A Day in the Life of the God Neptune
(A selection from Mermaids, Sylphs, Gnomes, and Salamander)
Over the course of the next decade, Caelius and the mermaid meet many times before dawn and wait for the sun’s light as they perform their ritual. During this time, the mermaid’s hold on the woman’s body never fades. Instead, the mermaid acquires new abilities to enhance the soul she already possesses.
There are other interactions of a magical nature that occur between the two of them. When Caelius has time, he sits with her for an hour each day without moving. Sometimes they sit next to each other at his villa overlooking the sea. Sometimes they face each other and hold hands. During this time of quiet repose, he feels free. Nothing else in the world matters. Time dissolves.
All the same, he can feel her aura as it gently surrounds him, taking hold like a mist that flows down a valley or a fog that rolls in from the sea. He feels her around him, and gradually she flows into and through him.
If tenderness can take the shape of moist air—cool and refreshing, gentle and embracing—then her aura is tenderness similar in sensation, caressing him from within. The temperature around him drops five degrees. There is no chill.
After sitting in her aura, he feels he can see the entire Mediterranean Sea before him. He can tell how each of his ships is doing, its progress and the weather around and before it. But he cannot communicate with the captains or give them directions or warnings.
It is the oddest feeling, he thinks—he feels like he can sense the waves moving in their myriads of patterns across the Mediterranean: the huge waves rolling with storms; the cliffs where these waves break; waves continuing to roll on a thousand miles after the storm is gone; waves caught off guard with whitecaps newborn struggling to rise as a storm crashes down; the gentle waves circling in a bay; the ordered waves of a steady wind and the crisscrossing waves among the islands of
the Aegean Sea. In some places, the waves are wild, and in other places the sea is calm. In a few places, the sea is a mirror where barely a ripple appears.
He knows it is heresy, but in truth he feels at such times that he has been transmuted into the god Neptune. He watches over the oceans from a state of great peace. The storms and waves obey his will. The sea is his servant, like a bride who yearns in her heart to please and to unite. These are feeling that do not belong to mortals but only to gods.
And so one day without violating the specific directions of the seer, Caelius stops by the temple of Neptune. One of two in Rome, this is the Basilica Neptuni, dedicated by Agrippa in celebration of the naval victory at Actium. The temple stands on the area of Rome referred to as the Campus Martius.
Caelius quickly gains an audience with the highest-ranking priest. After preliminary greetings and honorifics are exchanged, and after a donation that the priest finds to be quite interesting, the priest asks, “Senator, have you a question or a petition?”
Caelius replies, “You understand, I have ships at sea all seasons of the year. Your temple is obviously of great importance to my work. But my question is more of a personal nature. If you could speak informally to me about a question that has captured my imagination … ?”
“Hmm. Then I’ll take off my robe if you do not mind. Would you like some wine?” asks the priest.
“Yes. Thank you,” replies Caelius.
“Go ahead, then. What is your question?” asks the priest while settling down onto a couch.
Caelius asks, “Other than the normal responsibilities that accrue to a god who rules a kingdom, what activities occupy Neptune’s time? What does he do during the day?”
“A day in the life of the god Neptune?” The priest laughs wholeheartedly. “Perhaps you would like a referral to a poet or storyteller?” he asks rhetorically.
He continues, “As priests we perform rituals, sacrifices, libations, and ceremonies, and we preside over festivals. In brief, we give something to the gods, and they give something back in exchange.
Honor and respect are common currency in all realms mortal and divine, as Odysseus learned the hard way.
“When a supplicant is desperate, I sometimes recommend that he cut himself and place a small vial of his own blood on the altar. Then he prays and meditates. And finally he takes his blood back and anoints himself with it.
“Having mingled his blood with the inspiration of the god, the same life force and vitality flows through each. And so insight arises naturally from sacrifice and spiritual union. In this case, the life force in the blood is the medium of exchange.
“But this example does not apply to you. You want my expertise, the insight I possess as Neptune’s priest. What you ask is most curious. I would never have thought to ask this question myself.
“To answer you, What does the god Neptune do? The question leads to other questions: Can a mortal ever understand the mind of a deity? Do a god’s actions known or unknown ever reveal what he can do if he were to choose something new?”
Waving his palm from left to right in front of the face of Caelius, the priest says, “Give me a moment. What I now do is not forbidden, yet it is not part of our religion. I shall put aside my mortality and my guise as a priest. I shall imagine that I have become Neptune. Now then, what am I, a god, doing right now?” the priest asks himself as he falls into a trance.
It is the priest who continues to speak—the same voice. But the intonation and pitch, the pace and emotional tone, are altogether different.
“With a simple glance, I can see into the waters’ depths—every fish and sunken ship, the hills and valleys, the caves and mountains that become islands—all of this I can easily survey. The storms, should I ignore them, go their own way. But should I choose, the storm clouds can express my rage and the peaceful sea my tranquility.
“When I take my ease, the wind is my consort at night and during all hours of the day as she caresses the seas that for her are my body, forming waves upon waves. She is one with me and knows my ways. And when it rains the rain is my moist fluids nurturing the earth,
satisfying thirst and the desires of fields and flesh. I am water in the springs and lakes and rivers—they are my bloodstream. Lightning is my heartbeat. In all seasons of the year, whether you see it or not, I am always near.
“The outer forms of nature cloak and conceal yet also reflect and reveal my innermost essence: I am the lord of water, salt or fresh. Its mysteries and treasures are mine to possess or to protect. I have an interest in horses, it is true. But the nature of my being is to nurture and to dream.
“Though I helped found Delphi, what is not well known about me is that I have a gift for prophecy. Like water, I nurture the seeds of the future. All that shall be passes through me. In the depths of my heart are found the sites and sounds of civilizations long gone and of civilizations unknown that belong to the far future. You see, I get around.
“The time displayed on your calendar is by necessity an illusion. It keeps you busy and engaged in productive activities. But for me, the moment ‘now’ encompasses the past, present, and future. It may appear that on occasion I doze off and lose interest in military campaigns, noble deeds, which emperor sits on the throne, and whether his borders are sound. But I assure you, when I relax, my awareness increases geometrically.
“People may think of me only when their needs pertain to the sea. Yet the great men of your race, the heroes and explorers, your sages and seers, have yet to chart the open spaces of my heart.”
And then the priest chants in a deep, resonate voice completely unlike his own. There is a faint intonation reminiscent of thunder pounding a distant horizon:
There are those among you who dream my dreams.
Listen carefully. These are my children:
They feel what others’ feel
They have the power to heal
When they love
They neither take nor possess
For like me,
They are one with the sky and the sea—
The waters of the earth flow through their souls
And their vision transcends the limitations of time.
There are a few moments while the priest remains silent. Then, opening his eyes, he looks at Caelius with a spontaneous smile lighting up his face and asks in his normal voice, “How was that? Have I answered your question?”
“Yes,” replies Caelius.
The priest goes on, “Good. I am glad. Perhaps you might send me your best recollection of what I just said. The reason I ask this is because when I imagine myself beyond human form, I can never recall what I say. It is most annoying. In order to speak from another place, my memory is the sacrifice.”
“I will write down what you have said and send it to you this very day,” replies Caelius. And this Caelius does.
One evening, in the fall of AD 30, Caelius steps into his bedroom. There the mermaid stands naked, her silhouette outlined by the rising moon. She turns to him, taking his hands into hers. She says, “Do not align yourself with Sejanus or the house of Julii. The emperor will turn against them. In my dreams, I see many bodies being thrown into the River Tiber.”
“How do you know these things?” Caelius asks.
She says, “I can sense the soul of anyone on earth. Sejanus is like a cat ready to pounce on a mouse—he is all predator, tight, vicious, with claws extended.”
“And how do I avoid becoming his prey if I refuse to support him?” asks Caelius, now grasping her upper arms as her arms circle his waist.
She responds, “It is my nature to affirm life and not to harm, so I do not involve myself in the affairs of state. But I will protect this family. If Sejanus even thinks your name, I will erase the thought from his memory.”
Caelius looks at her. He sees the moonlight luminous in her hair.
He wants to kiss her lips and feel her body against his. He wants to sit with her quietly as they do every day when he is with her, to feel time dissolve and the worries of this world fade away.
Her body has the scent of orchards and the flowers of spring. He kisses her lips, feels her response, and feels deep inside that their bodies are already joined.
To touch her skin is to find new kingdoms of the heart waiting to be explored. But in her eyes he sees great waves from the sea ready to flood the world if need be in order to preserve the things she loves.
He says to her, “It is best not to send a fleet to sea in winter. The winds can be dangerous.”
He goes on, “You alone can understand my prophecy and how long it will take before it is fulfilled: one day a few men and women will use your power to establish peace on earth so war is no more. They shall do this without destroying or taking away but by turning malice into nobility. Wars will be fought not on land or sea but in the heart. And in that day no one will seek to cross swords with those whose hearts are as deep as the sea.”
In the spring of AD 31, Caelius is summoned to meet with Tiberius at the emperor’s retreat, Villa Jovis at Capri. When Caelius walks into to the emperor’s hall, Tiberius is laughing where he sits at a table on the balcony. The emperor is reading for the second time Caelius’s summary of the priest’s channeling of the god Neptune. The head priest of the temple of Neptune had taken it upon himself to give the transcript a title: A Day in the Life of the God Neptune.
Tiberius stands up, gesturing wildly at the sea, and says, “I wonder, will anyone ever write A Day in the Life of Tiberius Caesar Augustus?
“I do not see into the depths of the sea. I have no winds that comfort me. I have no knowledge of the far past or the distant future. What I do see is my own civilization destroying itself. I am sure many other civilizations will destroy themselves in the future just as easily; no warning I could send could postpone those events by even a day. My senators are the same. There is no wisdom in them.
“What is my day like? I mope. I rant. I rage. I grieve. I sleep poorly. I have indigestion. I drink excessively. Some accuse me of
debauchery. And I worry about betrayal by my consul Sejanus and his supporters.
“I am no god. But here is true delight—that one man is curious enough to ask what a god does with his spare time. If the gods have not struck you down for your hubris, then, like me, they must delight in your uninhibited curiosity.”
Caelius replies, “I had no desire to offend.”
“On the contrary,” replies Tiberius, waving the paper in his hands, “Your concept is pure creativity—you put a god on display to entertain.”
Tiberius sits down suddenly. He points his index finger at Caelius’s face and speaks slower and with suppressed rage, “You know, if it were not for you, I would have ordered the execution of the entire senate. In my night, even a dim light appears bright. I know all about you—your accomplishments and your equanimity. And so I ask for your advice: what do you do when you lose as much as I have?”
Caelius answers, “What is lost shall be found. It shall come again unexpectedly, in a new form.”
Tiberius responds, “Spoken like a sailor who trusts the winds, tides, and the sea to bring him safely home. No one ventures into the unknown without trust or faith. In the face of my pain, you assert that a new day will dawn with hope reborn.
“I have lost my faith. But you, Caelius Luscus, are touched by the hand of the gods. Some benevolence hidden within nature holds you in its embrace. Even an inferior emperor such as I notices these things. I would make you tribune except I like you just as you are. In this way I will know that at least one person in the empire has peace within his soul. I find that concept comforting.”
With a bleak look, Tiberius waves Caelius away with his hand and then leans his chin on his palm. This strange encounter with the emperor over, Caelius returns to his villa in Rome.
Caelius and the mermaid survive both the coming purge led by Sejanus and the one that the emperor initiates in response.