How Stars Reveal the Beginning of the World
An illustration of my looking up to the stars.
Every Saturday night, I would go outside with my parents and cousins to look at the night sky. Setting up an Orion telescope, I would peer out and marvel at the millions of stars. With my parents holding my shoulders and my cousin marveling at the stars with me, I was always enveloped by this comfortable feeling—like being enveloped in a warm blanket.
I remember pointing out different constellations of mythological figures. There was Cepheus. Orion the Hunter. Castor and Pollux (the famous Gemini). I was always starstruck (see what I did there?) by the diversity of stars—how each of them has their own origins, their own stories. But, what’s even better, is that I’ll always find them in the night sky. Whenever I look up, I feel happy because it feels as though their stories are permanent—always written in the night sky.
While reading Ovid’s Metamorphosis, I remember how he described how the world came to be. In the beginning, there was just Chaos. A rough, disordered mass. A "shapeless heap". According to Ovid, an unknown God separated Earth (Gaia) from the Heavens (Uranus), sea from land, heavier air from lighter air. Ovid then says that creator formed the beings that would inhabit the lands. He fills the heavens with gods and stars, the seas with fish and aquatic animals, the lands with beasts, and the air with birds. Finally, he made man.
I read about how there were four main ages: the Golden, then silver, then bronze, and finally, iron. I won't get into much detail, but I'm pretty people are aware of the Titan Wars. When Uranus (the heavens) and Gaia (the Earth) got separated, they fell in love and had kids. Gaia had a ton like the Hundred-Handed Ones, Cyclops, Typhon. But, she also had the "perfect" children--the Titans. Kronos, the Titan of Time, was the youngest, but he quickly risen to the top of all Gaia’s children. After marrying his sister Rhea, he had six children: Hestia, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, and Zeus. Fearing that they would take his throne, Kronos swallowed all of his children—except for Zeus. Fearing that Kronos would consume Zeus, Rhea gave Zeus away to nymphs at the Creatan mountains and replaced him with a stone.
Eventually, Zeus grew up and challenged Kronos for his throne. After a lot of heartbreak, blood, and tears, Zeus became King of the Gods—the official ruler of the world. You think a happy ending right? Yeah, I don’t think so. Zeus’s story is farrrrr from over.
While I do find comfort reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses in my lemon-patterned pajamas with green grapes at my side, I’ll always feel a stronger empathy to the stars. Whatever’s or whoever’s constellations I find in the night sky is like an endless journey. I’ll be learning the stories of the ancients on the infinite pages of the night sky.
