Marine God Glaucus' Rules - Eat to Live OK. Overfishing and Hunting For Sport. Not OK

Summary of Contents: Glaucus in Mythology | Can Humans Be Gods? | Arrival and Appearance | Bait, Hook and Line | Glaucus' Rules | All Life is Precious | Hidden Destruction | Glaucus' Palace

Festival Day - 3 January

God Glaucus in Mythology

Old stories told of how the ocean god Glaucus once was a mortal fisherman living on the Mediterranean coast, until by lucky chance he found a crop of magic herbs growing on the shoreline and was then transformed into a god.

One version told by Ovid, related how Glaucus felt love for nymph Scylla but she did not share the passion, due to the fishiness of his features. Glaucus asked sorceress goddess Circe to brew a love potion.

Her cocktail mix fumed such power even Circe was affected by its aroma and instantly declared her own total love for Glaucus.

A complication with deadly consequence. Scorn-soured Circe resolved the problem by turning Scylla into a six-headed sea-monster when Glaucus refused to accept her affection.

Theoi - God Glaucus

Glaucus Mythological references

"Can humans become Gods, as in the myth of Glaucus?" Nick Hammond asked out-of-body survivalist Margo Williams.

Can Humans Become Gods?

"On no occasion did Glaucus, or any other god or goddess ever say anything like: 'Be good, if you are lucky we may make you a goddess.' Nor did he ever say 'Eat these herbs and you will no longer have to worry about the grave.'

Glaucus made no such suggestion nor was there any sense of connection between us to indicate to me that he was once of my kind.

But I do believe some individuals are asked to work for a god or goddess.

Permanent job offers happened with surprising frequency, in my experience. In that sense, I assumed my own abilities would be adapted for that purpose.

However it is possible at some point in any individual’s evolution, assuming he or she is not terminated along the way, our personal or individual energy is assimilated by one God or another.

I say this because on rare occasion when taken into the light of a god or goddess, I felt for those few briefest of moments that my individuality was absorbed by their light. Not that I had lost myself, rather that I had become something so much greater.

And it felt good.

Glaucus Arrival and Appearance

Glaucus immediately put me to work even from his first visit.

"I accept all you offer," he boomed on arrival. "It is most pleasant to hear you honour me." Silver lines shimmered in a deep ocean blue radiance. They fused together, formed a long-haired figure dressed in pale loin-cloth.

A younger-looking god than Oceanus and Pontus.

Turquoise eyes, aquiline nose; beard and hair flaxen blonde in colour. Like the other two he had a powerful swimmer’s physique. He tilted his head slightly at an angle, inspecting.

"You create a strong energy toward us. You deserve my blessing, which I freely give," he said. "I am a God who is not well-known, yet my powers are strong. I can be loving and peaceful." He gestured. "I can be angry and rough."

He reached for my hand. "Come."

I landed in a tropical sea, same turquoise colour as his eyes; a short swim away from a long wooden jetty. A gentle swell moved me like a bobbing cork, sunlight played upon the subtle movement of the water. Its gentle pressure felt cool around my body.

Smells of land strong, call of seagulls loud in the air.

Fishermen ranged along each side, rods out, lines in the water. Some watched, others dozed or made conversation. Seagulls perched in ones and twos on light poles.

Glaucus surfaced close beside me. He didn’t bob up and down in the water, as I did. He carried a pointed driftwood stick and poked me hard in the side.

"See that no fish get onto their hooks. You will receive a stroke for every fish caught," he added and stabbed again to urge me away.

I swam underwater, moving from hook to hook, trying to shoosh fish from bait. Up, down and around the jetty scaring them away as much as I could, but they were impossible to control.

They slipped past, zipping around the wooden structure back toward the tempting bait.

Fish Rescue Tips for Bait, Hook and Nets

Soon felt exhausted, so resorted to removing the bait wherever possible. And so eventually the fish lost interest and responded better to my wild thrashing in the water, or so I thought.

As I swam back to Glaucus he pointed the stick. A single small fish had turned and headed back toward the jetty to a baited hook I had missed.

He spoke to the fish. A single sound, in a language I didn’t understand but Glaucus’ word travelled through the water. Instantly it responded, the fish turned about and swam away.

I looked around, no fish to be seen anywhere near the jetty.

We surfaced. Fishermen were hauling in their lines, checking their bait; some stared over the jetty rails.

"You passed," said Glaucus. He took hard hold of my wrist and pulled me out into open water. Soon the jetty and land were distant on the horizon though the ocean floor still was visible below.

A lone trawler boat chugged in the distance, Glaucus followed in its wake and we came alongside.

"This is the same test." He pointed stick toward the trawler. "The net is about to be lowered. See that not one fish is caught." He poked me hard away.

That was a more difficult problem to solve.

Glaucus' Rules of Coexistence

There were lots of saving fish tests.

Sometimes Glaucus placed me in the net, to share the experience. How it felt to be dragged through the water, caught in the nylon threading. It was cruelly painful.

"Mortals are allowed to take a little. All have to eat," he conceded as he cut me loose. "Fish eat fish only when hungry."

Humans have no idea how painful trawler netting is for fish of any size.

Glaucus knew and that's why he did it to me. And his promise was no empty threat: "Those who over-fish and hunt the gentle whales will, like those before them, spend time with the Lord of the Underworld."

He referred to Hades. No other God so far as I heard, is given that title Lord.

"Many, many souls have suffered much because of their cruelty to the sea creatures."

I understood that threat. Feared the Underworld and its custodian, Hades. And with good reason.

So I became relatively good at fish-rescue.

Though becoming proficient was a long and painful journey. Sometimes the water was so cold my hands froze. Sometimes trawler crews fought among themselves, which pleased Glaucus. He didn’t often smile.

Sometimes the escaping fish followed me, and to my amazement continued to do so long after we left the trawler in the distance. Even the big dangerous fish didn’t attack me. In fact I felt from them a feeling of friendliness.

And it wasn’t just smaller fish in nets, sometimes it was big creatures like whales.

Most often Glaucus required me to tangle fishing lines. Those around piers and jetties amused him as fishermen snagged and pulled each other over. "It deters some," he said.

Others were less fortunate.

Human Life is Precious. So is Marine Life

Human life is precious. Refusal to take life always was any test’s positive choice, which indicated to me that no God derived pleasure from such action, partial termination though it is.

But sometimes maybe they felt satisfaction.

We land-based creatures should accept our own responsibility that we humans harm ocean-dwelling life for altogether different reasons, and see nothing wrong in doing so.

In warm waters a mile or so off a rocky headland Glaucus stopped to watch a pair of male scuba divers armed with harpoon guns. They stalked among the coral.

They didn’t seem too interested in what they targetted. D..d fish marked the direction of their hunt. It was an easy trail for Glaucus to follow.

"These men do this for pleasure, for sport," he added coldly. "I will not have those who dwell in the oceans k....d in this way."

Scuba divers and small yacht-crew were vulnerable but sometimes there was nothing an ocean God could do about marine destruction, not so as to stop it immediately.

Vessels that discharged into the sea, cleaning tanks of oil damaged lots of fish; Glaucus could not prevent it.

"Mortals know it is wrong, what they do. They think no one can see them but we see them."

And that may be the biggest problem for both parties - visibility. Only later does price become personal for those on board, by which time the damage is done.

But nothing is forgotten in the sooner-or-later personal afterlife situation of every captain and crew. Marine Gods are unforgiving.

Undersea Environmental Destruction

Tank cleaning and navy live-firing exercises angered him most, and I saw why. The explosive damage done by surface vessels and submarine torpedoes destroyed huge quantities of fish of all sizes.

"Look at the devastation. This is practice." We stopped to watch a submarine surface after destroying a small target ship.

The top hatch popped open. Two men appeared on the tower, binoculars raised to survey the wide debris field splattered with pieces of marine life.

Their laughter carried clear across the calm sea. They congratulated themselves on that success.

Glaucus was not impressed. "These mortals are my special e.....s," he said, voice flat with menace. "They will not always be so pleased."

The mariners probably weren’t aware of the catastrophic damage they had caused to the ocean life. Again there was nothing Glaucus could do to stop them, except pass on this warning through me.

"Come, not everything is bad, and things are getting better."

I felt his harsh grip around my wrist.

"I shall show you where the sea is pure."

Ocean God's Palace Under the Sea

And so he did.

We visited warm vibrant coral seascapes teeming with communities of marine life. And the cold dark pristine iceberg shorelines where everything was white and blue, equally as beautiful as those lush tropical reefs.

He also shared with me where he liked to be when not on patrol.

Deep on the ocean floor stood a structure entirely of shell and coral, silvered pearl shells mostly, and various conch. Its roof was shelled with scallop, its rounded open doorway formed of alternating red and blue coral.

For extra decoration, conch shells protruded from the walls and a row of abalone featured under the roof line.

The structure had a garden too. Outside stood a table, its legs constructed of pebbles, upside-down scallop shells formed its top surface.

Beside it stood a seat fashioned from a huge flat stone decorated with tiny shells. A massive scallop shell formed its back-rest.

As decoration, starfish-clustered rocks formed four gnarled arches. They opened into an underwater lagoon filled with vibrant coloured fish and shellfish. Bright anemones, starfish, seaweed and orange fern coral.

Glaucus is Human-Friendly

Glaucus returned me to the land.

We surfaced in the shallow waters of the small bay in my home town. That hot summer’s day moment was busy with people sunbathing and swimming. Waves gently pulled at the shore.

He strode from the water close-passing a woman paddling with a toddler. Nearby a man with a babe stood waist-deep in the water, bobbing the child up and down.

Glaucus smiled and gestured. "I enjoy seeing mortals having an innocent swim."

Thank you for your company on this short introduction to god Glaucus. If you would like to know more about Margo Williams' experiences and suggestions for how to survive in the hereafter read this book. Now available from Amazon.

Trawler Netting. Oceana Protecting the World's Oceans