a map for Atlas
part one // ATLAS, meet JUPITER
I have a story for you.
Unlike everything else that I have ever written for you, this story is not about me or my own chaotic experiences with spirituality & sacred sexuality.
No, this is a story that has been trusted to me, so that I may share it with you.
All stories just need to be told, and this one needed telling.
So here we are.
✧
This is the story of two cousins; of war, worship, adventure, and Gods. Inside my head, it started with one deep feeling. The feeling of devotion. Maybe with a hint of adoration. And definitely a strong dose of love. Okay, so it started with a few feelings, then.
This is the untold story of Atlas, a Greek Titan who fought on the losing side of a war amongst gods, and who was sentenced to an eternity of holding up the heavens.
It’s not a tragedy, though.
It’s a love story.
✧
Atlas was born to loving parents.
Zeus… not so much.
Atlas, the son of a Titan, and a Titan in his own right, was known for his strength and his daring. His siblings are the gods that gifted us humans with our tendency towards rage and anger, our intellect to drive knowledge and technology, and our tendency to feel nostalgia and yearn for the past… but this is not a story about them.
Zeus’s father, Cronus, upon hearing a prophecy that his unborn children would rise up to overthrow him, swallowed each of them whole upon their birth…all but Zeus, sixth child to Cronus, who’s heartbroken wife, Rhea, rescued and hid her final newborn babe in a cave to be raised by nymphs (and who would later rise up to defeat his father… just like that prophecy said. Oopsies.)
Here is where our story begins.
Enter Atlas, beloved son.
And Zeus, the feared one.
♡
Our heroes meet in a cave one day, as children. And as most wilful boys are wont to do… they were both doing something they shouldn’t.
Atlas, the strongest and most daring of his siblings, was dared by his brother Menoetius (he who beget all rage and anger… as we can see so clearly here! And who was feeling vengeful that his brother got the strength he so wanted) to enter the cave where the Hundred Arm Giants were imprisoned.
Zeus, tired of being hidden away and longing for the wild taste of freedom that could only come from doing what he wanted to when he wanted it, without the fear of being discovered wandered towards the cave one day himself.
What a day!
The Fates definitely stepped in on this one.
Possibly as a way to change the course of history they saw was in the midst of unfolding, or maybe just a small piece of this puzzle of life where every player is a pawn eternally in the exact right place at the exact right time.
Assume whichever you like more to be true, for the sake of a good story.
Atlas arrives first.
“You can’t do it. You won’t. You’re not brave enough and not strong enough,” his younger brother had taunted him, back at home. Menoetius could be such a meany.
And so young Atlas finds himself now, standing at the entrance to a cave, a cave that is darker and more sinister seeming than all other caves, he is certain. And it is! That is precisley what has brought him here today, not just to any cave. But this cave. This cave that is a dungeon on earth, a variable fortress-prison to the gods and whomsoever they deem worthy enough or feared enough to be banished.
And now, standing here, this young boy, the strongest and most daring of them all, to be sure, begins (just a little…) to feel his courage start to drain. It is as if a plug has been pulled out from somewhere in his core and now there it all goes, leaking out and getting absorbed into the earth herself. A wisp of uncertainty blows across his brow, ruffling his brown hair, as he ponders what to do next. He could simply tell his brothers he had done it….
Suddenly, a small tumble of rocks sounds from around the other side of the boulder he is standing beside, and he feels his courage draw back up into his body, as if the earth, beloved Gaia, has taken it upon herself to return it back to him.
“You’ll need this…,” she seems to say.
Atlas, grabbing a sharp rock from the ground at his feet and readying himself for attack from any mortal threat, plants his feet and lifts his arm, loaded and ready to strike… as another small boy emerges gracelessly from the other side of a boulder. Careening down the slope, scuffed with dirt on his cheek and a graze on his arm, this boy has clearly not been careful with his approach. He seems to be rather untamed. Mostly wild.
This new boy pulls up short, upon finding himself suddenly face to face with another boy … the first young boy brave enough to enter this dungeon in the earth.
“Ha,” he chuckles, noticing our Atlas’ weapon still clutched in his hand, “what are you gonna do with that? One stone against Mighty Zeus?!” the boy scoffs as he puffs up his chest and straightens his shoulders. “I’d die of laughter… if I wasn’t so puffed… Hold on, gimmea minute…”
So young Zeus sits down on a rock, as young Atlas slowly lowers his weapon and begins thinking that maybe there is a boy as strong and daring (finally!) as him. Turns out, being the “most” of any one thing is an incredibly lonely place to be.
“I’m Atlas, and I’m going in there today,” our young hero (as all young boys are!) says, as he extends a hand to other young hero, seated now in the shade and somehow making the jagged rock he slumps upon look like the most regal chair. “Are you brave enough to come, too?”
“Oh!” Zeus thinks, with a smile, extending his own hand in return and saying, “Finally, a worthy counterpart!”
He does not say that Atlas is the only counterpart he has ever met.
And he definitely does not say that he is going to be in a world of trouble once he returns home to his guardians, who he had finally managed to out manoeuvre in a wild bid for a taste of freedom.
Nymphs, as it turns out, are impossible to trick.
Well… nearly.
And no doubt, there will be a punishment waiting for him when he returns home and the trick will most certainly not work a second time…
No. This will be young Zeus’ only adventure to be had.
But he doesn’t say any of this at all.
He keeps this part of himself hidden, wanting so badly just to be a normal boy on one normal day. Just for today…
He can feel his cousins admiration of him, for the two boys are cousins, although they will not realise it for decades - and he can also see the light in the other’s eye that tells him a kindred spirit has been found.
Of all the boys and all the caves, these two meet here on this one day.
See? Fated.
Each feeling braver now that they are together, the boys stand side by side at the mouth of the cave. The closest thing to tangible Misery emanating from inside that either has yet to experience.
So here stands Atlas, limber and quick with his clever daring, brown hair and brown clothes, as if he could blend in with the earth, who’s pull he always seemed to feel (even if he did’t know it made him special or set him apart).
And beside him stands Jupiter… I mean Zeus, stocky and strong wearing robes of white to match his blonde curls, with blue eyes that seem to speak of the sky itself.
And side by side, they step into the cave, together.
Into the darkness, into the unknown.
They scrabble, they climb, they tumble and sometimes they fall.
One of them steps right off the edge of an underground cliff and has to be rescued by the other. Another of them bangs his head so hard on the sharp edge of a jutting-out rock that he carries the scar from it, still.
Their eyes widen in wonder and awe.
They duck and cringe out of fear and hide behind rocks, when needed.
But what they see here, and what they conquer together (within themselves and without) will have to be a story for another day.
For now, let this be enough:
Two boys met in front of a cave one day.
They had a wild adventure.
One fell in love instantly.
And the other… he fell in love, too. But he wasn’t quite so starved for it. So it took him longer to realise it.
Or maybe… one fell in love instantly.
And the other… he fell in love, too. But he wasn’t quite so familiar with it. So it took him some time to realise it.
(Is it possible, that both loved the other, and are only just now recognising it??)
Boys are allowed to have crushes on other boys. But it has nothing to do with desire or the concerns of adult feelings, and everything to do with admiration and a meeting of souls. With a partner sworn to adventure with you, past the bondage of parents or caregivers or other siblings (who you can only trust to really see you for who you are, separate to themselves, only so far…)
No, for all others, the story of “I” exists only in relation to the story of Them.
But here, in this meeting of two young boys, sparked to life a love that was equal and exciting and that spoke to a freedom any of us would die to embrace.
I told you, this is a love story.
Two boys met in a cave one day. And this one event carried enough gravity to change the course of both of their lives forever. Not that they would realise it for a very long time though…
coming up next: PART II // WAR