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In this episode, Joel and Antonia continue a short series talking about the goddess archetypes that show up for some people. This episode details the alchemical goddess in everywoman.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Animas and Anima – Feminine and Masculine Archetypes
- Goddesses in Everywoman by Jean Bolen
- Gods in Everyman by Jean Bolen
- Episode on Vulnerable Goddesses
- Episode on virgin goddesses
- Alchemical Goddess
- Aphrodite – goddess of love and beauty
- She does what she wants to do
- Self-directed. Independent.
- Sensual Goddess
- She has qualities of both of the other Goddess categories without the downsides – that’s why she is called the Alchemical Goddess
- She’s a lover of laughter
- Daughter of Zeus
- Birth of Venus – rising from the sea
- Two different etymologies
- Unlike the vulnerable goddesses who didn’t get a choice in their companions, Aphrodite had options.
- She chose Hephaestus – the rejected son of Hera.
- She had a lot of affairs, but her partnership with Hephaestus is thought to have brought about the birth of art
- She also had a lot of affairs with mortals.
- She could be quite harsh with mortals if they didn’t give the worship she thought she deserved or compared her beauty to others.
- She could also push mortals further than they thought they could go and thereby became a catalyst for growth.
- As an archetype, she shows up when we fall in love.
- Some women who are Aphrodite archetypes fall in love frequently.
- Aphrodite women can also be quite charming themselves.
- Enneagram sexual subtype is very Aphrodite-like
- The challenge with this archetype is she has not always been welcome as a feminine example – slut shaming or cultures that inhibit the free expression of sexuality
- She is the part of us that awakens during orgasm
- Trans-personal organism – both partners find fulfillment
- It can also be the consummation of 2 inspired ideas
- To give and to take – alchemical – awakened and giving
- Creative work is passionate, ignited, intense, inspired.
- Jim Carrey: “I feel sorry for anybody in a relationship with me when I am making love to one of my ideas.”
- Firefly Inara character was an Aphrodite/Hestia character
- Oprah has a lot of Aphrodite character. She inspires us to fall in love with ourselves and others. She also has some Athena aspects
- Love has its dark side
- Aphrodite removes the concept of guilt and judgment from people for enjoying themselves.
- She is open. She doesn’t care what people do
- She comes from a place of abundance
- Love is abundant
- Aphrodite gives people a charming quality that attracts others
- Developing Aphrodite for other archetypes will mean greater openness and charisma
- For an Aphrodite woman to stay in a long-term committed relationship, she will need to develop some Hera aspects
- Demeter to nurture children
- Inconsistent reward creates addiction in children.
- So Aphrodites have to watch for the tendency to give inconsistent attention to their children
- Aphrodite energy is extremely threatening to most people. Especially in certain religious circles.
- Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Scarlet “A”: stood for Adulteress but it may as well have stood for Aphrodite
- Cleopatra
- Aphrodite can be threatening to Hera archetypes
- Aphrodite tends to be very in the moment, so she needs to recognize the consequences to her actions.
- Develop some longevity in her thinking
- Other people don’t get over things as quickly as an Aphrodite type
- Psyche’s four tasks are excellent ways for all women to develop:
- Sorting seeds: when a woman must make a crucial decision she must sort out a jumble of conflicting emotions and info. A woman must look honestly within and sift through what is truly important and what is insignificant.
- Acquiring golden fleece: represents the power which a woman needs to acquire without being destroyed. She does better by observing, waiting, and gradually obtaining power indirectly. Gain strength and retain compassion.
- Filling the crystal flax from the circular flow of lifestream: it is essential for Aphrodite women to get some emotional distance from her relationships and see overall patterns and details.
- Aphrodite is the least common archetype that women are allowed to express
- Her power can be intimidating
- Learning to say no: Virgin Goddess women don’t struggle with the concept of saying no in the face of hardship. The vulnerable Goddesses struggle with saying no. Hera and Aphrodite are somewhere in-between. Until a woman can learn to say no to her particular susceptibility she cannot determine her life course.
- All of us are wired or nurtured into specific styles of thinking
- None are better or worse than any others
- Try developing the good aspects of your prominent archetype while you balance it out with other archetype aspects
- Clare from House of Cards is Aphrodite and Hera
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Podcast - Episode 0234 - Goddesses In Everywoman — The Vulnerable Goddess Archetypes
Podcast - Episode 0236 - Gods In Everyman — The Father God Archetypes
13 comments
I’ve been listening to these over the past few days and I want to know if these archetypes would be tied into the types included with zodiac, where the gods and goddesses are linked to each zodiac. Would that have an influence on what types people are drawn to?
I think Aphrodite’s energy can come out as sexuality but it doesn’t have to in the same way how your Myers Briggs type can appear in a certain manner but type simply indicates the way your brain is wired and not how you behave. But as Aphrodite reigns over love, that seductiveness may come naturally to most people with the Aphrodite energy.
I think my mother is also an Artemis/Demeter and I agree with what you say on your relationship with your mother. That Demeter energy can come with certain expectations and I can see how it shocks her when any one of my siblings break that expectations of hers, even if they weren’t really accurate in the first place. That causes some tension with some of us in our teenage years, with me when I’m starting to learn more about how I feel about things and where my values stand (I am an ENFP) and with my immediate sister when she decides to take charge in some ways that I think my mother felt like she overstepped her bounds (my sister being an INTJ, and I believe, an Athena/Artemis). It’s interesting that my other sister is passing through her teenage years without almost no big tension although my mother sometimes seem to treat her as an early teen/tween than a seventeen year old. I think she has a more Persephone/Hestia character with some notable Artemis traits.
Since you mentioned Molly, I believe Hermoine is a very interesting mix of Athena and Artemis. On one hand, she is the thinker of the trio, the strategist and most industrious but she has very, very strong need to protect those whom she feels are vulnerable, and when she is harnessing that energy, she seems to lose her strategic touch and does things which seems ineffective (like refusing to eat at school because they were prepared by the house elves). As she grows though, I believe we can see how those two energies balance each other out.
Hi Antonia and Joel!
This series had been very interesting to listen to. I have been thinking about how I have given out my energy and while I can’t really tell which is my strongest overall archetype throughout the years but I can see the different ones that dominate at a particular period of my life.
As a girl , I remember having the idea of Athena’s energy to be the ideal female archetype. I was too young to be consciously politically minded but I was rather into feminism, not in the sense that women should be equal to men but rather, superior to them. Thus, I was very into ‘tough activities’ and being able to compete with boys in physical endeavours however, I believe this wasn’t my natural energy shining as while I tried to be. I don’t naturally think strategically and I wore my emotions on my sleeves, so to speak. While I looked down on the ‘weaker girls’, I still associated myself with other fellow girls and rarely shied away from standing up for them or with them.
I think I was more of an Aphrodite in truth but it’s a little hard to see as I was brought up in an Abrahamic faith (and I still believe in my faith as the objective truth) so I didn’t have the inclination towards seduction. Almost everything else, however does ring true. I was passionate in everything I willingly chose to do (and I didn’t do much that I didn’t want to) from learning new things at school, playing at the playground and even when I was praying to God. In friendship, I looked for people who were exciting to be around with so there were times when I unconsciously ignored a previously close friend because someone else had more exciting things to offer but I treasured every one of the relationships I had and mourned over the ones I accidentally harmed or destroyed.
Aphrodite’s energy started to lose their dominance in my early teens, I believe around the time when my Fi was awakening and I did a lot of introspection (I identify as an ENFP). Part of what I worked on during my self exploration was to be more conscious of the choices I make so that they were true to my beliefs. I think, in an attempt to tame that wild Aphrodite nature (one of the things I was actively trying to deal with at that time was my temper, which could get violent), I accidentally slipped into Persephone’s young girl energy and attempted to mould myself into what is considered acceptable, not technically by the society but by those in my social circles through my own moral values. So I wasn’t bothered if they see me as a klutz as I didn’t see that as a negative trait but I was trying to teach myself tolerance but instead I became emotionally dependant. I’m still trying to work my way out of a place of extended adolescence and hopefully I’ll move on from this ‘young Persephone’ stage.
In nurturing the vulnerable, I also have some Artemis and Hestia energy. A few years ago, my ailing grandparents moved in with us and I was their primary caretaker and that gave me such a good feeling that during the times I spent with them, I could slip out of the ‘victim Persephone energy’ and be more of a Hestia. My Artemis energy comes up less often but I was fiercely protective of them if I feel (at times incorrectly) that others are taking advantage of them. I see these energy coming up in my relationship with my cats too.
If I have to guess, my overall dominant energy is Aphrodite with Hestia coming up close but my unhealthier habits tend to come from young Persephone. It’s interesting to see how I tend to balance the Aphrodite energy with Hestia’s. When I get overly anxious, I find that a few housework works wonders. Something physically exerting yet doesn’t require a lot of mental energy like hand washing clothes or gardening. While my Aphrodite tends to go head over heels to chase the next big thing, Hestia would hold me back, not in a dependant way of Persephone’s but in a calmer, quieter ’let’s just take a step back and do some cleaning while we think over this matter’ kind of way.
I am grateful to you both for your deep insights that you add to these energieis. Like all your work – intense – bouncing off of one another. Really Cool. Thanks alot for this!
I’m excited to hear about the masculine archetypes. However having listened to the last three episodes I identify significantly with the Aphrodite archétype as presented in the podcast. I’m an ENTP who grew up in a very strict religious house where sexuality was minimized if not entirely denied. Discovering my penchant for connecting with others intimately, briefly, and positively has been eye opening in my thirties. It is a hard road to pursue and I find not well accepted by anyone but other Aphrodite, whom I have always gravitated towards in my teens and 20s.