ATHENA

“I begin to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess, bright-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin, saviour of cities, courageous, Tritogeneia. Wise Zeus himself bare her from his awful head, arrayed in warlike arms of flashing gold, and awe seized all the gods as they gazed. But Athena sprang quickly from the immortal head and stood before Zeus who holds the aegis, shaking a sharp spear: great Olympus began to reel horribly at the might of the bright-eyed goddess…” (-Homeric Hymn, translated by H.G. Evelyn white)

ATHENA (uh-THEE-na) , the virgin goddess of wisdom, war, strategy, defense, city state building and crafts like pottery, and patron goddess of Athens. In my Illustration she towers above Athens, as the city's patron and eternal defender. 

She was born from Zues' head fully armed, and wears upon her chest plate armor the infamous Aegis, with medusa's head, (sometimes depicted as a shield) which is used as a protective amulet and was said to let out a terrible roar in battle. Upon her shield is a horse and rider wearing a bridle, which Athena invented for mortals to ride and control horses (along with chariots and wagons). 

Upon her arm is her sacred animal, the owl, with its night vision, having the ability to see things that others cannot, hence it being a symbol of wisdom. The snake at her feet represents the early Athenian ruler, Erichthonius, whose symbol was the snake. He is represented below the statue of Athena in the Parthenon as the snake hidden behind her shield. The most sacred building on the Acropolis of Athens, the Erechtheum, is dedicated to Erichthonius.

Support my book kickstarter "Lockett Illustrated: Greek Gods and Heroes" coming in early 2024.

picture it like this: you are the disciple john, young and scrawny, living off of bread and dust. you have seen roman soldiers drag the poor through the streets, push the ill to the earth, point their swords at the weak, and your heart is a place of briars and thunder.

then jesus shows up in capernaum one night, tangled hair and dark eyes, singing about love. he shows up on your doorstep smelling of rosewater and clay. he asks you and your brother for a loaf of bread, sits at your table, telling you not about how he invented the constellations but about how he spent half an hour today watching a group of children dance together in a marketplace. you feel the ache in your bones long before you realize it’s there, and when he places his hands on your shoulders, asking you to join him, no piece of you refuses.

this is what it’s like traveling with him: plum trees bear fruit in the middle of winter, ice cold bodies of the dead turn hot and leap up laughing. he smears river mud on the blind and they see again. he presses a finger to the lips of the mute and suddenly poetry fall off their tongues. shackles melt and lions quiet and the sea unwilds into stillness and your heart which was once a drought in the face of unbelief becomes springwater pouring out the gospels anyway.

one night after dinner, you slump over with exhaustion. jesus, grinning, tells you to lay your head on his chest. you do. you can feel his heartbeat through the linen of his clothes, steady and strong and so undeniably human even with all the divinity in his chest. he runs his fingers through your hair once, lightly. a calloused fingertip brushes your cheek and suddenly all the aching in your limbs evaporates. jesus leaves his arm wrapped around you. you never want to move again.

you see how he looks at the roman centurion clutching the hand of his fever-wracked lover as if jesus and the centurion were two parts of the same soul. the centurion’s lover is a man with bright red hair. i am the light, jesus says before he presses his lips to the lover’s forehead.

you remember the insults your parents spat out about men who lie with other men. you remember the boy you kissed by the well when you were sixteen, all the nights you spent shivering and praying on your dirt floor to the god you hadn’t met yet that you would wake in the morning better than you were now. you wonder if jesus can recite every plea you ever made.

when he says your name, your blood fevers at the sound. you would risk pain and prison for that voice. you would risk yourself.

the first time he calls you beloved, you have to tell him. the two of you are off by yourselves. you are knee-deep in a lake dragging your net through the water to catch fish for supper, and he is under the oak tree where you asked him to sit, sharing a story about an old weaver in nazareth who made cloths that were works of art within themselves. you pull up five fat, wriggling trout. he calls out, wonderful, beloved! and the net slips from your hands. you rush out of the water, fall to your knees in front of him. you haven’t finished the first syllable of forgive before he presses a finger to your lips.

he says, when have i ever told you that love of any kind is something you should be afraid of? and then, smiling as he lowers his hand, do you think i have never been in love with a man?