A Deeper Beauty
17:03 Jun 19 2006
Times Read: 516
Diversity is what makes us all individuals. During the time when man first walked the Earth, we were all the same in every way. So, we must ask ourselves why are we different from what we once were? This question is better answered by the Greeks, in a tale in which we are reminded of the wrath of the goddess Hera.
In the beginning, the gods created the heavens and the Earth. Demeter ,the goddess of agriculture, took it upon herself to crown the earth with thirteen shades of lushes greens. The most subtle of light greens to the darkest of forest greens covered much of the Earth’s crusty surface. The areas in which Demeter’s green thumb had not touched was agreed upon to be made into bodies of water large and small. The gods looked upon their work ,but they were not satisfied with just greenly beauty and the liquid light blue silky waters whose depths were bottomless and reflected the sparkling light blue eyes that were imputed to Zeus. As a final attempt the gods created man in their own images.
Now the newly created mortals would surely put the Earth to good use.
The mortals would have children and their children would in turn have children thus populating the Earth in a short space of time. Being created in the images of the gods mortals possessed a certain quality of intangible beauty. This immense exquisiteness caused discord among the gods and goddesses. From were they sat atop Mt. Olympus the goddesses could not help but observe the mortal men as they labored in the fields harvesting their crops, sweat dripping off their carved bodies as they worked. It was commonly known that goddess and gods would sink form Mt. Olympus and descend to Earth in there mortal forms.
Zeus ,husband of Hera, being the adulterer that he was also descending and began to court a young mortal woman. Hera soon noticed her husband’s and the other Olympians’ strange disappearances, so she decided to investigate the matter further. In the form of a dove which she often took Hera followed Zeus as he left Mt. Olympus heading in a Earth bound direction. When she arrived she observed Zeus planting a gentle kiss across the lips of a mortal woman. After Hera could take no more of this spectacle, she decided to find the other Olympians. Still in her dove form she flew off from the tree she had perched on. Not long after she received the fruit of her labors when she spotted and angelic figure ,Aphrodite, immerging from a stone building hand- in- hand with a handsome mortal man. Hera mentally shook herself for thinking such a shallow thought. She returned to Mt. Olympus and sat on her throne where she preceded to organize a plan for the goddesses, gods, and mortals alike to see the error in their ways. Waiting a few days to see if they had noticed their error in judgment, only seeing the outer beauty and disregarding what was on the inside, Hera began to put her plans into effect With the knowledge that telling them that what they were doing was wrong would not change anything she decided to show them.
So, with that thought in mind Hera descended upon Earth once more. She situated herself in the center of a forest and began to chant softly at first the words:
Make the mortals beauty become more than that can be seen on the outside.
Repeating this chant over and over again her voice did not once tremble and soon her voice enveloped the forest and a immense golden glow was around Hera then it grew until it enveloped the entire Earth. She returned to the place where she had spotted Aphrodite and called the people toward her. The people were no longer the same, now all of them possessed some type of beauty that could not necessarily be seen on the outside, to see this beauty you had to look into their hearts. At that moment Hera began to speak “ Let this be a lesson to you all that true beauty resides inside.” This lesson is as true then as it is now, look inside to find true beauty.
~The End~
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