I had a dream in which the god Hermes married Hera, and the two reigned as masters of the universe, or perhaps multiple universes or series of universes, for an incalculable length of time. Why wasn't the chief god Zeus at his post? It seemed he had resigned it after billions or trillions of years; why he'd done so was left unanswered. In a way it seemed he had died, though I felt an awareness that he and the other gods could not truly die. In any case, the couple assumed their position seemingly without competition. But after another trillions of years, this couple also resigned, tired, and reality was left without a director again.

The dream shifted to an earlier point in time. I saw/became identified with Zeus; I'm not sure whether I saw a human avatar of Zeus, or a human who would later become a god. He was sitting in a car, sometime in the 20th century. The location was never made explicit but it might have been Oklahoma. He was poor, and traveling with his family and at least two others. His wife and part of his family had entered into a convenience store. Beside him was a woman with her daughter. The daughter was Aphrodite; the woman was Cyprus (I know Cyprus is an island, but the name was associated with this woman, perhaps because Cyprus was the birthplace of Aphrodite, and Aphrodite wasn't considered to have a mother?). Though Cyprus and Aphoridite were their names in the dream, consciously I think they might have also been Demeter and Kore. I/Zeus (I guess I'll shift into 1st person, though it was more ambiguous in the dream) saw that the daughter was beautiful, but I wasn't interested in her; instead I suddenly fell in love with her mother. Being gods, I suppose adultery wasn't so big a problem with us; I think Hera was beginning to become enamored with Hermes, and she didn't mind that my mortal life began to revolve around Cyprus (Demeter?), and in my immortal one she became my queen. However, we were advised (by whom? I don't know) that we should not have children lest we produce evils we could not destroy. Nevertheless, accidentally, we had children twice. The first was a stillbirth. The second pregnancy produced a multitude of evils -- demons, maybe. I had intended to kill them at birth, but I was unsuccessful, and they flew into the world. The two of us then became aware that we must do our best to ameliorate what we had done. Though we did what we could, we made certain mistakes, which seemed to compound our problems. Through the eons we slowly slipped into despair, taking human forms and living countless lives at the same times as we reigned as gods, doing whatever we could to slow the decay of the universe/s, but seeing how little we could do. And so we resigned and faded to background influences in the universe/s, leaving the positions of sovereigns empty for Hermes and Hera who we saw were interested in taking over. And then like waking from a dream we were suddenly back in that car, staring at each other, and I touched her. And then the dream ended for real.

The dream seemed significant so I'm posting it here. I think it's relevant that I consciously identify somewhat with the god Hermes, which may be why he appeared in the dream (and not say Zagreus or Dionysos who would make thematic sense as the heir to Zeus.) Also, earlier, I had been given a book on my maternal family's history, and I had been thinking about my great-grandfather's moving from Oklahoma to Chicago and then to Alabama. I saw Zeus similarly to how I imagine my great-grandfather.