[A white fortune cookie paper with black text on the front
and an icon of a bee. It reads: For you, tomorrow will be even better than
today. Congrats.]
Athena blessed her with the ability to protect herself and men beheaded her for it.
That’s actually a really intetesting intpretation of it I hadn’t thought of. Most people seem to think Athena turned Medusa into a gorgon as punishment for defiling her temple, but thinking that she did so to protect her from being abused again is interesting and I like it!
Athena’s hands were tied. Yes, she was a powerful Goddess, but she was very much a woman in a “boys club”, and the true offending party (don’t think for a moment that Athena blamed Medusa for being raped in the temple, Athena knows better) held all the cards. There was nothing that Athena could do to punish the true criminal, and she was expected to punish Medusa by everyone else. What’s a Goddess to do when she cannot punish those who need to be punished and is expected to punish not only the truly innocent party, but her most beloved follower? Use that incredible brain power she had to protect Medusa at all costs, and of course the men would see it as punishment, to be have her beauty stripped from her and sent to live in the shadows. Medusa should have been KILLED for supposedly defiling the temple, whether she truly did or not, but she was given the gift of life, and the ability to protect herself and her daughters (who she bore thanks to Poseidon). This is why Medusa’s image was used to signify woman’s shelters and safe houses.
Medusa means “guardian; protectress”, and she was.
“We got real furniture. I mean, it was Salvation Army, but it was real. Our names were printed inside a heart on the dishtowel that hung on the refrigerator door handle. We got it made at Crystal Beach. It was a brave thing to do. But later we spilled loganberry juice on it, so we used it for dishes because we couldn’t bring ourselves to throw it out. And there were marigolds in amber glasses on the windowsill, daisies
in a green cut-glass vase on the kitchen table, fresh mint and basil growing in a flower box on the porch. It was a home. I grew up in leaps and bounds. I learned to reduce the anxieties of life by paying bills on time, keeping receipts and promises, doing laundry before I ran out of underwear, picking up after myself. Most importantly, I learned to say I’m sorry. This relationship was too vital to let dust accumulate in its corners.”
