Her Name Lives Forever

Those who’ve had Circe never lose her. She’s always there, lingering, on the tips of their tongues. Circe doesn’t hide. She has nothing and nobody to fear. Still, many men keep her as a secret.

In history, not everyone meets Circe, only those men who got lost in wine-dark seas. You’ve never been so lost before, I promise. This book has found you alive, not scattered into pieces over remote sea rocks.

But, in these pages, imagine we are lost alongside those seasick sailors. The boat stops feeling so safe when we lose sight of shore. A storm rolls over us. The ocean riots. We fear upheaval, being cast forever into the darkness. Poseidon turns our vessel into a dancing floor, pitching, mercilessly, back and forth.

Then, the ocean carries our ship along the current. The fluid flow feels like you’re being carried on the back of a giant serpent. Remember Homer’s Oceanus, the great snake who encircled all the lands? He’s real, and he’s taking us to her, to Circe.

We float on his back. Our ship does not lurch against waves. We are nestled between giant scales. As we peer ahead, we can see the corner of the great snake’s eye. It burns yellow.

You can almost hear the name Circe wafting off the sea serpent’s breath.

Circe, her name carries over waves

Her name sounds like the tides themselves. Cir– an inhale, crisp, the wave coming in. Ce- an exhale, an offering to Poseidon.

Oceanus takes us to her, farther from Greece, farther than we’ve ever been before.

The sea serpent carries our ship to a place above Africa, encircled by water, beyond the Pillars of Heracles. The storm parts and the sun cascades upon us. We see an emerald island appear on the horizon.

For you and I, both of our hearts settle. With land in sight, so many of our worries disappear. We’re no longer lost at sea. The serpent disappears, and we drift towards the foreign shore.

As we approach, it becomes clear the island is like no other. The ocean is drawn towards it. No matter where we look, waves curve towards the island. Oceanus the sea serpent swam away, so the water is magnetized to the shore on its own accord. We catch sight of red glints, shimmering above the treetops, like flickering halos.

As we get closer, we see tall metal structures. Spiral pillars stretch towards the sky. Though the island is lush, blinding green in the blue sea, all of man’s structures glowed red. They’d been coated with aurichalcum, a metal melted down, and alchemized by the world’s finest blacksmiths.

We stare up at the wonderful trees, towers, and temples. I tell you, in a faraway voice, that we found a place which was bound to be lost.

History would not be kind to this red and green island. Not even Circe has the powers to save it. It’s a place destined to fall, scorned by Poseidon, and drowned in history as Atlantis.

Atlantis is still alive, and we can still visit in these pages, between these lines, in our imagination. We are given safe passage.

Before Atlantis sank, it was a place where sailors met their maidens. Swirling whirlpools parted for us, just like they parted for every hero lost on Oceanus’ back.

Each man who crosses that treacherous place, has been chosen. Nobody survives by luck alone.

Circe parts waters. She stills whirlpools. She commands the snakes in the sea.

In Atlantis, we flow down a canal. Our sails seem small next to spiraling structures. People wave from the shore, they seem excited to be visited by people from far away. Nobody there knows our name, except Circe, for she knows all.

I wonder if Circe knew the names of the trees in Atlantis, for I did not recognize one. Atlantis is not built by olive trees or anything given to us by the Gods in Greece.

We see a holy man bow his head as we pass by. We’re greeted by sailors, who all speak native tongues, who cast a line to use and let us tie to their homely shore.

The holy man returns, with an older wizened man, who is to be our translator.

We’re asked about the secrets of our lands. We tell stories of Greece, myths of heroes who crossed these same seas. We speak of Medusa’s blood which hardened into coral. We tell tales of springs which burst from the hooves of Pegasus. We speak of war Goddesses who leap from their father’s headache. We speak of Poseidon, and then the holy man’s eyes crack into a smile, before the story is ever translated.

We learn the secrets of the kingdom of Atlantis.

A scholar unrolls a wrinkled scroll. He shows us a bird's eye view of Atlantis, a map, where the spiral shape of the city coils around the ocean. From the above, the island’s a series of circles, spiraling from the center. At the center, the holy man urges us to go see: a temple of Poseidon.

We follow him down red and green streets. He says if we set our bare feet in the temple, the ocean won’t give us any problems on our way home. Men and women ride golden horses down streets. We see colorful fabrics and copper pots. You and I smell spices which make our mouths water, and others which make our eyes water. All of a sudden the island starts to shake. You look at me and raise an eyebrow. We wonder if we should brace for an earthquake. Then, we turn the corner and see creatures like none we had ever seen.

The creatures are taller than our ship, larger than a dozen horses. They have long snakes for noses and ears as flat and wide as the sea. Some even have men sitting on their backs. Our jaws loosen as the animals march past, holding onto each other's tails, walking along the gently curving streets.

“Atlantis is the city of elephants,” the translator announces.

Three-pronged tridents mark the gateway to a holy world.

We arrive at the temple, slip off our shoes, and enter. People in worship are humming and burning rosy fragrances. There is a metal chariot, blood red, as red as the ocean is blue. The chariot is not pulled by horses, but dolphins, the powerhouses of the sea. In the chariot, Poseidon has a stoic gaze with the dolphin’s reins resting gently upon his fingers. He is frozen there forever, but you swear, he is watching the city.

Nothing escapes the eye of Poseidon.

We’re lost at sea, until we found an ancient kingdom, where gilded buildings harness wild energy, elephants walk freely in circles, and Poseidon sits in the heart of the city.

We ask, “Is Circe here?”

You and I are both surprised to find out, by way of whispers, that Circe is not a woman at all.

The scroll is handed back to us, the city, built in geometric circles.

We’re confused at first. We heard stories of a powerful sorceress. She lived right here before she lived on the lips of every Greek legend. Odysseus spoke of Circe like she was a woman, a real female witch.

We expect a radiant seductress, but Circe’s no nymph or priestess. No, Circe has lost her innocence long ago. She is old, older than time. Yes, Circe is older than seeds and the dirt.

Circe is not one woman. She is so much more. She’s the collective wisdom of generations of priestesses. Circe is a woman’s brew, a witch’s poison. She’s the essence of a woman’s wisdom, nurtured from a plant, distilled into ambrosia.

We realize Circe is here all along. She’s alive. We feel the charge of her presence bouncing off the metal structures, wafting off the sea, and filling our hearts.

There is something wild in Atlantis.

All of a sudden, we both feel that it’s time to go back home.

Fate had a little piece of Atlantis come with us.

Medicine men shake our hands. Prophets offer their blessings. They promise Poseidon will favor us on our journey home. We eat fish with flakes of fire. They burn our mouths, but for some reason, it makes us feel cooler in the summer heat.

We’re given a vial. The holy man said that it’s a special potion, brewed for us. It glows orange like the sun. I let you keep it and tuck it up your sleeve.

We’re well-fed and the Gods are on our side. Our new Atlantean friends, who we may never meet again, wave us goodbye. They’re destined to be washed away.

Our ship is untied, and the tides are times so perfectly, that this time, the canal takes us out. I wonder if the holy man knew the tides would take us out, if he knew exactly when we were to be seen off.

A shiver runs down my spine. I wonder if the holy man knew we were coming. He waves at us like he had seen us before, even though we were strangers on his shore. Were we in Atlantis long enough for a priestess to brew us our very own lucky potion?

The tides carry us out, then Oceanus appears to carry us far away. Greece is over the horizon and I hope we make it.

The sea serpent carries us, all the way back to the familiar Pillars of Hercules. We made it home, back into our familiar world, stronger from our adventure. Nights and days pass while we have nothing for company but each other, and Poseidon.

By the time we make it back to the Aegean, I see a glimmer of curiosity in your eyes. Stars shine in the sky, dapple the sea, and mirror across your pitch-black pupils. Our ship sails in silence, over calm seas, under clear skies, but there’s a storm brewing in your eyes.

You wish to know Circe’s secrets, and you have them hiding up your sleeve.

I watch you uncork the vial, throw it back, and swallow each drop. There’s a sparkle to the liquid, a shimmer like fire. You shudder and feel bitterness cling to your tongue. I hear the glass vial crack when you drop it on the deck.

Nothing would ever be the same.

Circe steers your transformation. She loosens your bonds to form.

All of a sudden, you feel like a God. Dionysus, Hades, Zeus, and Ares are there, inside you. You are everyone, and you are everywhere. I hear your voice in my head, telling me so. You feel yourself glowing from the inside. I see it too, a golden light in your chest, a red thunder in your aura. You understand the movement of water, you read stories through the soles of your feet, in the grooves of wooden planks on our deck. The night ocean air feels like liquid on your skin.

It’s beginning. Once it starts, there’s no turning back.

Our ship changes. Everything you see is divine chaos, but I see it too.

Your eyes usher in Circe. You see as she sees. A vine bursts from our deck and spirals up our mast. Our sails turn green with lichen. The hull bursts with leaves. You turn back the clock, and return the wood to its original plant form. Vines snare my feet. There’s nowhere I can go. Flowers blossom towards the full moon. I hear the creak of roots digging through waterlogged boards. Our ship is green with foliage. Everything around us is alive.

Your transformation has only begun. Circe turns our ship into a wild place before she turns your into a wild thing.

Hair rises on the back of your neck. I watch it thicken, until your face is framed by a brunette mane. You’re wild under the moon. Your fingers harden into claws. A tail sprouts between your cheeks. You grow. Your nose broadens. Fur sprouts from your body. Your eyes turn the same burning amber as Circe shining in the vial.

Circe brings out the wilderness in you. She turns you from a man into a lion, just as she turns our ship into a floating forest. Nothing is the same after her touch.

You are a lion, an untamable beast. No lions carried riders in the streets of Atlantis. No lions ever lost a taste for blood.

You turn to face me, your eyes burning like two torches.

Man becomes a man-eater. Circe is both a poison and a cure, a miracle and a curse.

How far does Circe take us?

When Circe transforms you, pitching on a forested ship in the wine-dark sea, do you eat me?

Circe seizes empires. She seduces their leaders, gets them lost in the sea, and leads them astray. She turns men into lions. She turns heroes into ghosts. She turns time backwards.

How many times did Odysseus take the potion? How many vials satiated him between a shipwreck and Ithaca?

Could one drop last all those years?

Yes, it could. I see it in your flame-filled eyes.

Circe asks us what it means to be alive. So, what do you say?