Category: Aphrodite

Discussion of my recent Beltane post…

On By PaxIn Aphrodite, Bouncing off the Gods, Dionysus, everyday, Food for Thought, Harm None, Highest Ideals, Modern Pagan, My Florida Sabbats, Pagan Ponderings, Pax's Beliefs, Reinventing the Wheel2 Comments

So the ever fabulous Tracy the Red posted a reply to my recent Beltaine related post.   I should like to share it and my reply, with you my dear readers and encourage more discussion on this, here, and on the Pagan Community Builders list, and elsewhere in the community.

Anyway Tracie posted this to my comments section…

“Be careful there, darlin’ because Beltane is a festival that is directed at the Celtic fire God Bel and Aphrodite is Greek. She has Her own holy tides and we all know how stroppy She can get if She doesn’t receive Her proper worship. Beltane also doesn’t involve Maypoles either; that’s May Day. Maypoles are something Germanic peoples are into, even to this day. May Day itself is a day sacred to Freyja and is a lot more “Samhain-esque” than most would realize.

Wouldn’t mixing and matching deities and festivals fall under “cultural misappropriation?””

Well, I’ve written a small bit about cultural misappropriation recently, and also had a bit of a chat on the topic with Tracie the other day (pray for her air-conditioning unit folks!), so the topic is hovering about and well worth bringing up.  It is also an issue I have started to seriously wrestle with as both a Neo-Pagan Witch and a budding Hellenic Polytheist.

I have re-read the article, and I can see where, as a result of some inspecifics in my writing of it, I did commit some cultural misappropriation… or an least provide opportunity for it to flourish.

I would say there are two areas where I could have written things out better.

1. I did not write clearly enough about which Beltaine I was writing about.

Beltaine/May Day/Walpurgisnacht are three inter-related festivals that have some very different meanings for different branches of our Pagan movement.  I tried to speak to this within the post

“Especially this time of year.  Beltane, or May Day, is the time of year when many of us modern Pagans celebrate fertility and passion and joy and love and lust.”

Note the use of the word “many”… not “all”; but I should have been more detailed.

To a Celtic Reconstructionist, it is the fire festival celebrating the beginning of Summer and a festival for Bel.

To Heathens it may be a festival of Spring, and a time to honor Nerthus and Njord.  (for some Kindreds anyways….)

(And in both of the above examples different groups and individuals will have different observances, and ways of relating to and honoring the holiday.)

For the Hellenic Recons and well Beltaine really has little to do with the directly reconstructionist path.  Some have already celebrated Anthestreria.  (more on this Dionysian festival later)

Then of course for the Neo-Pagan and Witch and Wiccan communities the Beltaine Sabbat takes elements of  all of the above with a heavier focus on the light-hearted fertility and spring and a little less on the Samhaineque elements.

(by the by Tracie I am officially filing the serial numbers off of ‘Samhainesque” and going to be slipping it into as much everyday conversation as is possible)

It was this last iteration of Beltaine, one of the more widely celebrated ones (currently) in the Pagan movement, that I was speaking to in my recent article.

2. I did not explain a few things about my Hellenic Polytheism

See even though I am a self-described Hellenic Polytheist, and I am currently researching and involving myself in some Hellenic and Greco-Egyptian Recon subjects/groups… I am not a hard core recon… at least not yet, I am more than willing to concede that my thoughts and feelings on this issue may change and evolve, but here is where I am at the moment.

~I am drawn to the worship of the Immortal Gods, the Olympians, the Cthonic Dieties and a number of others from the Hellenic Pantheon, most especially Dionysus and Hecate with some burgeoning relationships with Antinous, Aprhodite, and Pan.  I make offerings of incense and pour libations of water and, as I am able, wine to Them whilst reciting from the homeric and orphic hymns and sometimes my own poetry striving to do Them justice and honor.

~ It is my heartfelt belief that the Gods are real are many and have always been with us, to paraphrase Plethon.  They didn’t go up onto some shelf at some point in History.  Thus they are as much a part of the modern world as say cell phones or Valentines Day.

~ At the moment I am welcoming the Gods into my life in the Modern world… Honoring Aphrodite at Valentines for example… and Dionysus during the two Florida Wine Harvests  (June and August).  I am looking at some of the Recon calendars… but my thing is I am not living in Ancient Alexandria or Athens… I am living in Davenport, Florida USA.   The agricultural and spiritual rythms, the rhythms of the natural world around me, are very different than those in the lands where the Theoi were first honored.

~This also relates to a similar difficulty I have had with the Neo-Pagan Wheel of the year since moving to Florida.  What does Beltane really mean in a land where fertility is never in question and Winter Solstice and Imbolc are the Citrus and Strawberry Harvests respectively?

So those are some of the issues I am trying to sort out for myself right now, and part of why I wrote of Aphrodite in association with Beltane.  I was not trying to claim that Beltaine is a festival of Aphrodite, more that Beltaine celebrates things that are a part of Aphrodite’s concerns…

I send my apologies to Aphrodite, Bel, any hardcore Recons reading the blog for any offense the piece may have caused.

Though, in the end, I must also stand by the posts core message of honoring fertility and sex and sensuality, honoring the Goddesses and Gods related to those things, and honoring ourselves through responsible behavior.

Peace,

Pax

_PS_ this may seem like a silly post to some, but if I am going to speak about how words and language has power I need to be very conscious of how I use them.  Also, if I am going to kvetch to people about a local Pagan groups “Native American” Pipe Cermony (which doesn’t actually involve ANY native americans nor any sort of sanction approval from the Lakota people whose ceremony they are stealing)…. well, if I am going to complain about such things I need to keep my own spiritual house clean!!

Honoring Aphrodite, and Beltane, and Ourselves

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Aphrodite, Beltaine, everyday, Love Unto All Beings, Modern Pagan, Prayer6 Comments

Beltane-tide Prayer 2009

I dedicate this prayer and post

To You oh Illustrious Lady,

Golden, Sea-Born, Cyprian,

Night and Laughter Loving Queen,

As we wind our way towards Beltane,

Open the peoples eyes and inform their minds,

To dangers both known and unseen

~Pax

I have yet to make it to a festival myself, I don’t have anyone I know real well to share camp with and now that issues of time and money are waning  I am hesitant to throw myself into this aspect of the Pagan community without finding a festival buddy first.  Silly, I know, but its how I feel.

As we wind our way towards Beltane I am reminded, by stories from one of my dearest Pagan friends of just how festive some of the festivals out there can be!

Especially this time of year.  Beltane, or May Day, is the time of year when many of us modern Pagans celebrate fertility and passion and joy and love and lust.  In theory it’s all about the fertility of the land and a time when many Witches and Pagans celebrate the sexual union of their Goddess and God  bringing life back into the world.  In practice there are event’s and festivals that feature that symbolism and often a dancing of the May Pole, and a lot of flirting games and sometimes a lot more than just flirting as folks very actively celebrate fertility.

For me, as a Witch who is also a budding Hellenic Polytheist, Beltane seems like the natural time to honor Aphrodite.

Aphrodite is the Goddess of Love and Beauty, of Procreation and Fornication, of Desire and Flirtation: She is Fairest of the Gods of Marriage, She whose wrath can strike men impotent, She who bestows Beauty and Grace, Lady of Pleasure and Merriment; She Who with Erato and Apollon presides over Love Poetry and Song, Lady of the Morning Star, Protectoress of the Homeland, and Goddess of Peace.

I’ve written a few things about Her before,  prayers of my own, and the Orphic Hymn to Aphrodite, and a little post wherein I suggested we modern Pagans should celebrate and honor Her in our Circles and at Beltane.

Now I could wait and hold a solitary ritual with an altar of images of Aphrodite, and with flowers and sweet candies for Her.  I could, and possibly shall, read the Orphic Hymn to Her and some more prayers of my own to Her, and pour  libations of wine and water and honey.

In the last day or so, however, I feel compelled to say some things about sex and sexuality how we Pagans honor Beltane.

Now, sex is wonderful and beautiful and sacred, as is wine, and music.  So too is Love, in all it’s forms from friendship to blazing passion to deathless romance, so too is Trust; and so too are every atom and cell of our bodies.  At least that last part is a part of the party line for a lot of Pagans out there; some of the stories I hear from friends about the festival circuit are beginign to make me wonder though.

If every atom and cell of our bodies partake of the Divines, then don’t we owe it to Them and to ourselves to be a little careful with our cells and atoms?  If our community is so fabulously free of psychological hang ups, so open, so sex-positive; if sex is sacred how come you never see an HIV testing tent at a community Beltaine event?

Since personal responsibility is such an integral part of being Pagan, why don’t we talk more at this time of year about reproductive health and about birth control and about family planning?  Why don’t we see Beltane (or even Imbolc) health fares in our Pagan communities?

I find myself wondering how many people in our community realize that one of the big reasons that a lot of open rituals will pass out dixie cups for sharing or wine or mead at the appropriate time in the ritual is because sharing a drinking vessel can spread oral herpes?

How many of you knew that oral herpes is present in 50 to 80 percent of the U.S. population?

When I read that roughly 1 million people in the U.S. have HIV; and 1 out of every 5 of them has no idea that they are infected!  When I hear that someone in the United States is infected with HIV every 9 minutes and 30 seconds…

I cannot help but wonder what Aphrodite, what any of the Goddesses of Love and Beauty, must think of these sad simple facts?  Are we truly celebrating fertility and honoring the full spirit of the season if we don’t think about our actions?

Nor is HIV the only potentially lethal STD that you need to worry about.  To paraphrase Henny Youngman…

Take my Hepatitis B.  Please!

I have no idea where or when I got Hepatitis B, I learned about it long after that fact when I was taking a routine HIV test.

Luckily enough (if you can say that about a life-changing illness) my body fought off the infection.  This means that while Hep-B is present in my blood, I am not actively contagious and cannot transmit it to my Partner through casual contact or even sexual activity.  It is still in my blood though, and I am at risk for liver problems later in life.

I find myself wondering how many in the Pagan community may face a medical time bomb and not even know it?

We are responsible for our actions and choices. The gods have granted us this gift of intellect and will, and Will, so use it wisely!  Honor the Goddesses and Gods of your path, especially those of Love and Beauty and even Lust; but seek to do so in wisdom and honor.  Inform and educate yourself and make choices grounded in your head and heart, not your hormones, this Beltane season!

~~~A Few (unconventional) Beltane Resources~~~

CDC information on STD’s

CDC general STD information and curriculum tools

An STD information page from the University of Maryland

Coalition for Positive Sexuality ~ A free-online Sex education resource, including information on STD’s and Birth Control.

A Safer Sex information website from William’s College

National HIV and STD Testing Resources (US)

Awakening Aphrodite… a fragment…

On By PaxIn Aphrodite, Carry Water, Chop Wood, Creativity, Imbolc, Imbolc Poetry BloggingLeave a comment

So in addition to working and pre-writing and thinking about a book or piece on the 8 virtues of Witchcraft I have been toying for months with a writing fragment and story idea… here  in the spirit of Imbolc’s creativity and of modern February’s spirit of love is a story fragment…

Awakening Aphrodite

By Geoffrey Stewart (c) 2008

“There were sounds, floating out over the oceans waves. Sounds of songs and laughter and drums and bells and sistrum’s and many other instruments; their joyous noise intermingling with the throbbing surf as the moonlight glittered upon the surface of the waves. Within the ocean the tidal ebb and flow would have seemed to be keeping a rhythm with the music, had anyone been there to see its dance. In the depths of the ocean something stirred, sensuously and slowly. A ripple of seaweed and a curve of wave-borne driftwood, a shimmer of sea-shells, rich sediment and glittering particles of sand, all pulsing in tune with the ebb and flow of the oceans rhythms, and those of the singers on the shore.

Nature’s most powerful forces sometimes take their own time, however, so the full moon was much lower in the Western sky when things really began to happen. No one was there to observe the first miracle, at least none who could fully understand its meaning.

Her footsteps, quickly disappearing in the oceans tides upon the seabed led from the place of Her awakening towards the shore. She strode beautiful and powerful and primal through the waters and as She neared the surface She rose Her lithe arms up and with Her fingertips parted the waves and, catching hold of them, pulled Herself up into the air to stride atop the oceanic waves for the last several yards to the shore. She sighed deeply, deeply drinking in the night air, the scent of the sea, smoke from a smoldering bed of driftwood coals on the shore, and hints of delightful if foreign flowers greeted her. She lifted Her eyes, which had been contemplating the ripples of the water beneath Her feet, and smiled up at the night sky.

The stars redoubled their twinkling in joyous response to Her. Sea birds cried welcome, and swans swam forward to do Her honor. The sea creatures who had given Her an honor guard fell away, except for the dolphins who chose to linger at the edge of the two worlds of air and sea. She smiled and shook some of the water out of Her golden hair.

As Her feet touched the shore there was a subtle stirring as the sea grass and scrub on the dunes rippled as if in a wind, as this sensuous tickle made it’s way inexorably from sea to shining sea as the natural world shivered, oh so slightly, at Her touch. People then abed rolled over in their sleep, smiling to themselves as their dreaming minds turned to thoughts of love and peace and beauty. Those who were awake at this limnal time between the latest of the night and the earliest of the morning sighed, and smiled, and felt a momentary yet encompassing sense of joy and inspiration. Lovers asleep abed snuggled close to one another, and those not asleep, well, they kissed and felt a moment of transformative love and life changing awareness and sensuality, and then they more than kissed.

Musicians played and children smiled and laughed, even in their sleep, and every dove and pigeon cooed and took flight.

She walked along the shore, delighting in the sensual ebb and flow of the water over Her feet and the sand. She came to a stop at a spot where a burnt out driftwood camp fire lay, out of reach of the high-tide erasing. Here they had gathered, She knew. Here they had sung Her ancient songs in a modern foreign tongue, not that it was a bad language, it had its rhythms and possibilities but it was not Greek. Drums with little cymbals, and sistrums, and wooden …flutes…no… recorders… they were called recorders…. These and those strange boxes that played the music… how sad that people should have to rely on those rather than being able to at the very least pound out a rhythm or pipe out a tune… at least some of them had the dance. She was glad of that… there was always the dance. She smiled to herself at that and birds across the continent stirred and burst into flight and into song.

She stretches Her lithe, strong, arms out over the ocean and begins to make a beckoning motion with Her hands. Slowly, against the direction of the wind, from over the waves the smoke that had been born from the fire traced its way back over the waves and began to gather itself back into the blackened driftwood. The burnt out grey coals began to rekindle and the fire began to burn backwards into itself as driftwood and bits of incense began to reform themselves in the flames.

She smiled as the pleasing scents of the incense drifted by Her on their way back towards the fire to rebuild themselves into flowers and chunks of resin.“

Timing and Focus…

On By PaxIn Aphrodite, Blame Sannion, everyday, Love Unto All BeingsLeave a comment

are important to any endeavor… sadly I am lacking in both right now…. I am reading the blogs and listening to Pagan Radio Network and the Podcasts and thinking and feeling and sorting thoughts and feelings…

Bad and Good… lows and highs on an emotional and activity level roller coaster that is my life recently.  Been hanging out and having fun with Canita and Jolly (not their real names) another gay couple that the Big Guy knows from having dated and then become friends with Canita years ago… They had a delighful Valentines dinner at their place.

I’d love to be writing something insightful or at least thought out about any one of a dozen topics I have been planning on ranting on… celebrating Aphrodite this time of hear among them, thankfully Beth Owls Daughter over at Owl’s Wings wrote about the Golden Glorious Gluteused One recently…but I can’t seem to focus on those quite yet… I do feel like I am close to getting back in order though so that’s a blessing.

I have one new project that is near to completion… then I will be sharing and crowing about it….
I am also being drawn back into my study of the 8 Virtues of Witchcraft… as listed in the Charge?  I am working on/through them and writing for myself… perhaps someday to share with the world but I think it is one way I can start stretching my wings.

I have been watering the hibiscus we planted over Tiger’s burial place.  We set it up as a sort of memorial and to protect his remains from disturbance, leading to my partner’s occassionally surreal question…

“Did you water the cat today?”

… it is strange, now I have an unsought for especial spot to pour libations for the Honored and Beloved Dead.  Perhaps once we have made sure the Hibiscus is thriving I could place some charms or items there in memory of some of my other Honored’s and Beloved’s…

Hibiscus is used magically for its powers of divination and lust and love; and is associated with the element of water.  None of which is why we chose it for Tiger’s memorial planting.

Our first house together in Florida, house as opposed to apartment, had Hibiscus plants growing in front of some of the windows… providing a soothing green and ever flowering privacy and sun screen to our front windows.  It is an effect I liked and will replicate eventually in my homes in the future.  Hibiscus is thus my favorite flowering tropical yardscape plant although I will admit I am rather liking the idea of it as a memorial plant too given its Love and Divination associations!

More Later!!

Peace,

Pax

Everything is Magic!!! Everything is Holy!!!

On By PaxIn Aphrodite, Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Food for Thought, magick, Pax's BeliefsLeave a comment

…or magick, if you prefer.

I am writing this as a reaction to Hecate’s post regarding some comments she’s gotten on the fabulous Calendar post of hers.  There is also a fantastic Elemental Castings podcast where T. Thorne Coyle interviews Jason Pitz-Waters… that touches on this and is inspiring me to rant.

While this may not help make my rantings any clearer at the very least it provides the careful reader with something resembling context.

It works like this, at least for me it does…

“If you harm none, do what you Will.”

Note the capital ‘W’, it’s important.  It relates to the concept of True Will, which while not intimately or commonly associated with Witchcraft, is one worth looking at.  Especially since whoever introduced The Rede ™  into modern Witchcraft probably had seen some mention of it in Crowley’s works or had read up on Thelema…

“It is defined at times as a person’s grand destiny in life and at other times as a moment to moment path of action that operates in perfect harmony with Nature. This Will does not spring from conscious intent, but from the interplay between the deepest Self and the entire Universe.” ~ from the Wikipedia entry on True Will (accessed 10:17pm 12/30/3008)

As a modern Witch, whatever your Tradition, you have to deal with The Rede, either as a requirement of your practice, or as an outside Not-so-bad-idea but nowhere near the core of your practice ~ that is automatically associated by others with what you do.  The thing is that this idea of True Will becomes important when your Circles and prayers and invocations start to align you with the Universe.

Not that this is to be seen as a process that ends.  We, like the Universe, are in a state of change, growth, evolution.  Unfolding like a thousand-fold lotus of enlightenment on the waters of intuition.

So we chase after this True Will, this Higher Self.  We practice and study magic, or magick…

“What is a Magical Operation? It may be defined as any event in nature which is brought to pass by Will. We must not exclude potato-growing or banking from our definition.” ~ A.C. or” Evil Uncle Al” in  Magic in Theory and Practice

So anything we do, from the most ornate and moving of rituals, to the simplest of every day tasks are magick… if we let them be so, magick and holy.

Holy, because just as we and the Universe are constantly growing and changing, so to are the Gods.  Mercury is the God of Bike Messengers, Fax Machines, and Cell Phones.  Freya and Aphrodite are rocking the house in clubs across this planet!

Holy because the divine is everywhere and the Gods are a part of every atom and cell of creation.  Some Deities are more…fully present?…accurately reflected?… not quite sure how to say this but by an example.

Aphrodite, for example, is present in all the world.  But where there is love, and passion, and beauty She is more fully present or more accurately reflected there.  That part of Her which is a part of all Creation is more …there in those moments and things which reflect Her essential nature.

Every atom, every cell, all of Creation is holy and sacred and of the Gods, if we let it be so!

… I’m ranting. again… as I reread this I think this is one of those spiritual things that makes perfect sense to me at this stage of my growth, but is, just out of reach of explainability unless you’re right there with the person you are trying to explain it too.

I remember when my dear friend PK  (the ceremonial Magickian, Chef, and Great Geek Bear of the Moutain) had tried, as part of my request to help me learn the more ceremonial / formal Magickal side of things, to explain some of the above to me…

PK~”Any act is a magickal act, picking up a glass of water and moving from one table to the next, is a magickal act…”

Pax~(blink, blink) “uhm, ok, but that doesn’t sound very magickal?!?    So what was that book of essays by Regardie again, and is his writing any easier to slog through than Fortunes???”

I’m either growing, or falling off my rocker, at least life isn’t dull!

Peace and a Happy New Years!

Pax

A prayer to Aphrodite

On By PaxIn Aphrodite, Imbolc Poetry Blogging, Prayer1 Comment

Sweet Seaborn Lady Arising
I call upon you, oh Laughter Loving Queen
In this season where we turn our thoughts to Love and Loving
I call upon you, oh Mother of the Loves,
Golden Goddess of Peace hear me.

I ask that You bless the leaders of my Nation,
oh Protectoress of the homelands,
Grant them wisdom, and loving hearts.
Let them see the soldiers of our country
as Children, and Spouses, and Parents.
Let each of them shine in the minds and hearts of our leaders
Like stars in the heavens
Like the rare and treasured jewels they are to those that love them.
Let the illuminating light of love fill the minds eyes and hearts
of the Leaders and the People of my nation.
Of all nations.

Orphic Hymn to Aphrodite

On By PaxIn Aphrodite, Imbolc Poetry Blogging1 Comment

from the Translation by Thomas Taylor at Theoi(dot)com

“To Aphrodite. Heavenly, illustrious, laughter-loving queen, sea-born, night-loving, of awful mien; crafty, from whom Necessity first came, producing, nightly, all-connecting dame. ‘Tis thine the world with harmony to join, for all things spring from thee, O power divine. The triple Fates are ruled by thy decree, and all productions yield alike to thee: whatever the heavens, encircling all, contain, earth fruit-producing, and the stormy main, thy sway confesses, and obeys thy nod, awful attendant of Dionysos. Goddess of marriage, charming to the sight, mother of the Loves, whom banquetings delight; source of Persuasion, secret, favouring queen, illustrious born, apparent and unseen; spousal Lukaina, and to men inclined, prolific, most-desired, life-giving, kind. Great sceptre-bearer of the Gods, ‘tis thine mortals in necessary bands to join; and every tribe of savage monsters dire in magic chains to bind through mad desire. Come, Cyprus-Born, and to my prayer incline, whether exalted in the heavens you shine, or pleased in odorous Syria to preside, or over the Egyptian plains thy care to guide, fashioned of gold; and near its sacred flood, fertile and famed, to fix thy blest abode; or if rejoicing in the azure shores, near where the sea with foaming billows roars, the circling choirs of mortals thy delight, or beauteous Nymphai with eyes cerulean bright, pleased by the sandy banks renowned of old, to drive thy rapid two-yoked car of gold; or if in Kypros thy famed mother fair, where Nymphai unmarried praise thee every year, the loveliest Nymphai, who in the chorus join, Adonis pure to sing, and thee divine. Come, all-attractive, to my prayer inclined, for thee I call, with holy, reverent mind.”

Synchronicity and Aphrodite: or a few random musings

On By PaxIn Aphrodite, Creativity, Pagan Ponderings1 Comment

Today’s word is Synchronicity!

Synchronicity ~ “the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung” Merriam Webster online http://www.m-w.com/

I was contemplating Aphrodite, and other Goddesses of Love, both real and imagined, yesterday on my way home. As is my habit when I got home, I started checking the many blogs that I try to read regularly.

“Hi, my name is Pax and I am a Blogaholic.”

Anyway, one of the blogs I check up on is At The End Of Desire by Inanna, and this particular week she had a post up about the Temple at Aphrodisias

My train of thought on Aphrodite and Love Goddesses started out from the station of our societies attitude towards Happiness and Joy. I remember one day during my Psychology Class our professor had brought in a Tai Chi Fundementals DVD for us to watch a part of as part of the discussion of Stress and healthy ways of dealing with it. The Host/Instructor of this DVD, Lawrence Biscontini, comes across as an especially happy/cheerful/joyful person in his delivery. Within a few moments of his starting to speak there was some tittering laughter from the class…

It seems like in our society (U.S. North American) there is an attitude of pessimism and suspicion towards anyone who expresses a sense of Joy. In my own everyday experiences it seems like when I try to express my own Cheerful and Positive nature I am viewed as somehow simple or silly. I think it’s a sad comment on our society, especially when you consider that Anti-Depressants are one of the most prescribed medications in the U.S.!

My Train of Thought then turned along the familiar path of how our society views Aphrodite in particular and Goddesses of Love in general… us Geek Pagans sometimes think about these things ya know!

See, I am an old school, non-techie, Geek. I play Role Playing Games (Dungeons and Dragons, folks, not Dungeons and Daddies~ although the later can be great fun too!), I am a History and Sociology freak, and I have a great memory and am a voracious reader. I am also a Sci-Fi and Fantasy freak…

I remember in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys how shallow and flighty they tended to portray Aphrodite… and yes I know it was only a T.V. show and Aphrodite is hardly the only thing they got wrong, but it was their cavalier attitude towards portraying the Gods and Goddesses that left me cold towards this show and its spin-off Xena.

I remember in many of the fantasy RPG’s I’ve played, the Goddess of Love is portrayed as shallow, self-absorbed, and somewhat ditsy…

Now I realize there is some precedent in the Mythology for this image of Aphrodite… but I sometimes wonder if this attitude towards The Heavenly One isn’t symptomatic of our societies fear of or suspicion of Love, and Joy, and True Happiness?

Aphrodite is the Goddess of Love and Beauty, of Procreation and Fornication, of Desire and Flirtation: She is Fairest of the Gods of Marriage, the Goddess of Prostitution, She whose wrath can strike men impotent, She who bestows Beauty and Grace, Lady of Pleasure and Merriment; She Who with Erato and Apollon presides over Love Poetry and Song, Lady of the Morning Star, Protectoress of the Homeland, and Goddess of Peace.

The threads of Cynicism, and Self-Doubt, and the Abdication of Personal Responsibilities that are woven through our culture ~ especially our popular culture ~ sometimes seem like an pandemic. I find myself wondering if Aphrodite isn’t the cure?

Maybe we Pagans can start calling upon Her in our rites at Beltane or in the Month or Moons of February when modern minds turn to thoughts of Love… or in the Month of April when Her Festival of Aphrodisia was observed in the ancient days?

Or Perhaps we can call upon Her in our Pagan Pride observances as one of the Honored Ones?

Or maybe we should simply strive to remember Her in our secret hearts and sacred selves, and carry her influence out into the world with us each day.

Peace, and Love,

Pax

PS- to learn of the Lady Arising you can go here, or there, or even over here!