As I bring the series of articles about light and darkness to an end, I am reminded of the story of Prometheus.
When I first heard it, I pictured a man running from fear, scrambling down a rocky mountainside falling and stumbling along the way. The terrain: rugged, full of boulders and rocks with edges sharp as razors. Dark. He rushes down a barely visible trail deathly afraid the gods would catch him.
The torch he carries, so large, it amassed half his size. Panting, desperate and always looking back over his shoulder, he prays to go unnoticed. He finally makes it to bottom of the mountain — bringing light, life and civilization to all mankind. Run Prometheus, run!
The Greek myth of Prometheus says he stole fire from the gods, specifically Zeus.
He gave it to us mortals to cook meat, warm our caves and bring light where there was once darkness — a small price to pay to create civilization.
Yet his punishment — for the gods are not very forgiving — was more than any one person could bare.
After all, Prometheus struck the gods where it hurt. He shook his fist at their might and betrayed them with disobedience. He stole fire from those who kept it sacred and hidden. He was the great equalizer, elevating man to the same ranks as the gods. How dare he?
Prometheus was punished by Zeus to a life of eternal repetition. He tied Prometheus to a post and sent his eagle to eat his liver. Every night after the eagle feasted on his flesh, Prometheus’ liver would grow back. The next day, the eagle would come yet again to feast on his flesh. Every day the pattern repeated itself-the same insanity of a maddening repetition.
The story reminds us of the kind of repeated patterns we see in our community with poor choices, some bad politicians, and lots of mijito syndrome.
Prometheus’ true punishment lay not in the excruciating pain of having his liver eaten by a giant bird every day. No. The true poetic injustice lies in the regeneration of his liver every night.
It was his ability to regenerate — a metaphor perhaps of the champion’s desire to never give up that causes true anguish allowing for a fresh feeding.
It is this resiliency of renewal and re-growth that points to our salvation and our greatest weakness.
How do we escape the eternal recurrence of the same? How do we break the chains of repetition? No one knew Prometheus better or freed him more perfectly than the poet Percy Shelley. Prometheus is finally unchained in the Greek myth and in Shelley’s poem. How we interpret what happens next defines how we reinvent ourselves and our community and how we look at poetic justice, freedom and opportunity.
In “Prometheus Unbound,” Shelley says “Prometheus is, as it were, the type of the highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends.”
Be true. Be noble. Politicians entrusted with your most sacred desires and needs should not be in the business of seeking votes. Acting in self interest for vainglory and power becomes old and trite. It’s boring.
Yet there is a new light. It is a new story that brings a hero to the fore. That hero is you. You act in the interest of others; your motives are pure and true.
You are not vainglorious and you certainly are of the highest moral turpitude. How do I know? Because I have met you. I have spoken with you and I have broken bread with you. You want something better. You have come to learn that those who scare you into voting one way or another, or those who cry for their community the loudest mostly do it for the attention because you see their one eye open to see who’s looking.
You know better than that. You have shown the light of Prometheus’ torch onto the darkness of subterfuge and movidas.
You carry the same torch and it doesn’t belong only to the powers that be. Light is the great equalizer. Dawn, with her finger tips of rose, is on her way.
Prometheus no longer runs from the gods. Nor does he look back.
That light of justice and knowing is now in your hands. March forward with strength and resilience, resolute in the knowledge that the deed has been done on your behalf and no one can wield darkness over you.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night;
To defy Power which seems Omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates
From it’s own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change nor falter nor repent:
This, like thy glory, Titan! Is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
— Percy Shelley
Javier Sanchez is a twice-monthly columnist for the Rio Grande Sun. He is a former Española mayor and restaurant owner.