Sex and the Goddess: An Intimate Exploration of Woman’s Erotic Spirit and Sacred Sexual Power in Myth, Legend, Life, and History (Volume Two)

By Karin E Weiss Ph.D., PhD

It has been over twenty years since the full manuscript of my book was edited for publication in 1998. I had begun writing it in the previous decade, the 1980’s... a period of flourishing women’s liberation movements against the patriarchal status quo. Books about women’s sexuality and spirituality were flooding the bookstores, and many writers were producing profound studies of the untold heroism of women throughout history.
I was a pioneer in the burgeoning field of Sex therapy and education at the University of Minnesota Medical School’s “Program in Human Sexuality.” In addition, I conducted women’s self-enrichment groups and workshops in my private practice... “Woman’s Discovery Institute” ... where I also gave professional Astrology readings and classes.
This rich mix of psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and a knowledge of the cyclic patterns of life shown by astrology created within me an avid interest in researching women’s unsung heroism throughout history. It brewed in me a heady fascination to stitch it all together in a circle montage that connects all women and all aspects of our multi-layered lives. I based my theory on the lunar cycle, which is eternally linked to women’s menstrual, emotional, and psychic cycles. With a friend, I created a series of workshops for women to celebrate their many-faceted selves and gain confidence to pursue their goals.
Yet for various reasons my book manuscript remained in my own bookshelf, never getting published. Until now... the times again call for women to claim their autonomy and gain equality in an overly male-dominated and viciously callous world. I am blessed to find in Xlibris a publisher ready to take on the project with me.
I am thrilled to finally see my “Life’s Masterwork” in print. You will find many divergent ideas in these two volumes. No single woman encompasses all that are described, but as you read and recognize these characters in yourselves and your friends, I hope it will help you gain a full appreciation of your own awesome erotic spirit and sacred sexual powers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796074048

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Copyright © 2019 by Karin E Weiss, Ph.D.

ISBN:                  Hardcover                             978-1-7960-7406-2

                            Softcover                                978-1-7960-7405-5

                            eBook                                     978-1-7960-7404-8

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Rev. date: 11/22/2019

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FOREWORD TO 2019 TWO-VOLUME EDITION OF

SEX AND THE GODDESS by Karin E Weiss

PUBLISHED BY XLIBRIS

It has been over twenty years since the full manuscript of my book was edited for publication in 1998. I had begun writing it in the previous decade, the 1980’s… a period of flourishing women’s liberation movements against the patriarchal status quo. Books about women’s sexuality and spirituality were flooding the bookstores, and many writers were producing profound studies of the untold heroism of women throughout history.

I was a pioneer in the burgeoning field of Sex therapy and education at the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Program in Human Sexuality. In addition, I conducted women’s self-enrichment groups and workshops in my private practice… Woman’s Discovery Institute … where I also gave professional Astrology readings and classes.

This rich mix of psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and a knowledge of the cyclic patterns of life shown by astrology created within me an avid interest in researching women’s unsung heroism throughout history. It brewed in me a heady fascination to stitch it all together in a circle montage that connects all women and all aspects of our multi-layered lives. I based my theory on the lunar cycle, which is eternally linked to women’s menstrual, emotional, and psychic cycles. With a friend, I created a series of workshops for women to celebrate their many-faceted selves and gain confidence to pursue their goals.

Yet for various reasons my book manuscript remained in my own bookshelf, never getting published. Until now… the times again call for women to claim their autonomy and gain equality in an overly male-dominated and viciously callous world. I am blessed to find in Xlibris a publisher ready to take on the project with me.

I am thrilled to finally see my Life’s Masterwork in print. You will find many divergent ideas in these two volumes. No single woman encompasses all that are described, but as you read and recognize these characters in yourselves and your friends, I hope it will help you gain a full appreciation of your own awesome erotic spirit and sacred sexual powers.

~Karin E Weiss, Ph.D. October 2019

CONTENTS

THE LOVER ARCHETYPE

LOVER FIRST MASK

LOVER SECOND MASK

LOVER THIRD MASK

THE COMPANION ARCHETYPE

COMPANION FIRST MASK

COMPANION SECOND MASK

COMPANION THIRD MASK

THE WARRIOR ARCHETYPE

WARRIOR FIRST MASK

WARRIOR SECOND MASK

WARRIOR THIRD MASK

THE WISE WOMAN ARCHETYPE

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

GENERAL REFERENCES

PART FIVE

FULL MOON

THE LOVER ARCHETYPE

MAGNET OF OUR EROTIC ATTRACTIONS

THE FULL MOON stands for Lover

sparking attraction, igniting desire, enflaming affection, forging erotic attachment The blazing energy awakens us to open ourselves to the possibility of romantic love.

the Lover rules entrancing, enchanting, amorous eros.

Summer Solstice is her Holy Day with Midsummer Night’s romance.

1} THE BEAUTY QUEEN

Initiates and instructs us in adornment for our own pleasure, and in the use of our powers of attraction for soulful connection.

2} THE CHARMING SWEETHEART

Sustains our belief in future happiness as she helps us learn the difference between deep soul-felt love and simple infatuation.

3} THE VAMP

Releases us from unrealistic romantic expectations and helps us challenge the perpetrators of sexist tyranny.

AT FULL MOON I AM THE LOVER WITHIN YOU

MY BEAUTY SHINES IN YOUR EYES WHEN YOU ARE IN LOVE.

THROUGH YOUR BODY SENSATIONS I BRING YOU THRILLS OF EROS.

I LUST, I TEMPT, I SEDUCE.

I AM THE BEAUTY QUEEN ADMIRED AND ADORED FROM AFAR,

I AM THE CHARMING SWEETHEART HELD NEAR AND DEAR AND PURE.

AND I AM THE VAMP TEMPTRESS, TANTALIZINGLY WICKEDLY WANTON.

I AM THE SOURCE OF YOUR ROMANTIC DESIRE,

YOUR HUNGER FOR CONTACT WITH ANOTHER.

I AM REVERED AND FEARED AS THE EPITOME OF SEXUAL MAGNETISM.

WITHIN MY LOINS THROBS THE PULSE OF PHYSICAL ECSTASY.

WITHIN MY HEART THROBS THE PULSE OF ARDENT RAPTURE.

MY TEARS SHED THE PAIN OF LOST LOVES.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU DREAMED OF LOVE

AND AWAKENED IN THE RAPTURE OF AN IMAGINED EMBRACE?

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST CRUSH? YOUR FIRST KISS?

YOUR FIRST DATE?

I WAS THERE WITH YOU EACH TIME.

I AM REPRESENTED BY THE GREAT GLORIOUS BEAUTY

OF THE FULL MOON

AS SHE SCINTILLATES MAJESTIC ENCHANTMENT

AND ILLUMINATES THE NIGHT FOR ALL LOVERS.

SHE BRINGS FEMININE SEXUAL POWER TO ITS FULL BEAUTY,

IN HER EVOCATIVE, MAGNETIC FORM.

THE FULL MOON MARKS A TIME WHEN SEXUAL ENERGIES ARE AROUSED

IN HOWLING WOLVES AND LUNATICS OF ALL KINDS.

THUS MEN GROW WARY AND FEARFUL AT MY INTENSE MYSTERY

YET THEY CANNOT RESIST MY CHARMS.

THE LOVER ARCHETYPE IN OUR LIVES

The Lover is the part of us for whom the poems are composed and the songs are sung. Around her, the games are played, the rituals made, the battles fought and won or lost. Our inner Lover is the mystique of attraction, the object of desire. She holds our heart in her hands and thrums its beat at the center of our soul. Around her dance our hopes and dreams as around a great flaming bonfire. Her face reflects the blazing fullness of life, a beacon of ever-renewed desire, a flare of heart’s longing. Her metaphors are endless and older than time.

The Lover lives in perennial paradox. She’s ancient, yet ever young, ever new, ever freshly inspired. She’s radiant, yet the Lover is also a dark goddess. She ushers our soul onto paths of great pleasure, yet she wields powers of attraction, affection, and attachment that can prompt jealous possession or possessive pride. She shepherds us toward joyful union, yet she sometimes sets traps of false desire or forced longing in our heart’s path.

Her songs enthrall our soul and lure us into devilish trysts with decoy lovers. Her impish cupids lurk in shadows among the bowers of our love garden. The Lover harbors deception within the vanity of adoration, threatens oblivion within the promise of romance. Yet she is a magician who strengthens our hearts through an alchemy of suffering. In our agony of grieving love’s loss, she brings us to an ecstasy of hopeful reunion. In remembrance of past joy our flighty affections find roots.

In the end the goddess as Lover teaches us what many a poet has lamented. That romantic love thrives on tragedy.

Possibility and Paradox of Love

The archetypal goddess Lover rules the power of attraction that can sometimes lead to love, but she does not rule love itself.

What is first required in order for love to grow is an attraction between two individuals. Yet this magnetic energy is not itself love, but only the seed from which eventual love might blossom. The power of love in our lives is numinous, ineffable, supernal, metaphysical. Love encompasses the wholeness, the universality, the entire mystery of our being. Therefore love is elemental to every archetype, basic to each aspect of our humanness. But the force of attraction is a distinctive energy particular to the realms of desire. These are the realms ruled by the goddess as Lover.

The Lover goddess harbors profound paradox embedded in deep wisdom about love, sex, and intimacy. To wit: Love is not sex, it is a heartfelt spiritual connection. We can learn how to love by opening our hearts. Sex is not intimacy, it is an erotic energy connection. We can learn how to be good sexual partners by opening our bodies to all our physical senses. Intimacy is neither love nor sex, it is a connection of soulful sharing. We can learn how to be intimate by opening our minds.

But, while love is not sex, sex can be an expression of love. Likewise, while sex is not intimacy it is still one form of expressing intimacy. And sex, as a pleasure in its own right, performed with mutual honor and regard, can sometimes engender the rich respect that empowers true love.

A Dreaded Power Emerging

In artist’s portrayals the Lover is showered with valentine hearts and garlands of flowers, accompanied by winged cupids with golden bows and arrows. Yet the goddess as Lover is no pure innocent angel, no simple charming pretty lady all smiles and sweet murmurings. This archetype has awesome, terrible powers that are never to be toyed with or taken too lightly.

As an archetype of our human unconscious, the Lover was among the first feminine principles. And she, more than any other, has maintained her autonomous power in women’s lives despite man’s attempts to bind her.

Yet, women frequently struggle to claim the Lover within ourselves because, although her archetype remains powerful, her reputation has been sullied. She is viewed with scorn, made to appear evil by the sex-negative standards of right-wing propaganda.

Many women may recognize the Lover in ourselves as the power of attraction, the force of erotic love. Yet we deny her a place at our table. We hide her in the back rooms of our lives, bringing her out only in our fantasies or perhaps very occasionally in bed with special partners.

Male supremacists and conservative moralists have good reason to want to silence her, for the Lover is cheerfully unconcerned about marriage or fidelity. The Lover within Woman is naturally erotic, shamelessly lusty, blatantly seductive, and openly sexy. She is a fascinating dynamic force in all of us waiting to be welcomed into our lives.

And, despite all efforts to subdue her spirit, the Lover in Woman is leading a quiet revolution amongst us. She is helping women claim their erotic power even within the most conservative ranks. Women everywhere are working to admit romantic love into sedate, predictable, routine and rather humdrum lives and relationships.

Love is Where You Find It

Romantic love is probably different for every single one of us. Each person experiences love, feels loving and lovable in her own uniquely subjective way. No one else can tell you how you should experience love or romance. Love is where you find it, as the poets and song writers so aptly continue to say.

Some define falling in love as a revolutionary act that breaks old habits and changes our entire perspective on life. The fact that some romances are short lived, even fleeting, does not make them invalid. Endurance is not the ultimate test of a romantic relationship, for what lasts are the lessons learned and the beautiful memories that enhance our imagination ever after. Judging romantic love’s potential impermanence is like comparing a flower to its fruit. The fact that the flower fades and dies relatively quickly does not make it less real than the fruit or any less valuable to our experience.

Others define love as the ability to open themselves to another person’s spirit, seeing through the masks and roles of their lives to perceive divinity in one another. Love, for these people is a spiritual erotic connection in which both partners bring out the god or goddess in themselves and each other. They discover the Erotic Spirit and Lusty Soul of their own Sacred Sexuality through each other. For them the experience of erotic love penetrates their whole being to transform them, liberate them from a narrowly boxed existence. And, like a transcendent experience of divine revelation, this ecstatic romantic epiphany very likely passes with time. Yet an indelible impression remains etched upon their souls, an everlasting love.

Lost Meaning, Confused Expectations

Yet some believe we in the modern world have lost the ability to love deeply. Some say we’ve lost the capacity to experience deeply erotic love because the insistence on individual rights has created a population of narcissistic selfish people.¹ Some suggest that we’ve become too immersed in material pursuits to appreciate the subtleties of eros. We’re impatient to find immediate gratification. We’re too greedy to feed our sensual impulses to take time to explore the meandering pathways of romantic love. We confuse love with fleeting notions of happiness and physical or emotional satisfaction. We run from love when we encounter its heavier demands for responsibility, honesty, commitment.

But I don’t agree that we have lost the ability to love deeply, although I do believe we have become a bit confused about what love means in our lives. The paths of erotic love take many routes. We are sexually attracted to others in different ways and for different reasons. Sometimes we go for the agitation of stealing forbidden fruits; sometimes for the thrill of discovering and exploring unfamiliar territory; sometimes for the comfort of camping on familiar ground; sometimes for the adventure of uncovering hidden mysteries, unveiling secrets of the universe. And sometimes we arrive at romantic love by accident while we’re on the way to something else.

THE FULL MOON PHASE AND THE LOVER ARCHETYPE

In the heavens, at Full Moon, the sun and moon hover directly across from each other. Our two lights, the eyes of heaven, are balanced on opposite sides of the earth. As Earth floats between them, bathed in their magnetic glow, she responds with all her senses. Her waters rise and her mountains tremble stretching to touch the opposing powers of day and night. As the moon’s full roundness mirrors the light of the sun, its heavenly globe fills the night with an inscrutable mystique. All on Earth are seduced by the charismatic face of the Full Moon.

Charming Alarm: From Blessing to Beware

In the Full Moon’s ethereal glow all creatures become charmed or alarmed. Around the globe, Earth’s creatures become magnetized by their aroused passions. Anger flares. Fights break out. Lust overflows. Lovers make out. Mountain goats rut. Wolves howl. Wildcats prowl. And our pet doggies and kitties frustratedly growl at the moon. Everyone is somehow turned on, tuned in, beamed up, or carried away with heightened, hyped, hypnotic energy.

The Full Moon is used to allegorize great concepts, such as Beauty, Magnetism, Magic, Wholeness, Centrality, Balance, Awakening, Opening, Madness, Intensity, and Love. Like moonbeams penetrating the dark of night, the lore of Full Moon covers a lot of ground. Its symbols mark both light and shadow.

To the ancients, the full moon was a time of great magical power and good fortune. To be moon-touched’’ or moon-struck" meant you were chosen by the Goddess for special favor. A woman was considered most fortunate if she wed, gave birth, or conceived under a full moon.

When the old Moon Goddess religions were overtaken, their words were changed to denote craziness. Originally lunatics were those blessed by the spirit of the moon, and mania referred to ecstatic revelations. Nowadays the full moon is fabled to arouse madness (lunacy) in humans and animals alike. Lovers are said to moon over each other and fall madly in love under a full moon. Vampires and werewolves reputedly stalk under cover of its shadows. When the moon is full, police precincts, mental institutions, department stores, hospitals, and schools report a rise in rates of crime and other irrational activity.

Indeed, erotic energy, creative imagination, mystical phenomena, and violence all seem to be stimulated by the rays of a full moon.

At the Apex, a High Point of Balance and a Mirror

Yet, above it all, the moon in its Fullness has ever symbolized the Lover. In our circle of feminine archetypes, The Lover finds her place naturally at the apex of the cycle. We’ve traveled halfway around the wheel at this point. Thus far we’ve focused on our inner experience of erotic creative spiritual growth. From here we look outward to our relationships with others. The Lover walks between self and other, bridging our innermost personal dreams and our intimate interpersonal connections with others.

According to ancient astrological wisdom, the Full Moon phase is a point of awakened consciousness.² Our eyes are opened and we see what stands before us. We reflect and relate to that which lies outside of us. We reach forth to connect, to touch, to embrace the Other. The task now is to create balance between personal fulfillment and the needs of relationship. During this phase of any cycle we learn about ourselves through our interactions with others. We gaze into the mirror of relating. We see ourselves reflected in others’ faces and lives.

It is often a time when, in order to like ourselves better, we idealize or idolize another person for qualities we can’t yet see in ourselves. As the full glory of the moon is revealed by the sun’s light, the sun finds its brilliant face reflected in the moon. In the same way, seeing beauty in our partner helps us perceive beauty in ourselves.

The Full Moon’s paradoxical message is simply that, while we must look outside of ourselves to see it, all that we seek exists in our soul. Until we learn to embrace our own soul, we won’t find fulfillment in our relationships with others.

The Divine Star, Venus

Venus stands out in known history as the only planet that has been given divine status in its own right. Long, long ago, before Babylonians thought of naming the wandering stars according to their deities, the planet we now call Venus, was called The Star.³ She was worshipped as part of a trinity: The Sun, The Moon, and The Star.

Venus beckons in the sky at sunset or at dawn, the brightest object in the heavens besides the moon. She is our closest neighbor planet, and therefore seen most clearly. She also has a cycle of visibility and invisibility like the moon, which gave her a particular spiritual significance from very early on.

The ancient Babylonians made Venus the symbol for their goddess Ishtar. Venus setting in the evening was the goddess descending to the Underworld. Venus rising at dawn was the goddess returning to earth again.

Thus, the single planet we call Venus was at one time worshipped as two distinct forms of the goddess__ the Morning and the Evening Star. Sometimes she was observed to rise (leading the sun) at dawn, and at other times she appeared setting in the western heavens (following the sun) at dusk. Often the planet Venus appears as a breathtakingly beautiful image near a crescent moon__ either the waxing New Moon crescent in the evening, or the waning Balsamic Moon crescent in the predawn sky.⁴

As we noted in the Maiden chapter, Venus has been called the Wishing Star⁵, the first one to appear at dusk, or the last to glimmer at dawn. The planet Venus was sometimes personified as the Great Mother who gives birth to the Sun. At other times she was the Sacred Lover who carries the torch of light to awaken solar vitality. In the morning Venus initiates and awakens love. In the evening she peacefully blesses us and opens the door to romantic dreams.

Moon and Venus, Two Sides of Feminine Power

Because of the planet’s singular and seductively beautiful appearance, Venus became associated with notions of love and romance, connected to ideas of young women and beauty, likened to the mysteries of feminine power. Astrologically, Venus is known as opposite sister to the nurturing lunar Mother. Venus stands for the second aspect of female energy recognized by the modern world, feminine sexual power. Venus is the Other Woman, the temptress who is seductive and fickle. While the Moon signifies the Virgin Sweetheart, Venus becomes the Vamp Temptress.

Virgin and Whore, as we’ve already learned, each have very different meanings than those which modern society has come to ascribe to them. Both Virgins and Whores were originally Priestesses of the Goddess, the so-called temple prostitutes who led the people in purification rituals and fertility ceremonies that sometimes included erotic dance and sex.

To the Virgin-Whore Priestesses of old, sex was a sacrament. It was performed with Love. But it was not a binding contract. The Virgin-Whore priestesses were complete in themselves, not owned by any man, not subservient to anyone’s demands but dedicated to the goddess they served. Any children born to the temple priestesses were mothered and raised by the temple community, special because they were said to have been born of a virgin.

The Goddess of Love Holds the Full Moon in Her Arms

Venus was known as Aphrodite in the Greek pantheon. Aphrodite is much older and her symbolism goes much deeper than simply romantic love and sexual pleasure.

Although she can manifest in these ways, she has more to do with a profound sensuality that connects us to the earth and with the wisdom of sacred sexuality. She can be a volcanic destructive force in our lives when her energies are stifled or forced to express in unnatural ways. Ultimately Venus-Aphrodite represents part of the larger body of sexual energy which undergirds everything we experience in life, for she is the significator of our physical senses that gives us ability to enjoy living in our corporeal body.

However she is named, the goddess of sexual desire, erotic love, and natural beauty is the central figure around which nearly all mythical themes develop. Thus, the Lover appropriately holds center stage in our pageant of female archetypes for she embraces the crowning Full Moon phase of feminine power. It is not so much that she’s the source for our many-faceted experience of love as that she casts her light over all, bestowing a bright vitality that brings everything to life. The Lover goddess holds the Full Moon in her arms.

HERSTORY OF THE LOVER ARCHETYPE

Greek Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and romantic love, is by far the most frequently named model for the Lover archetype within Woman.⁶ Myths about Aphrodite have been trivialized by a patriarchal re-telling, but behind the sugar-coated, honey-toned portraits of her riding gently through rippling waves upon a seashell, we glimpse the shadowed hues of a deeper mystery.⁷ The tales of her birth range widely, but always include explicit sexual symbolism. Her birth releases the forces of love and desire in the hearts of animals, gods, and humans alike.

According to the Hellenic myth, Aphrodite is conceived when the sky-god, Uranus, ejaculates into the womb of the ocean goddess, Tethys.⁸ (Tethys is a pre-Hellenic triple goddess with Nyx and Gaia.) The myth suggests that at the birth of erotic feminine sexuality and natural beauty (Aphrodite) the power of mind and spirit (Uranus = sky and light) penetrate the depths of matter and soul (Tethys = earth and sea) to produce the vitalizing and sensual essence of Erotic Love.

Aphrodite is born at the beginning of creation, when Heaven and Earth part to bring conscious Light into the world. As daughter of the sea, her role is to reunite separated forms of creation through acts of love and sexual desire.⁹

Aphrodite in Patriarchal Mythology

The patriarchal Greek’s version of her myth has Aphrodite married to the crippled blacksmith god, Hephaestus,¹⁰ yet she never appears as a traditional wife. Rather, she’s cast as a duplicitous bad woman who flirts with other men and cheats on her husband. Aphrodite is the mother of Cupid by either Zeus or Ares. It’s irrelevant to her which one, since marriage and paternity are really of no concern to her. In Hellenic myth, Aphrodite is known for her long string of erotic escapades, and her fickle romances lie scattered about her image like pearls from a broken necklace.

Aphrodite became Venus in the Roman pantheon, where she found her place among the planets of astrology, presiding over all affairs of the heart, and over matters of aesthetic taste, refinement, beauty and gracious living. In Roman myth she has an ongoing love-hate affair with the great war god Mars,¹¹ (Greek Ares) and they’re caught by her husband Vulcan (Hephaestus) in a net of gold. Vulcan also crafts her a magic golden girdle designed to inspire love, which other goddesses covet¹².

Upon her favorites, Aphrodite bestows lavish gifts. To Ariadne and Dionysos, she gives the gift of true love. To Pandora, the gift of enduring beauty. To Psyche and Eros, she presents challenges to prove them worthy of her gifts. And, in the judgment of Paris, she competes against Hera and Athena to win recognition for her own world class looks.

Aphrodite Stands at the Center of an Intricate Web of Ancient Myths

In accord with the centrality of the Lover’s role in our pantheon of archetypes, Aphrodite draws around her the mythology of nearly every ancient culture. She stands to remind us that all goddesses are one, all draw their essence from the primal Moon Mother Goddess.

Despite the fame of her Hellenic exploits, the Goddess of Love existed in the mythology of Near Eastern matrifocal cultures long prior to the Greeks. In some sense she is the oldest and highest deity. Aphrodite is an incarnation of the great Babylonian goddess, Ishtar, and thus her lineage reaches back to the Sumerian goddess, Inanna, as well. Aphrodite has direct links to Egyptian great goddess, Isis, and to the Persian Anahita, as well as to Anatolian Cybele. The ancient Semitic goddess Asherah, and the Canaanite version of Ishtar, called Astarte, are also predecessors of Greek Aphrodite. Like the spider in her web, Aphrodite draws links to and from these many points.¹³

The love goddess’ eventual Mediterranean passage to Greece is symbolized in the classical myth of Aphrodite arising out of the sea onto the Anatolian island of Cyprus, carried in an oyster shell. Many of the ancient goddesses have sea-related symbols in common with hers, such as white doves, sea shells, pearls, and the color blue. Upon coming to shore, Aphrodite is greeted, dressed, and accompanied thereafter by the Graces,¹⁴ beautiful nymphs representing the yearly cycle of Seasons.

Love, Sex, and Death In Aphrodite’s Service

In her ancient temples, Aphrodite was worshipped by women who dedicated themselves to her service as temple hierodules.¹⁵ In some cases every woman gave herself once to a stranger at the temple before she married. In other cases certain young girls were chosen to become her priestesses, learning the sacred arts of sexual pleasure and performing them as her representatives on ceremonial occasions. (Mary Magdalen is believed by some to have been such a temple prostitute)¹⁶ Shrines, originally dedicated to these goddesses are among the oldest parts of the Temple still in use in Jerusalem.¹⁷ Indeed, it was for public celebration of festivals to the love goddess that Hebrew zealots murdered Jezebel on charges of harlotry.¹⁸

According to legend, Aphrodite’s favorite lover is the handsome shepherd, Adonis, for whom she pines after he accidentally dies by her own hand.¹⁹ Yet, older myths reveal this to be another deep mother-child rebirth mystery. In the original pre-Hellenic stories, Adonis is both lover and child to Aphrodite who was a life-giving deity, but no simple fertility goddess. To rescue her son-lover, Aphrodite enters into an agreement with Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, that allows each of them to enjoy his company for one-third of the year, while for the other third he is left to himself.

In ancient ritual, Adonis is symbolically killed by a wild boar (which was long a symbol of Indo-European sacrificial surrogate-gods.) Adonis’ blood returns to the earth and his body is immersed in the sea. He rises and falls perennially by the powers of attraction imbued with Aphrodite’s glory.

This central motif of the goddess of erotic love connects her to the great mystery of Mother goddesses such as Ishtar, Isis, Inanna, and Cybele. Their myths allegorize the love of Earth for all she brings to life and then consumes again to perpetually create anew.

The Perpetual Rise and Fall of Love

Likewise, the goddess of erotic love has an undying affection for the life which she helps to arouse in every lover. The Love Goddess knows that men’s passion will ultimately fail to fulfill them and must perish at Her hand in order to once again be wakened by Her powers of attraction and desire. (Like a man’s penis grows erect with sexual arousal, then shrinks, dying, to become flaccid after climax, but rises again with renewed life.)

In women, she awakens the force of attraction which ebbs and flows like the sea tides upon which all love goddesses ride, and by which rhythms all our passions rise and fall.

SEXUALITY AND THE LOVER ARCHETYPE

Romantic passion does not simply strike us by fate. It is not just a prick of Cupid’s mischievous arrows or the sting of Eros’ capricious barbs. Passion exists in the mind as a product of the soul, fluctuating in silent waves, cresting and falling without our intentional direction. But we are not just its passive recipients. We must awaken romance and create erotic passion by our conscious will.

Self-Love Cures Blind Love

The Lover within us greets life passionately. She teaches us to direct ardor soulfully, to arouse romance fervently, and to create beauty wherever we are.

The power to attract, the stoutheartedness to feel affection, the tenacity to follow after the heart’s desire__ these are mysteries mastered by our inner Lover. But self-love is first necessary before we can give love to another, for if there is not love of self, there is nothing of value to give. This is the deeper lesson of the Lover: that we must embrace ourselves before we seek another to hold. We must first fall in love with our own soul.

Love is not blind despite poetic claims that it is. Love is quite discerning since it arises from within our soul. What is blind is the desperate search to find Love outside of ourselves. When we shut out the discerning voice of the Soul we are beset by false notions of love. We grow blind in our denial to see anything that doesn’t fit some idealized image of perfect bliss. We stare unseeing at our own soul’s beauty.

In our unseeing self-denial we refuse to take responsibility for creating romance. We expect romance to enter our hearts from elsewhere willy-nilly. But such unperceptive vision does not bring us to the luminous chambers of love, it only agitates a heedless groping through the dark corridors of sexual delusion.

In truth, love is hardly blind. On the contrary, soulful love has 20-20 vision. It is perceptive of our real desires and mindful in examining what comes to us. With our soul awake, we become discriminating in making choices in our behavior. With our soul engaged, we can be judicious in accepting the uniqueness of our beloved rather than seeing in them an idealized sex object. Rather than blindly imagining what isn’t there, we see clearly and open ourselves to welcome what is. In short, we discover that Sex and Love can come together through Soul.

Soulful Relationships Grow in Paradox

Sexual intimacy is never only physical for it involves all our mystery and madness. As we unveil our bodies we reveal our sexual wounds. In revealing our wounds we become vulnerable to more wounding in relationships. Love demands a measure of pain, uncertainty, and even tragedy to remain soulful.

The Lover within us stays with the discomfort and holds the tension of uncertainty as she stirs the chaotic mix of feelings boiling within our heart. In the Lover’s realm we learn that relationships spiced with the drama of change keep the soul’s broth bubbling. As Thomas Moore writes, it is in the midst of imperfection, in life’s stew of unpredictability, that Soul thrives and Love grows.²⁰

A soulful relationship’s ending is often as mysterious as its beginning for lovers can drift apart as naturally as they come together. The Lover within teaches that each relationship has its own life and rhythm, its own Soul and Fate. Withdrawal and withholding are also part of the dance of soulful loving, because, to the Soul the ending of a relationship may actually serve to deepen it, make it soul-felt.

Our Fear of Loving

Most people want to be loved for ourselves, to be affirmed for our uniqueness, applauded for our specialness, accepted with our differentness. Therefore, for love to occur it requires that lovers see each other for who they each really are.

This is not so hard to do during early love, for lovers idealize the object of their newfound attraction. Whatever lovers discover in each other at the beginning of love is given the high patina of newness. New lovers are thrilled by the mystery of each other. At this point they admire the strangeness perceived in the other, they are enchanted by the novelty of their relationship, captivated by the adventure they promise to bring into each other’s lives.

But they may fear that newness too, because the other’s differences threaten their own familiar sameness’s. Soon the lovers may end up trying to control each other, to mold each other more to their own patterns of living. They ask each other to change so they can feel more at ease together. If they do as asked and each tries to become more like the other, they find their relationship is no longer exciting. In taming the unknown strangeness in their love, they may find they’ve poisoned the passion of their souls.

The Insidious Poison

When we want to have exclusive rights and total control of the beloved we are not expressing love. We are expressing insecurity. When we deny or resent other romantic relationships in our own or our lover’s past or future, we deny each other the full joy of loving and being loved. Selfishly, we try to erase parts of each other’s life-stories in order to protect our own small portion of the picture. We cling to a romantic illusion that we are the only ones in each other’s lives. We poison love when we demand exclusivity and become jealous of our lover’s separateness from us.

If we have such a need to put ourselves first in the relationship it may be a sign that love is not what we feel at all. We may have mistaken fear for love. While healthy love includes asking for what we want from our partner, it draws us more often to care about the partner’s needs ahead of our own desires. When all of our concerns are about what we are or aren’t getting, it’s not love but neediness.

The dream of finding a soul mate who will understand and accept and love us unconditionally is often a false wish. We may even get scared off should someone actually come along who seems ready to do so. It can feel terrifying to let someone know us so well. We may end up pushing them away without understanding why. Perhaps it is because we were not prepared to love them so uncritically in turn.

PERVERSION OF THE LOVER ARCHETYPE

Some say that love evolved as an antidote to violence. Diane Ackerman sites animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz.²¹ His theory states that humans are innately programmed to violence and that we needed to evolve the capacity to love in order to offset the potential danger our aggressive nature threatens. Supposedly, according to this line of thinking, if we were innately peaceful creatures we wouldn’t need the additional calming, bonding effects of love. It’s an interesting thought. If love were always calming and soothing that is__ which it certainly is not.

Juggling the Stuff of Love

The Lover within us is like a juggler, deftly tossing bits of eroticism and passion around in our psyche, keeping them aloft, holding our gaze transfixed by her sleight of hand. The love-stuff she juggles isn’t always of a pleasing or pretty nature. Some of it is downright dangerous, brutal, even deadly. She can sting our hearts with whips of jealousy, snare our minds in traps of madness, hook our souls with the bait of deception. For the sake of an illusion of happiness, beauty, or love many a person has done terrible things. Indeed, within the labyrinthine realms of the Lover we sometimes stalk a killer.

Perversion of the Lover occurs insidiously, like a creeping infestation at the center of our soul. The Lover isn’t perverted by outside forces as much as she’s corrupted from within. Twisted, distorted forms of attraction, affection, and attachment grow out of a warped imagination, an imagination unbalanced by our own doubts, by self-deception.

No, love is not perverted by impure thoughts or erotic indecencies. Love