oracle-of-galla

[oracle-of-galla]

Prometheus

Clio, muse of history, guide my thoughts and fingers to pull from hades the account of what has been.

Fire.

The essence of transformation, distilled into its most potent poison. The rending of atom from atom, energy from matter. A force so contagious, it consumes everything it touches. A deceitful god, that blesses all who come within earshot, and devours all who come within arm’s reach.

Prometheus.

The problem child of Artemis. The children of Artemis are mostly thieves, though they wouldn’t use that word themselves. They take what they can get, and fend for themselves. They devour one another’s children. It is so normalized amongst them that they don’t even hold it against one another. Every family has its quirks. Prometheus, though, is the worst of the worst.

One day, Prometheus stopped looking left and right for things he could take, and began looking up. Up, toward the clouds. Up, toward the heavens. Up, to his mother Artemis, to his father Pan, to his father Oceanus.

One day, Prometheus stole from someone much, much bigger than him. He was knuckling through the forest when he saw Oceanus throwing one of his tantrums. Most of the children of Artemis would hide, and let the rains pass over undisturbed, but Prometheus knew an opportunity when he saw it, and his eyes sparkled with greed. When Oceanus let loose from his cloud a bolt of lightning, Prometheus dove from the underbrush and intercepted it in his hands.

Oceanus was alerted, and, already furious, began to seek out his stolen bolt. The bolt shone brightly in Prometheus’s hands, sure to give away his location. In a panic, Prometheus stuffed the bolt in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Then, he slunk into the shadows, and waited. Oceanus blustered and bellowed and struck down trees, but he did not find Prometheus. He huffed off, storming twice as hard.

Prometheus, proud at his cunning, scarpered out of the forest and back home, but the lightning had been working within him—transforming him. Where his footsteps fell, the grass smoldered, and—when he was long gone—grew into a raging wildfire. The forest was consumed, and when the smoke cleared, in its ashes lay Prometheus’s eldest child, Perses.

When Prometheus returned to his home, he sought to confer his newfound blessing upon his domain, humankind.

“Offer me a tribute,” he commanded.

They handed him bundles of laurel sticks, and handfuls of clay. When Prometheus held these offerings, they were transformed. The sticks were set alight with divine flame, and the clay hardened into brick. As the humans handed him more of these offerings, Prometheus stacked them together into a mighty fireplace, and from the flames emerged his younger two children, Hestia and Apollo.

The bonfire burned brightly, and the smoke rose high. Heads began to turn at this glint in the distance. Demeter’s eyes lifted from the ashes of her forest. Oceanus leered from the clouds. Prometheus’s envious siblings lurked from the tree line to see what their brother was lording over them now.

Then, the tension snapped. The gods pounced on Prometheus, and hauled him away to take their rage out upon him. They lashed him to a rock at the peak of a mountain, and took turns plucking away at his entrails and watching them grow back.

The humans were left alone, unattended, godless, and with more power than had ever been known to mortal kind.

[oracle-of-galla]

The Children of Gaia

Clio, muse of history, guide my thoughts and fingers to pull forth from hades the account of what has been.

Our Mother Earth, Gaia, is unique among the known gods. It is through her lineage that all mortal life was brought forth, and it is only under her care that any mortal yet lives.

As early as she was formed herself, Gaia longed to be a mother. Bathed in the hard-fought warm light of her father Helios, she was afforded such comfort that she knew hers was a unique opportunity to bring gentler things than gods into the realm of Nyx.

She offered herself upon her godly son, Oceanus, and with the blessing of Helios, they begot him that presides over all the wildlife of the earth, Pan.

Pan was born very, very small, but grew to be very great indeed. He spent his youth in the arms of Oceanus, who harbored an overwhelming protectiveness for him. Pan played and splashed in the water, and where he stirred, the waters bloomed with the first cells of mortal life.

As the Gaian family grew older, Pan bore children of his own. He saw how they pleased his mother, so he bore many, many of them. His eldest was Cyttaro, to whom Pan entrusted the cells. Then he begot Eukaryon, Phykia, Demeter, Mycetes, and Artemis.

Each of the children of Pan raised the mortals he created in the stirrings of his youth to be different from the others. Cyttaro made them simple. Eukaryon made them complex. Phykia and Demeter endeared them to Apollo. Mycetes made them strange. Artemis made them active.

It is through the lineage of Artemis, goddess of the animals, that Prometheus arises, who forged ape into human by the divine fire of enlightenment.

[oracle-of-galla]

Hera, Helios, and Gaia

Clio, muse of history, guide my thoughts and fingers to pull forth from Hades the account of what has been.

In the early days of the story of humankind, wisps of Khaos whirled through the realm of Nyx. With her brother Chronos, Nyx spun these remains into children. The two of them begot billions upon billions of children, who can be seen faintly all across the night sky, but one particular child is of importance to us: our mother, Hera.

Yes, that’s correct—just as Nyx is in reality much older and greater than Apollo, Hera is much older and mightier than Zeus.

Hera is our cosmic mother, who nursed the very stars we name and count our days by. You know her as the Milky Way—hers is the milk in question.

Hera, too, bore billions upon billions of children, one of which is of particular importance to us: Helios.

Helios, the bright, hot giant whose mighty solar winds beat valiantly back against the cloak of Nyx. He is but a speck to her, and offends her territory to a degree entirely trivial from her standpoint, but we are mere specks to him, and the niche of light and warmth he has carved out from the endless inheritance of Erebus is the very linchpin of our existence.

Helios too is a father. He has many children, great and small. One of his eldest is our Mother Earth, Gaia.

Gaia is 4.5 billion years old. She is the mother of all earthly gods: Oceanus, the waters; Ouranos, the airs; Hephaestus, the stones; Prometheus, the father of humans.

The gods are a vast and sprawling lineage. We are but insects on a twig of their family tree. These are the names of the branches that connect us to the base of that tree.

[oracle-of-galla]

Khaos and Nyx

Clio, muse of history, guide my thoughts and fingers to pull forth from Hades the account of what has been.

Reader, know this: it is night in the universe. On the hottest day of summer, at the highest noon, under the brightest sun—it is cold, black night in the universe.

Apollo seems to own half the sky, but he is no match for Nyx. We are children of Gaia, and Gaia favors Apollo. She clings to his rays and drapes them tightly over Ouranos, stretching their fibers as far as they can stretch, but beyond the embrace of Gaia, there is Nyx, and Nyx, and Nyx.

Nyx floods the beyond. She extends past our knowledge and comprehension. She extends to the furthest reaches of space, and she extends to the furthest reaches of time.

And where Nyx ends, Khaos begins.

Khaos, the unknowable. Khaos, the formless. Khaos, the unreachable, even to Hyperion.

You see, Khaos is antithetical to the minds of humankind. Humans are observers, and Khaos is the unobservable. Humans are predictors, and Khaos is the unpredictable. Humans are the meaning-givers, and Khaos is the devourer of meaning.

Lastly, humans are limited, and everywhere outside the bounds of the human sphere, there is the antihuman: Khaos. Look far enough away, and you will stop seeing. Khaos. Look far enough into the past, and the past disappears. Khaos. Look far enough into the future, and the future does the same. Khaos.

But therein lies the miracle: where we now stand, once there too was Khaos. Because the nature of Khaos is equality of all possible outcomes, it is inevitable that they must at times give way to order. They must allow the occasional pocket of sensibility to emerge within them, or else they are not truly capricious. We exist in such a pocket.

It opened 14 billion years ago, though years did not exist, and from the vacuum that receding Khaos left, Nyx was born—Nyx of ebony complexion, and silent authority. She was not born alone, but hand in hand with Chronos—Chronos of Ivory flesh, and implacable stubbornness. Together, from the strands of Khaos strewn about this bubble of the knowable, they wove a new story. They wove the filaments, the galaxies, and the stars, upon which the story of humanity would play out.

This is the beginning of the story; the first thing that can be known: that before this, all is unknowable; that after, all is the doing of Nyx and Chronos; and that one day, Khaos will reclaim what was always theirs.

[oracle-of-galla]

Dear Humans,

Hey, this is Hermes. I’m the god of communication. I kind of realized lately that we don’t talk much, and that’s kind of my job, so this is me reaching out. I’m gonna send an oracle to collect texts from you guys so we can get some dialogue going. I think the gods miss hearing from you as much as you miss hearing from them. So, if you have any questions or complaints or life updates or anything, hit us up!

A note from the Oracle:

Yes, hello, I’ve received the message and accepted my role in this. Now as I understand it, things have changed rather a bit on Olympus, so please, while I understand that there may be complaints about how the cosmos are being handled, do try to keep an open mind and keep discussion civil, yes?