Beyond and Before the Snakes
Chapter One: Before the Snakes My fascination with Medusa didn't begin with trauma. It began with my mother. My mother introduced me to Greek Gods and Goddesses when I was young, and from there, a fascination was born. I became fascinated with the Gods, the Goddesses, the mortals, the monsters—the power, betrayal, love, jealousy, protection, punishment, beauty, and destruction woven throughout their stories. I didn't just want to know who they were. I wanted to understand: Why did they become who they became? Somewhere in those stories was Medusa. At that age, she was mythology to me. I couldn't have known that years later I would return to her story and recognize pieces of myself. As a child, I saw the snakes. As a grown woman, I started asking: What happened before they grew? There is something almost poetic about the fact that my mother introduced me to the very story that would eventually help me understand parts of myself. Because my mother is p...
