Tunnel of History

I’m at the bottom of a cave inside a rock riddled with tunnels dug over the centuries, including during World War II when Allied Forces excavated miles of tunnels to protect themselves and their ammunition from enemy forces.

At the bottom of this cave is the legendary home of the Gates of Hades–the Underworld–in Greek literature. This area was considered the end of the known world. It is the juncture where Hercules crashed through the Isthmus as he tracked across the Atlas Mountains to complete one of his last labors. In his impatience he pulled apart the land mass between Gibraltar and Tangiers, creating the Strait where the Atlantic and the Mediterranean now meet and creating the separate continents of Europe and Africa.

This geological feat was a side effect of Hercules’ labors to rid the ancient world of monsters. Legend has it that Hercules used the Rock of Gibraltar and a small mountain in Spanish Morocco as hand holds; these are now designated as  “The Pillars of Hercules.”

On the rocks Hercules wrote: “Non Plus Ultra”— “There is nothing beyond” as a warning to sailors lest they go further at their peril. When Columbus “discovered” America, the Spanish amended their Royal Coat of Arms to read “Plus Ultra” –to indicate there was something beyond.

Myth merges with history and imagination as I sit at the bottom of this cave in my imagination and contemplate the stirring of the continent above and the continent across the strait and the one across the Atlantic.  What monsters might Hercules take on today and what creative solutions might he crash through to find?

(Imaginative responses welcome. Happy Holidays!)