Introduction
The world never saw a rainbow until long after most of the Gods on Olympus and the heroes of the land were tales told by grandmothers to the eager faces of their grandbabies looking through sparkling eyes looking at the old but still beautiful face of Chloe. Her strong but soft voice filled the quiet room aglow with the golden and orange light from the warm crackling fire at the hearth in the main room of the small but clean and welcoming house on the hill along the cliffs overlooking the Aegean Sea.
Chloe loved telling these old tales to the children because their innocence still allowed for such stories without the increasing ridicule that now typically accompanied anything to do with the old pantheon of Greek Gods that led the lives of men in centuries past. Tonight Chloe told the story of Aurora a little remembered Goddess who was mostly slighted even at the height of mankind’s worship of those on Olympus as the purveyors of life’s challenges and sometimes blessings on humans so long ago.
In this story of Aurora, the only lingering connection to her from the ancient times was the definition placed on her name now in Greek meaning dawn (but the truth is Eos was the sister of Helios and by a few known as the goddess of the dawn). The story Chloe is telling the group of grandchildren at her feet is about Aurora the goddess who made the rainbow.
It is a story that few heard even long ago because the rainbow was always attributed to Helios (and not his sister Eos) – the Sun God riding his golden chariot across the sky bringing light in the morning and night as he goes over the horizon. And so, the story of the day Aurora became the instrument of the creation of the rainbow as a symbol of hope begins.
How the Rainbow Appeared
When Greece was now put a remnant of its old glory and the heroes of old were but memories among the stories that grew less about their deeds were seldom told, Zeus and the other gods on Olympus sat about and grumbled how mankind no longer wanted and even worse needed them. This was serious because without that adoration they found the lingering energy driving their individual powers was slipping from them. This was so much so they began to see themselves change becoming less solid and appearing more and more diaphanous. The many palaces of the gods and demi gods on Olympus were doing the same thing fading away so much so numbers of the least known and therefore rarely if at all remembered gods and goddesses were no longer visible having faded into the twilight of the horizon where the earth and the sky met and only a faint twinkle in the dark sky of night reminded they had once existed.
Among the remaining chambers of the palaces still remaining on Olympus was one that belonged to a young and very obscure goddess named Aurora. She still glowed with freshness and sweetness now fading rapidly from the more familiar gods and goddesses sitting in their grumblings in the great hall of Zeus as they did most of the time now. Aurora was the secret daughter of Helios and Psyche who bore the infant Aurora long before she married Eros (Greek Myths and Greek Mythology.com para 1)..
In fact, few of the gods and goddesses of Olympus knew of Aurora and if by chance her name was spoken all assumed it was Helios they spoke of since the Greek word for Helios is Aurora at the dawn. Cleverly had Helios and Psyche named the beautiful baby goddess Aurora for this very reason. Their passion had lasted only a while and no one ever knew of it except in their own memories that were now like a soft whisper on a warm breeze that often floated through Olympus full of the perfume only found on the great mountain of the gods of Greece.
Now in these last of the very last days of the gods and goddesses of Greece and the increased disappearance of palaces on Olympus, Aurora found herself stepping from her chamber where she loved to mix her paints of red, and orange, and yellow – of green, blue, and her favorite violet. She would paint their pure colors in arching designs an all the inner and outer walls of the chambers within her quaint and sparkling palace that nestled against a velvety green grassed hill surrounded by willow trees with branches dipping into the sparkling waters of azure blue bubbling springs that surrounded her palace.
She had seldom ventured from her palace but if she did go out past the grounds she had to cross an ivory bridge with inlaid gold filigree designs that caught the golden glow of Olympus light the warm light from a small lamp. But this time she stepped from her comfort zone with a purpose.
Aurora had always had her paints from the very first memories she recalled of her first unsure steps as a chubby golden haired and golden skinned toddler. The colors of her paints were on the blocks she had played with as a child where she arranged them in the pattern of her soul – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet always the same pattern. This pattern was the expression of her inner self and to see it as such wherever she laid the paints upon the walls of the chambers of her palace was to be in complete harmony within and without of herself like the dawn of the new day as her father Helios rode his chariot across the sky. As her father drove his golden chariot closer to the end of the day so the light faded so did the colors on the inner and outer walls of the chambers of her palace so every new day at the dawn she joyously painted the beloved pattern of colors on the inner and outer walls of the chambers of her palace.
Now on this particular day, curiosity pulled Aurora from her palace grounds, across the ivory and gold filigreed bridge spanning the azure blue waters of the bubbling spring and down the crystal path leading to the main chamber of Zeus where she could not help but hear the frustrated and even mournful murmurings of the gods and goddesses who mostly spent the days gathered about him decrying their state of nothingness no longer the powerful bane of the humans who multiplied rapidly below worshipping new gods and goddesses or none at all.
On this day she wandered from her palace toward the chamber of Zeus Aurora was bound by some unknown and new feeling that she could not ignore and the source of her impetus toward this gathering of the remnants of the great and powerful denizens of the great Olympus. In fact, there was an unknown but vigorous energy leading her steps – as if a calling specific to her entire being both pushing and pulling her.
Her approach brought her to one of the many tall and wide pillars of dark blue sparkling lapis lazuli stone encircling the chamber of Zeus where she easily stayed in the shadows unnoticed by any even should they look that way. She listened and she heard Zeus speak loudly.
She heard Zeus voice rise in anger and the mumbling of the other gods and goddesses stopped. “If we are to be set aside as old cooking pots by these humans then there will be one more affliction I put on their lives before we are no longer able to combine our strength and power we shall make it rain and rain for forty days and forty nights until every mountain is covered from the water that gathers in valleys filling every corner of field and forest so no one claiming their humanity sits above the power of the gods exists. They shall wash away and become as mud with the receding waters I will send to cover the earth below.”
Aurora listened to this and something caught in her heart – a knowing and she went back to her beautiful paints of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. She went back and she waited.
Zeus indeed sent the rains with a vengeance and after 40 days and 40 nights there was not one human left in the valleys, the plains, or the mountains, for the rains had covered everything with a sea of the flotsam of humanity. Zeus saw what he had done and he was pleased and because he was pleased so were the other gods and goddesses still faithful to their king on Mt. Olympus they gathered one last time—these gods and goddesses of Olympus to feast and revel and share the memories when they ruled the destinies of humankind and when there were heroes and demigod.
There were also the palaces and the grounds of Mt. Olympus began to fade until one by one they shone as a small very white twinkling light on the horizon where the sky and the earth met. But this time the earth was covered in water. All were gone except one small sparkling palace nestled against a hill with bubbling azure blue streams all about weaving in and out of the willow trees whose branches lightly touched the ground and where an ivory and gold filigree covered bridge sat over the bubbly azure colored stream.
In her palace in the chamber where she sat, Aurora waited patiently. She sat mixing her paints of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet, diligently painting the inside and outside walls of the chambers inside her palace that continued to disappear as the light of Helios nonetheless shone each dawn and throughout the day since the rains had stopped after 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:12) down below on the earth where humans used to live.
When the other gods and goddesses faded away in their palaces from Mt. Olympus Helios did not become a bright light in the night sky rising from where the earth and the sky met. He had placed himself and the horse drawn chariot of gold where each morning it shone like a blinding sphere crossing the sky from left to right.
Aurora smiled because she knew he did this so he could watch over his secret daughter. When all the gods and goddesses had faded away, when Zeus was no longer a power to deal with Aurora would each day go to her bridge and look down on the earth that was all water and she spotted an object that floated upon the water and she smiled and she waited. This object was an ark built by a man named Noah – not a Greek – but a man who had always loved but only one God and he called him Yahweh in the language of the nomadic people he belonged.
Yahweh was the God who had always been and always would be and Noah had listened because Yahweh who knew everything – even knew about the plans of fading gods and goddesses including Zeus and the others on Mt. Olympus told Noah a great flood was coming and to build an ark where a male and female of every animal on the land would join him and his family to ride out the great flood. This was Yahweh’s desire and since He was the alpha and the omega and only had allowed the existence of the Titans and those on Olympus to become the masters of the fates of humanity as a part of the collective evolution of the souls of men Yahweh always knew the day of the flood was scheduled by His own allowance for His purpose. He had always intended for Aurora’s existence and what she was destined to do for mankind.
Now the day came when Aurora and Noah saw the receding waters and the dove of peace brought Noah a twig from the branch of an olive tree and Noah knew there was land nearby. In her palace next to the stream that now fell like a waterfall by the bridge down to the earth below she realized the new flowers blooming after the receding flood below were all white.
There was no color in the flowers below and when she saw Noah and the ark land upon the side of the mountain below she thought about her paints of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet window of his house beside the wide waterfall and realized that all of the flowers in his meadow were exactly the same off-white color. She knew what she had to do, what she had always known but only at this moment remembered it.
She would change the white color and gathered up her paints and her paintbrushes and from this last bastion of Olympus – this bright spot of glow above the earth. Doing so by arranging her red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet paints next to she reached down into the grasses of the earth near where Noah and his ark of animals (Genesis 6:19-20) and his family had landed on the side of a mountain.
She began painting the flowers from white to dark blues and violets, others orange with brown dots humans would name tiger lilies. Roses she painted red, pink, and yellow while she painted the pansies in every color she had ever mixed. Daffodils she painted bright yellow humming happily all the while during her beloved labor feeling the warmth of Helios her father shining from the sky.
She noticed the sky had two blue birds chasing one the other moving this way and that then turning so the one chased became the chaser and the other would fly away chasing the other the other direction. This continuous chasing across the brilliant blue sunlit sky mesmerized Aurora and she smiled as she had never smiled in her life.
She returned to the work of painting the flowers of the earth everywhere she saw them spring from the moist ground warmed by the light of her father’s sun rays from the sky. Yellow colored centers brightened the white daisies she painted.
Meanwhile Aurora noticed the two blue birds changing their game of chase and she saw them diving to the ground up and down. And as one flew up climbing higher and higher she reached down and touched the tip of each wing with a dab of her red paints and the other with the orange.
They kept the game up and the diving down toward the grassy ground would change to flying up into the sky so that this game became her game and she would touch their feathers with the colors of all her paints. Soon they were covered in red, orange, yellow, blue, green, and violet. Their games continued and she delighted in watching the colourfully painted birds begin chasing one another again climbing higher and higher so they flew near the edge of the stream now a waterfall under her bridge. Chasing one another one of the birds flew into the misty air of the waterfall spray.
Doing so, Aurora noticed this first bird leaving a long red painted streak against the misty sky. Then just as rapidly, the second bird flew into the misty spray of her azure blue water falling from the stream under the bridge of ivory and gold filigree of the last of the beautiful palaces of the gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus.
This time the second bird left an orange streak of paint. Together the birds turned flying the other way so this time, the first of the two bluebirds left a trail of yellow paint streaking the sky while the second left a streak of her pretty blue paint leaving a blue-violet line of paint.
Racing back and forth she soon saw the paint soaked feathers of the two birds leaving the colors of her paints showing more vivid. Helios now a round disc in the sky shone through Aurora’s colors left in the sky from the paint soaked feathers of the two birds making them sparkle radiantly through the mist of the waterfall falling from the blue azure stream under the bridge of ivory and gold filigree where Aurora stood.
Aurora looked down in delightful happiness at the brilliant colors spilling from the sky to the ground left by the flight of the two birds in the game of chase. Streaks of never before seen gorgeous red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet arched in shimmering color above the mist of the waterfall.
She called out to the birds happily exclaiming, “Look, my colors on your paint soaked wings has made a rainbow!” She saw what they had done and she was aglow with a new kind of happiness she could not explain.
Conclusion
Aurora understood now that her birth had always been ordained by the one most powerful over all creation in the universe – even over the ideas of the gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus that except for her no longer existed. She understood this day was always going to happen and this was her purpose according to the will of Yahweh – the alpha and the omega.
As a lasting gift to the survivors of the flood that Zeus had made but only because Yahweh had allowed it for His purpose, this rainbow from her pots of paints of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet now arching across the sky where the waterfall mists and spray laid across the horizon was Yahweh’s gift to Noah and his family – a promise that mankind would never be destroyed by water again.
With satisfaction and completeness, Aurora looked at the sun disc of Helios her father shining in the sky. She was full of knowing that from this day forward the shining light of the sun disc on either rain or mist in the sky would let humankind see the promise of hope reflected in the rainbow that would automatically appear.
Works Cited
Bible. Genesis. Web
Greek Myths & Greek Mythology. The myth of Psyche and Eros. 2016 Web.
