The bears that Zeus created

The bears that Zeus created

The ancient Greeks told of how the Great Bears came to be in the northern sky. The story has been passed down for generations, and as always, the relationship between Man and Nature is told from the mouth of Man.

So the story goes, the god of gods looked down from Mount Olympus one morning to gaze upon the golden fields of Arcadia. In the shadow of the forest, he saw a huntress, Callisto, reclining against a tree with her bow and arrows.

Words were exchanged, lies were made, and nine months later, Callisto was alone in the woods, giving birth to a bastard son.

The newborn’s cries caught the attention of Hera, Zeus’ wife, who was drawn by the sounds of pain. When she saw the boy in Callisto’s arms, she knew he was the son of Zeus, and in a jealous rage, she transformed the young mother into a bear, so her beauty would never again tempt her holy husband.

A group of villagers also were drawn to the noise. Callisto called to them, but her voice was now a terrifying roar. She tried to hold her newborn son, but her hands were weaponized and clumsy. Hera disappeared, the villagers took the child, and the mother was driven off into the forest, alone in the only place she could belong.

For 15 years, Zeus avoided the woods and left his creations to their own discovery, until one evening, when he next heard the cry of a familiar voice. In the heart of the pathless woods, Callisto’s son had grown to be a fine huntsman with deep respect for the animals he sought to kill.

One evening at twilight, he found a massive bear, crying in the woods, and when his mother looked up from her misery and came forward to embrace him, he immediately drew his bow and let loose an arrow into her heart.

Following her dying cries through the winding trees, Zeus found the pair in the meadow, the mother’s head resting on her son’s bloody lap.

There are moments when the divine seems faithfully in line with the understanding of humankind; when the Buddhic nature of the cosmos spins so that the Buddha may sit still. There are other times when a blizzard freezes children to death in their sleep, or parasites eat away the eyes of old men in the savannah.

In this moment, the god of gods breathed — then swiftly transformed the grieving son into a bear as well. And in one great motion, he grabbed each by its tail and flung them both into the atmosphere where they remain today, Ursa Major & Ursa Minor, watching over the northern lands, still known today as the Greek word for ‘bear’: Arctos, the Arctic.

In science, governance, and education; in movies, news, and children’s books — the polar bear, for better or worse, is a part of a societal dialogue that concerns the fate all life on our planet, living and unborn.

Though the nearest wild polar bear is 700 miles from the University of North Dakota, even here, professors study them with UAS cameras and sequence their DNA from hair samples collected in sub-Arctic dens by our own students.

Elsewhere, politicians argue about melting sea ice habitat in Congress, while scientists debate the details of the ongoing consequences of our warming ocean in scientific journals.

This blog aims not to bolster any perceived side in the often-called “battle” that is polar bear conservation. There are plenty of news sources, advocacy groups, and secret government documents on WikiLeaks doing that already.

Instead, I want to learn about the bears that Zeus made — the messages we’ve found from our universal self, the stars in the northern sky that are more than ancient streams of light twinkling through the gases of our atmosphere.

But how will we interpret the notes we leave ourselves? How many stars must be extinguished before the great bears disappear from the night sky?

It’s tough being alive, knowing you’ll never understand everything. But if we did, we’d only get along as well as the god of gods, running through the woods, turning people into bears at the first sign of trouble.

The only thing that’s certain is we’ve got to keep talking if we want to learn more. The trick is, however, that Man usually learns the most when he shuts his mouth and listens instead.

Billy Beaton is the video editor for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]