io said, “what was the alternative to resistance?”

“The Great One rationalized what she called … no-action. The Chinese knew the principle as well. They called it wu wei.”

Io scrunched her face. “Woe-ho. I think you’re putting me on.”

“Wu wei means going with the flow. Taking no action. At the time, as the waves of invaders swept into her lands, she thought she might be witnessing the natural course of the universe. Peace had become conflict. Conflict had become constant. She could destroy the invaders, or practice non-interference, hoping reason would prevail, that balance would reassert itself.”

“Doing nothing.… Isn’t that giving up?”

“It didn’t seem so at the time. You see, she faced a conundrum.” Timessa paused. “She no longer knew how many men she would have to kill to stop the killing.”

Io shuddered.

Timessa held Io’s eyes. “At first when she ceased engaging, thousands of small towns were ravaged and burned, and countless inhabitants killed or enslaved. But that was small-scale destruction. In later years, men invented more sophisticated weapons and the killing went on.…

“Within a short time, she concluded she had erred. Grievously. But by then the once-green lands were ashes and the warriors had destroyed even memories of peace.”

Timessa sighed. “You wonder how the Goddess could have allowed that?”

Io nodded.

“Although she was impeccable, she was not perfect. No being is. Does that make sense?”

“So, she turned her back,” Io said, “and then, seeing the result, admonished herself?”

“Rebuked herself. Excoriated herself. Could not forgive herself. Her self-criticism was endless. She was trapped. The light in her eyes dimmed.”

“And you are now her.”

“In part. I do know that she never anticipated the endless wars. None of the world has been spared. Women ceded themselves to men; men sacrificed themselves to war. Male and female energies became unbalanced. The very concept of peace became a myth.”

Io shook her head. “You could have done something. You could have intervened.”

“No, the old one fell into a woeful sleep. It was one so deep that later divinities thought she was gone. But, through Gaia’s force, she has returned.”

The two looked at each other. Io rose from her chair and straddled Timessa’s lap, her arms around the goddess’s neck. The girl whispered, “Forgive my questions. I don’t care what happened long ago. Je m’en fous. I do not care. You are not her …

“And best,” Io said coyly, “what do you have that she did not?”

“You,” Timessa whispered.