The Sun is a God to ancient Greeks; they called Him Helios. Hence the terms mainstream still uses today that are named after Him, such as Heliocentrism and Heliotropium.
Really, anything centered around the Sun could begin its term with Helio.
To Hellenists like me, Helios and Apollon are not the same Gods. I see Apollon as God of the sun and light, and Helios as the Sun itself. Perhaps I will be considered the one to have coined the term "Extreme Polytheism" as a theological worldview.
Without the Sun, life would not exist. Not to mention that the Sun can actually cure humans of illnesses. The Sun obviously has a consciousness because it can intentionally move things from one place to another, or in and out of human beings. Put babies in this Divine light, and it will save them from jaundice. Stand in it on a daily basis, it will fight your depression.
But wait, can't it also give you skin cancer? Yes, it can, because within a God is also the power to destroy. Although most people are not harmed by an appropriate amount of sunlight. Quite the contrary, they are given life. Perfection is not needed in order to understand that the Sun gives far more benefits than disadvantages.
It's no wonder that, for countless time periods, the Sun was worshiped across cultures as a God, because it is. Some historians and scholars still argue to this day that even Jesus is a sun god. But that is neither here nor there in this particular post.
Unlike the ancient Greeks, we today know that our Sun is not the only one out there. I suppose it's certainly possible that some Greek thinkers and scientists could have theorized such a reality as well, but not that there are 200 billion galaxies, and those are probably just the ones that we know of.
There are, in fact, suns out there all over, some far larger than our own. So if I were on another planet far outside the Milky Way, and there was a bright and wonderful Sun overhead like, or similar to, the one back home, what would I call it? The answer is still Helios.
Why? Because the power of Helios, like the power of all Gods, is not caged into a single body. That's why many of the myths show the Gods changing forms, and even changing the forms of the universe around them, at their whim.
And for that matter, how do we know that every Sun isn't Helios? What if they are all His body or part of it?
Helios, at least in part, is a universal consciousness. For humans, the mysteries of the Gods dictate that we will never have perfect knowledge or even understanding of all things. Like I commonly tell people; I cannot tell you everything about the Greek Gods, but what I can tell you for certain is that they are real, because they've saved my family more than once.
Pick a nice summer sunset to sit and just look at Helios out there on the horizon, and think about the fact that the same Sun looked upon the dinosaurs, has watched over your entire life, and presided over all Eras and Ages in-between. And that's just the mystery and eternity of one of the Divinities.
In the Goodness of the Gods,
I'll see you at the next Herm down the road,
Chris Aldridge.