With planes in the sky and bombs in the air, the world seems intent on returning to darkness. So let’s look at how something can come from nothing. We’re not told how Eurynome appears, only that when she does it’s amidst chaos and she has nowhere to put her feet.

And so she makes a distinction: “there” is the sky and “here” is the sea; “there” remains distant and down “here” I can dance. And so she dances upon the waters.

She is lonely as she dances, but what else can she do? She has attended to her immediate needs, giving herself a place to rest her feet. And so the natural thing to do next is dance. (Walking would be pointless: you walk to get from A to B, but there is no A and B; and so she moves for no purpose except the joy of moving.)

As she dances towards the south, a north wind forms behind her. She is no longer alone and something is happening. Why does she now turn around and take the wind between her fingertips? I like to think it was part of the dance, an instinctual move. The wind blowing at her back seemed to invite a response and so she chose to dance with it. And out of the deft movements of her fingers a serpent is formed of the wind and his name is Ophion.

She dances more wildly now, inspired by her own creation to create more beautiful shapes and forms. She doesn’t know yet what will arise and waits for the forms to arise naturally from the movements she happens to make. But Ophion is less impulsive than her, more cunning and calculating. He is lust and desire opposed to joy and creativity. Ophion wants to transform the world into something more than merely dance and form.

If the goddess were paying attention she might laugh: what more than joy and beauty could there be worth having?

(I’ve been reading The Greek Myths by Robert Graves.)