PBP: Epitymbia, or How Aphrodite is a Goddess of Necromancy

Inanna and her sister Ereshkigal (Queen of the Underworld)

Within every Black Goddess, there is a shimmer of Light; as within every White Goddess, there is the Shadow of Night. Life hints of death; Death promises Life.

Aphrodite, for all intents and purposes, is the very epitome of a White Goddess. She is a a beautiful enchantress, the bestower of love and fecundity. And, in keeping with the simple Mystery stated above, she has a dark shadow -- one that not all who look upon her see. I believe that the Ancients saw it, though, and the proof is in a few of  the epithets they gave her:

Epitymbia - She of the Tombs
Melaina, Skotia - Black One

I also think it is recounted in her mythos, though we need to pull back the layers just a little (and remember her connections to Inanna-Ishtar and Astarte) in order to discover Aphrodite's connection to the Dead and the Underworld.

The Dying Shepherd

The myth of the dying shepherd is the first that connects Aphrodite to the Underworld, its Queen, and to her Middle Eastern cognates. While the story of Adonis, Aphrodite and Persephone varies in cultural tone and flavor from its Middle Eastern predecessors, there's no denying that Aphrodite and Adonis are the Greek counterparts to Inanna & Damuzi or  Astarte and Tammuz. Indeed, the mourning ritual commenced for Adonis (the Adonia) by all the women of Greece is an exact parallel to the mourning undertaken by the women of Damuzi and Tammuz myths. Also paralleled in both sets of myths are the fact that "arrangements" are made in such a way that the Beloved Man returns to the Goddess for a portion of the year, thus making him a dying and resurrecting God of land.

In the Greek version, Persephone falls in love with the youth, as well -- emphasizing the connection between the Queen of the Underworld and the Starry Goddess. In Sumerian, Babylonian and Phoenician lore, you see, these two Goddesses were sisters. In a sense, they were the light and dark halves of the same coin. In Greek myth, though, this isn't the case. Yet the myths bear out their connection again and again.

Journey to the Underworld

In the Middle Eastern variants, The Starry Goddess makes an Underworld Journey to plead to her dark sister, Queen of the Underworld. It is an important exception to the Greek myths, I think, that this doesn't happen. What *does* happen, however, is that the two Goddesses work in concert on at least two occasions (for Adonis and Psyche) and that they share a number of common symbols and sacred places. Among them are the Cyprus and the pomegranate -- both of which are vastly important to both Goddesses.

But of course the Starry Goddess -- whose "star" (the planet Venus) is both the Evening Star (Hesperus) and the Morning Star (Eosphorus) -- would be connected to underworld journeys. She dips below the horizon, into the west -- always the place of the dead -- and rises again. And if not her, then her lover (Adonis) and her priestess (Psyche) -- those whom she guides.

Psyche's Test

I plan on devoting a whole entry to Psyche, soon. In fact, I plan on devoting a whole book to Psyche!

Psyche was a mortal who was said to be as beautiful as Aphrodite. She was "sacrificed" by her parents and carried on the wind to the palace Eros (Love),  Aphrodite's beloved son. She disobeyed the instruction not to look upon her husband, who then fled. Psyche then sought Aphrodite's help, and the Goddess gave her seemingly unconquerable tasks -- one of which involved an Underworld Journey to retrieve a cask of beauty potion which was kept in the care of Persephone!

I don't believe that Aphrodite was trying to thwart her daughter-in-law, as most people who relay and interpret this myth seem to indicate. I don't at all see Aphrodite as jealous of the girl's beauty or resentful of Psyche's love for Aphrodite's beloved son. On the contrary, I believe she set Psyche upon the Heroine's Journey. She was testing her -- initiating her. At the end of Psyche's tasks, she is made immortal; and I believe it was the worthiness of this immortality that Aphrodite was judging -- and also the worthiness of the girl for her son.

Psyche means "soul" in Greek, so in essence, Aphrodite sent the human spirit on a quest that proved its worthiness of the immortality of the Gods -- and of it's worthiness of all-encompassing Love.

(By the way, if this episode in mythology doesn't illustrate the profound importance of the Love Goddess, I don't know WHAT can!)



Love and Death

Amor Vincit Omnia. Love conquers all things. She is the subduer of war-like Ares, where all others fail. And what about Death? Is Death, whose realm we all must enter, powerful enough to undo the touch of Love? While these myths give us room to speculate -- and are designed to make us do so -- I know that I have my answer. (I bet you can guess what it is.)


Aphrodite Epitymbia and the Necromancer

I call upon my Beloved and Mighty Dead all the time, and Aphrodite Veiled, She of the Tombs, is my guiding star. I approach them in love, respectful of Death's Dark Queen. Aphrodite, her sister in myth and spirit, is a mediator and light. With her, I continue to seek the Light in the Shadows, the Dark in the Light.

PBP: Eos and Aphrodite

by Stanislaw Wyspianski

I mentioned in a recent post that Aphrodite's origins cannot merely be traced back to the golden Goddesses of Love, always associated with the stellar Venus, of the Fertile Crescent. She is also a manifestation of the Water-Bird Goddesses of early Europe, a Minoan-Mycenaean Goddess, and she is a hypostasis of the Proto-Indo-European dawn Goddess.

I know! Awesome, huh?

Eos ( Ἠώς, or Ἕως) is a Titan Goddess of the Dawn -- her name meaning "dawn" in Greek. The equivalent figure in Vedic myth is Usas, of whom I wrote last week. Deborah Dickman Boedekker, in Aphrodite's Entry in Greek Epic, points out that Usas is called the "daughter of the sky" (sky = dyeus, which is strikingly similar to Zeus, the Olympian sky God and Aphrodite's father). Aphrodite is given the epithet Ourania (Heveanly), which she shares with other sky-related Goddesses, but only she is called both this AND  the "daughter of God" (Dios Thugater). Boedekker points out that in the Vedic myths, it is only Usas (Dawn) who is called  "Daughter of God," but that Eos is never referred to in this manner.

Within Greek mythology, some of the characteristic of the Dawn Goddess within Indo-European tradition have been given to Aphrodite. (They *also* apply to Eos, of course. The argument here isn't that Eos is not worthily a Dawn Goddess, simply that Aphrodite is also a functional hypostasis of this same mythos.)

In particular, Boedekker points out that the Dawn Goddess often "figures in an episode that involves the snatching away, hiding, and preserving of another character" (39). There are three distinct instances in the Iliad where Aphrodite participates in just such an episode.

The first of these occurs when there is to be a decisive battle between Paris and Menelaus. Paris is defeated, and Menelaus begins to drag him away by his helmet strap, but Aphrodite snatches him away.  The second episode happens during a battle between her son Aeneas and Diomedes in which she covers her son with her shining peplos (a robes) and her "bright arms" to hide him. The third occurs when Achilles tries to mutilate Hektor's corpse. Aphrodite keeps the dogs away and anoints the body with oil to preserve it. Boedekker points out that in the scenes with both Hektor and Aeneas, Aphrodite needs Apollo's help -- the Dawn Goddess and the Sun God working in unison (42).

In his book, The Meaning of Aphrodite, Paul Friedrich also spends some time discussing Aphrodite's nature as a Dawn Goddess. In it, he uses three sets of triads to illustrate Aphrodite's membership within this group. 

Attic Vase: Eos pursues Tithonius

Dawn Goddess -- Mortal Husband/Lover -- Heroic Son

Eos                 --      Tithonius                 --     Memnon
Aphrodite       --       Ankhises                --     Aeneas
Thetis             --       Peleus                     --    Akhilles


Obviously, her connection to the dawn is only one small part of understanding Aphrodite's nature, meaning, and message. I completely agree with Friedrich when he writes that Zeus and Athena's mockery of Aphrodite in the Iliad (5, 297-448) is "... documentation that Aphrodite is the most potent goddess. The author of the hymns asserts that she is the most potent and that that is why Zeus wants to humiliate her" (62).

A is for Asteria

I have been both a Priestess of Aphrodite and a Witch for several years. Most of my regular blog readers are familiar with writings on Aphrodite. That's how this blog began, in fact -- as a means to explore that priestesshood and share it with others. What I've struggled with in the last few years is finding a balance between the very traditional witchcraft that I practice and the lessons I've learned under Aphrodite's tutelage.

The secret lays in my favorite of Aphrodite's epithets -- ASTERIA. It means "starry" or (when used alone) "the starry one."

Aphrodite is a much more complicated Goddess than most folks realize. Part of her character -- the golden and starry aspects -- are pretty much direct imports from Middle Eastern religions. You can trace the trade routes along with the etymology of the Goddess names from the fertile crescent to Greece. ISHTAR becomes ASTARTE for the Phoenicians, who in turn bring Her to Cyprus and into Greece. Soooooo many of the myths surrounding Ishtar/Inanna and Astarte have direct correlates in Aphrodite's Greek stories. Nearly all of the symbol sets and epithets found manifestations in Aphrodite as well.

She's not just a clone of the Middle Eastern Star Goddess archetype, though. She's also one of the many manifestations of the early European Water-Bird Goddesses (as researched and discussed so wonderfully by Marija Gimbutes) and also the Proto-Indo-European Dawn Goddesses. (I'm not going into all that here. Whew! That would be a fascinating and looooong post. If you're interested, though, I highly recommend Paul Friedrich's book, The Meaning of Aphrodite.)




Okay, so my witchcraft tradition works very heavily with Tubal Cain (who can also be accessed by the angelic name Azazel). He is the bringer of metalcraft and sorcery (among other things) to mortals. He is the Witchfather, bringer of the cunning fire and originator of the Red Thread (the blood line that connects witches to their Mighty dead and, ultimately, back to Nephilium).

Among the most sacred iron used in smithing is that which comes from the stars -- meteorites. Fallen stars and fallen angels have always been intimately linked, just as alchemy, sorcery and smithing have always been linked. And the mighty, alchemical Forge Gods invariably love, desire, seek and sometimes even marry whom? ...... You guessed it, the starry, golden Goddess of Love.

Aphrodite and Hephaestus
Venus and Vulcan
Freya and the Dwarves

Interesting (at least to me) point:
In cultures where the Forge God isn't connected with with Love Star Goddess, he almost always is connected with one of the other two above-mentioned aspects of Aphrodite:

Wayland and the swan-maiden Hervor (a water-bird lady)
Tvastar and Saranya (dawn goddess)
Seppo Ilmarinen and the Bride of Gold (golden lady, made by Ilmarinen)


It makes good sense, doesn't it? The iron lord of the forge would seek and crave the starry lady of love.

I've posted a couple of poems here before that are part of my exploration of the connection between these two. I'm sure I'll write (and paint) more to explore this concept. But here's what I've done so far:

Alchemy  &   To Hephaestus

I also wrote this in response to my own resonance with Asteria (and her depiction in the Star card of the Tarot):

The Star

A foot on the shore.

A foot in the brine.

Sand and sea sparkle

and twinkle and shine

as they drip from my hands

to the water below,

a dancing and decadent

glittering glow.

Morning star, evening star,

Goddess or girl,

your hope and your daydream,

your wish and new world.

I’ll guide you through oceans

turned black with the night

and see you back safely

to the dawn’s golden light.

Lover’s sweet reassures –

words, music and art –

discovered by starlight

in the depths of one’s heart.

I’ll dance in the darkness,

but I AM the light

that burns without ending

through eternity’s night.

Voting for Pandemos

Today is Election Day in the US. I know (and am thrilled) that this blog has a high international readership, so please believe me when I say that this post will not become laboriously encumbered with US politics. Rather, I'd like to take a brief moment to talk about Aphrodite in her role as Pandemos.

The epithet PANDHMOS means "common to all people." In his Symposium, Plato interpreted this guise of Aphrodite as a vulgar, common-place Aphrodite due to her associations with the flesh; whereas OUPANIA, or "heavenly" Aphrodite was above such mundane, physical matters. Truthfully, the reverse was probably true. Aphrodite Ourania is the  oldest known epithet of Aphrodite, the one that most clearly links her with her eastern predecessors whose worship was so intimately linked with sexuality, fertility and cult prostitution. Aphrodite Pandemos, who was honored in Athens, Cos and only a few other locals, was very distinctly associated with abstracts ideals dealing with the city/state.

Aphrodite Pandemos was honored in the Athenian agora so that, according to many scholars, the assemblies who met there to discuss the issues of the city would remember their love for Athens and each other and act in kind. She was a particular patroness of Athenian magistrates, who made sacrifices and inscriptions to her, asking for her guidance in the performance of their duties.

I voted today and prayed to Aphrodite Pandemos that the men and women who take office based on today's results will serve their cities, counties, states and nation from a place of love for the people and place that they represent.

To Dionysos (a poem)

Hail, Dionysos, twice-born God of the vine!
Bromios, thundering One,
Zagreus!
I have been your priestess and lover,
Swept up and swirled away in the ecstatic rites
Of wine and rut.
And you bless me, Dionysos,
by sending your maddening men
To intoxicate my poor brain
With their rakish grins
Smooth skin stretched taught over chests and arms,
Velvety ribs that need the embrace
Of my thighs.
They haunt my thoughts, my dreams.
They are the drunken, wine-drenched hallucinations
That rage and rumble in my bed.
I lose myself in them,
Your priests,
And I find you.
Hail, Dionsyos!

My first relationship with any God was with Dionysos. John H. Wells, who has written some fine articles and led some amazing rituals in honor of the twice-born God, invited me to the Rites of Dionysus, led by the Clan of the Laughing Dragon at a store called Raven's Flight in North Hollywood in 1999. It was the first one that he led, and it was a pivotal moment for me. Absolutely defining. Liberating and enlightening, as only Dionysos can be. I would actually say that Aphrodite came to me through and after this experience, and the larger religion of Hellenismos and the other Olympians, Pan and the nymphs after through and after Her. But, I digress.

Glaux recently posted about Dionysos, too. Specifically about the combination of Aphrodite and Dionysos. They do seem to go together, don't they? Oh, I am so much an Aphrodisian woman, but there is no denying the maenaed in me. And every single person I have been seriously attracted to has been touched by Dionysos. Gods, they get me every time. Sexy, brooding. Yum.

I am struck by their combined power for both pleasure and grief. Combine sex and wine, for instance. Oh, yes, please combine sex and wine!!! Head-spinning, sheet-soaking, bed-breaking ecstasy. Sign me up!

Then there's there equally powerful (and orgiastic) combination of grief and madness that both Theoi embody. Aphrodite grieves for Adonis, and she has several epithets that indicate her mourning process (Of the Tombs, Black). Dionysos also is known for the madness brought on by grief, loss, and too much drink. Their combination here can be powerful and purging, allowing us to work through traumatic loss which is necessary in order to regain our sense of joy and pleasure. They can guide us through some of the most gut-wrenching of human experiences in order to enjoy the most elating of them.

...As If I'm Someone That You Love

I came across an interesting tool a few weeks ago in O Magazine. It was a set of flashcards for couples -- things you could interject into an argument simply by holding up a sign. The one that struck me was, "Speak to me as if I'm someone that you love."

Wow. I mean really. Wow.

The card got stuck in my head. It flashes at me all the time. I hear the words echoing in there in the voices of all the people that I love, and I feel that pang that tells me that I haven't always spoken to them "as if I loved them" when we're fighting.

Lesson the first was for me as an individual. Love the people you love, even when you disagree. Even when you're angry. Love them, and make sure it's still obvious.

Lesson the second was buried a little deeper, and it was for the greater Hellenic community.

Aphrodite Pandemos was honored in the agora. Why is that? Why was the Goddess of Love, Beauty, Sexuality, and Fecundity revered in the marketplace? Well, it was the place where public debates took place. It was the place where heated discussions could boil over, but her presence was there to remind people to have love and compassion for each other. Perhaps she was that reminder for the ancients to speak to each other as if they loved each other.