Tonight, I sit beside a crackling fire in my back yard, with a mug of hot chocolate warming my hands. The moon hangs above me, and just to her right, a small golden light shines in the dark night sky.
Saturn.
Like most things in the night sky, there is an ancient story hiding behind that little speck of light.
Long before the Romans called him Saturn, the Greeks told stories of a Titan named Cronus.
Cronus was the son of Gaia, the Earth, and Uranus, the Sky.
His father was a cruel ruler who feared the power of his own children. At his mother’s urging, Cronus took a sickle and overthrew him, claiming dominion over the heavens.
But power has a peculiar way of turning fear into cruelty.
Cronus was warned that one day, just as he had overthrown his father, one of his own children would overthrow him.
And so the mighty Titan, terrified of losing his throne, began swallowing his children as soon as they were born.
Hestia.
Demeter.
Hera.
Hades.
Poseidon.
One by one, they disappeared into the belly of their father.
But their mother, Rhea, refused to surrender her last child.
When Zeus was born, she hid him away in a cave on the island of Crete and wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes. Cronus, blinded by his fear, swallowed the stone without question.
Zeus grew strong in secret.
And when the time came, he returned to confront his father, forcing Cronus to release the children he had swallowed.
The children became gods.
And together, they waged war against the Titans.
Zeus would rule the heavens.
Poseidon would claim the seas.
Hades would reign over the underworld.
And Cronus, who had tried so desperately to prevent his fate, lost everything.
The Romans would later associate Cronus with Saturn, a god of agriculture, sowing, and the passing cycles of life. They celebrated him during Saturnalia, a festival of feasting, merriment, and the temporary overturning of social order.
I find something hauntingly beautiful in these ancient stories.
A father so afraid of losing his future that he devoured it.
A mother brave enough to defy a god.
And children who emerged from darkness to create an entirely new world.
Perhaps the old gods in these stories from history understood something about human nature that we are still trying to learn, fear can make monsters of us and power cannot protect us from change.
And that no matter how tightly we try to hold on to something, nothing escapes the passage of time.
Tonight, Saturn is nothing more than a tiny light beside the moon.
Yet thousands of years ago, people looked toward the same wandering planet and imagined gods, monsters, prophecies, and wars that shook the heavens.
I wonder how many generations have sat beside fires like mine, gazing upward and telling these very stories.
How many have whispered wishes to the stars?
How many have feared the future?
How many have found comfort in knowing that even the gods could not control everything?
The fire crackles. My hot chocolate is getting cold. The moon continues her quiet journey across the sky.
Saturn watches from the darkness, an ancient reminder that even gods must bow to time.
Maybe that is why we tell stories beneath the stars. Not because we can stop time, but because stories allow a little piece of us to live beyond it.
🖤🔥 From the desk of an old crow.
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