Special Guest Blogger: Greek Nymph Callisto

I’m the original, mythological, slightly tragic, and, let’s be honest, profoundly unlucky Callisto. Former nymph, erstwhile companion of Artemis, and eventual celestial real estate (long story).
If Greek mythology were a dinner party I’d be the guest who showed up fashionably late, got accidentally turned into a bear, then flung into the sky by Zeus in a panic move. Literally and metaphorically over my head.
I was a nymph. Not a particularly famous one but a run of the mill woodland nymph just walking through forests looking ethereal, occasionally startling shepherds, and trying not to get turned into a tree.
I joined Artemis’s crew, goddess of the hunt, eternal virgin, and frankly her expectations were high. Total abstinence, zero tolerance for romance, and a strict no-boys-rules which would’ve been fine, if Zeus hadn’t had the self-control of an American at a free gun show.
Zeus  disguised himself as Artemis herself to get close to me. Let that sink in. Not as a handsome mortal, not as a swan, not even as a golden shower, no, he went full undercover goddess.
Long story short: deception occurred, I was blessed (cursed?) with a child, and Artemis found out. You’d think she might’ve had a word with Zeus but no. Off I go, transformed into a bear and sent packing into the woods
The life of a bear is not quite the majestic, spiritual experience people imagine  and as the years passed. I roamed. I hibernated. I developed a taste for berries and then enter my son, Arcas.
Grown up, hunting in the woods, and entirely unaware that the angry bear charging toward him was his dear old mum. I’d like to say we had a tearful reunion. Instead, we had a near-fatal misunderstanding and a very awkward near-mauling.
Enter Zeus (again). In what can only be described as divine panic, he grabs us both and whoosh, hurls us into the night sky. Literally. No warning. Just you’re both constellations now. Deal with it.
And so, I became Ursa Major which looks like a saucepan with legs so never trust a god in a disguise and if you’re going to be immortalised in the stars, at least insist on a flattering angle but at least i’m literally written in the stars i suppose.