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Who graces your heroes best?
Why divine goddess heroines, of course! Let’s
explore the history and the current manifestations
of goddesses showing their virgin/mother/wisdom
keeper faces.
The Goddess is elemental. She represents the
seasons of a woman’s life. She’s the tree in
Spring (flower), the tree in Summer (fruit) and in
Winter (seed). She’s reflected in the phases of
the moon and our own lives. She’s the Young Woman,
the Adult Woman, and the Wise Woman.
Let’s explore how her aspects can serve the needs
of the heroines in our writing.
The VIRGIN Goddess is she who belongs to herself:
The New Moon
The Goddess of the Sky
The Tree in flower
She’s wholly separate from men-- that virginal is
not literal, but meaning one-in-herself. She does
not act to please or gain power over others but
because what she does is TRUE. She has a great
quality to call on ourselves as writers: She can
concentrate her attention on what matters to her
and can focus on both the task at hand and long
range goals.
Here are two virgin goddesses from Greek
mythology:
Artemis is the Goddess of the Hunt. She is a
country mouse, avoids contact with men, hanging
around in the wilderness with nymphs. She’s
separate from men and their influence. She’s
undomesticated, having kinship with the natural
world.
Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom is a city mouse who
identifies and is joined with men as an equal or
superior. She’s cool-headed in strategy and
battle.
Heroines strong in this virgin goddess aspect
often avoid filling traditional women’s roles. So
if your heroine: develops her own talents and
pursues her own interests, solves problems,
competes, expresses herself well through language
or art, puts her surroundings in order, values
solitude… you just might have a virgin goddess on
your hands. Her jobs might include: being a
competitive swimmer, a scientist, a
statistician, a soldier or sailor, a corporate
executive, a horsewoman.
Is she called "pig-headed" and stubborn?
Considered unfeminine? Is she spurred ON by
competition? The advocate of a lost cause (a voice
crying out in the wilderness?) Does she need
little encouragement or commercial success to keep
going? Does she love gal pals and have good
sisterly relationships (like us with other
writers, yes?)
For an Artemis sex is VERY physical…another sport
to relish! So too for Athena, whose cool head is
delightfully surprised!
This aspect of the goddess is attracted to men who
are aesthetic, creative, healing, musical, in
helping professions. She’s a good mother, a
teacher, protective like a bear, she will fight to
the death for her children, she’s also a GREAT
aunt, scout leader, etc.
A wonderful modern Artemis was Georgia O’Keefe,
with her passion an affinity to the untamed
American Southwest, and her intensity of purpose.
Fictional heroines strong in this aspect of the
goddess include: Nancy Drew (of course!), Scarlett
O’Hara, Capt. Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager
(evasive maneuver!). The classic western frontier
heroine has got the country Artemis in her but is
also strongly Athena in the domestic realm (the
weaver and craftswoman) as she unites her hands
and mind to work side by side with her
husband-partner to thrive in the wilderness.
This aspect’s negative aspect might be seen in the
Lady of Shallot weaving that tapestry and caught
in her own web of denied experience. And in
Medusa..using that powerful intellect or physical
prowess to terrify and petrify her victims!
The armored Athena is great fun in romance as she
puts up all those intellectual defenses to keep
pain at bay…she observes, labels, analyses, tries
SO hard to stay cool!
Romance heroines strong in this aspect might be
found in: Patricia Gaffney’s Wild At Heart (match:
Anthropologist and Wolf Man) and Maggie Osborne’s
The Promise of Jenny Jones (match: frontier
couple).
Olana Whittaker of my 1906 set historical Waltzing
in Ragtime as her father’s favorite Athena. Ginny
Rockwell from Rita-winning The Ghosts of Stony
Clove as half of an intrepid frontier couple.
2. The MOTHER Goddess is:
Woman in her fullness
The Full Moon
Earth Woman, the Lover/Wife
The Tree in Fruit
The identity of this aspect of the goddess is
dependent on relationship. It is activated when
your heroine has the compelling urge to marry/mate
or have a child, or feels her life "pregnant" with
possibility.
From the Greeks we have Hera: the stately, the
regal, the beautiful. This Goddess of marriage has
been denigrated by patriarchal culture to become
her negative aspect: the vindictive, jealous
shrew. The most well known stories that remain of
her reflect the conflicts she had with Zeus. But
her name means "great lady." It’s the feminine
form of the Greek word for hero.
Hera is a lovely symbol for a heroine. She is
yearning to be a wife in three meanings of
marriage:
1. the INNER need for a mate
2. the OUTER recognition as husband and wife
3. the SACRED nature of marriage as a spiritual
union—a sacrament through which grace can be
channeled
I see the Hera archetype surface in many
contemporary romance stories whose theme revolves
around the career woman in mid-life realizing she
wants husband and children. And the moms and
stepmoms of romance stories who want a better
pattern for her family.
Demeter means "mother" in Greek. This powerful
mother goddess was the consort of Zeus before Hera
and is associated with grain and the story of the
abduction of Persepone, her daughter.
Demeter returns growth to the earth and provides
the Elysian Mysteries…a secret ceremony that was
alive and well for 2,000 years in ancient Greece
(from 1,500 BC to 500 AD) This is one POWERFUL
goddess!
Her maternal instinct is manifested through
pregnancy or through nourishment of others. I
think she has a powerful influence on many of our
heroines who are: persistent, who will NOT give up
where a child is concerned.
You might recognize Demeter in your story if it’s
centered around the needs of this provider…
Perhaps your heroine has a history of making
sacrifices for others and is burnt out? Perhaps
she volunteers at a nursery school, a hospital, or
nursing home, or protects children from abuse?
The Demeter type is attracted to two kinds of
men…perhaps her man has never been well mothered:
here I would submit Mary Jo Putney’s Fallen Angels
Series heroes as examples--they band together to
nurture each other, but all, it seems to me, are
drawn to motherly heroines.
The Demeter heroine aids the physically
handicapped and the social misfit. I realized I
was dealing with this sort of heroine myself with
the instant attraction between Judith Mercer and
Ethan Randolph in The Randolph Legacy—Ethan is
both!
The second type of man I think Demeter heroines
find attractive is one with motherless children,
or a man who wants a family…this is a VERY sexy
quality for a Demeter woman!
Aphrodite is the goddess of charm and laughter.
Her name means "golden" which is also "beautiful"
to the Greeks. She is the lover and the creative
woman. This archetype is the aspect of the goddess
that expresses a woman’s enjoyment of love and
beauty, her sexuality and sensuality. This goddess
impels women to fulfill both creative and
procreative functions.
Aphrodite heroines have personal
charisma—magnetism, electricity. These "IT" girls
include: Cleopatra, Dolley Madison, that Hamilton
Woman, Margo Fontayne, Maria Callas, and Ava
Gardner.
The beauty of these woman stemmed more from their
joi de vivre, and natural, unselfconscious
sensuality. They are often fueled by something
spirit-based too, giving them that glow-- think
Jane Eyre’s righteousness.
They are often drawn to complex, creative, moody
men. The extroverted Aphrodite makes her man feel
sexy.
La Veryle Spenser’s work is filled with latent
Aphrodites I think…women discovering her own
sensuality and sexiness. I think of the heroine of
Nora Robert’s Homeport here, too, getting her
Aphrodite functioning due to the sexy Pierce
Bronson-type hero.
Our novels have "Mighty Aphrodite" moments because
a woman in love is transformed into the Golden
Goddess. Her voltage goes up, she’s brimming with
vibrancy. During these moments her sensory
impressions are intensified—she hears music more
clearly, fragrances are more distinct, taste
and touch are enhanced…They are our love scenes,
of course, and our scenes of sexual tension, but
other, quieter moments of reflection too.
And we have these moments in our work, then we are
tapping into Aphrodite showing her creative
face—the artist engrossed in a creative
project—it’s true alchemy. Changing words into
LIFE via the kiss of the Golden Goddess!
3 The WISE WOMAN
The Waning Moon
Guardian of the Mysteries
(Birth/Procreation/Death)
Widow
The Tree in Seed
This goddess was once the most celebrated, but it
is most battered in modern times.
The Wise Women were the midwives of birth and
death—both birthing women and the dying want a
nurturing, loving, wise woman to cradle them on to
the next stage.
In Western culture these women had power. Those
intimidated by that power initiated the
Inquisition—300 years of holocaust for women.
First the midwives, then the herbalists, then the
eccentric were hunted out. It is estimated that 9
million perished. We live with the effects of this
period as this archetype is not honored in our
culture.
The Slavic Wise Woman Goddess Baba Yaga rode about
the skies in a mortar (used with the pestle to
grind grain)…grinding away at what was extraneous
to the essence. She was transformed into a witch
on a broomstick who eats children.
Who is this wise woman goddess? She is not known
for intellectual wisdom but wisdom gained from
having lived.
She knows the deliciousness of solitude. Her
wisdom is drawn from the unseen, the dark and
intuitive…the opposite of enlightenment.
In the Native American cultures this archetype is
still honored, so here are 13 Clan Mothers to help
tell Wise Woman’s story. The 13 Clan Mothers are
based on the 13 full moons of the year. The moons
describe a woman’s progress in the getting of
wisdom:
1. Talks with Relations
2. Wisdom Keeper
3. Weighs the Truth
4. Looks Far Woman
5. Listening Woman
6. Storyteller
7. Loves All Things
8. She Who Heals
9. Setting Sun Woman
10. Weaves the Web
11. Walks Tall Woman
12. Gives Praise
13. Blue Moon of Transformation: Becomes Her
Vision
Her remnants in the Greek culture may be found in
Persephone, the Goddess of the Underworld,
who might be seen as the flip side of Golden
Aphrodite. In one myth they both fall in love with
the same guy—Adonis, so Aphrodite keeps him half
the year and Persephone the other half in a flip
side of her own abduction by Hades.
When Persephone first emerges from the Underworld
she’s in the company of a shadowy goddess—Hecate,
Goddess of the Dark Moon, the Crossroads. She is a
spirit-based Goddess who walks "before and behind"
Persephone and emerging, she no longer fears
death.
For us as writers, this aspect of the goddess
represents our ability to be open and flexible.
She corresponds with the fallow, healing,
germinating periods in our work (The Tree in
Seed).
If your heroine is touched with this goddess’s
magic, she’s mature and self-confident,
though she stays young in spirit. If she is stuck
in the young spirit aspect though, she becomes
like Miss Havasham in Great Expectations, Laura in
The Glass Menagerie, Orphelia in Hamlet, who, when
reality becomes too painful, goes psychotic.
Heroines of all ages are in touch with their wise
woman goddess when they value solitude,
reflection, friendship.
The wise woman is present in those "sacred"
moments of your story, when your heroines are
truly, deeply REAL…nurtured, deepened, charged up.
They connect with this Goddess of the Crossroads
when they reach crossroads moments in life and
make a decision with their courage leading them.
The wise woman’s mission is to show others how to
love unconditionally, to be their personal best,
to drop the need to control or belittle and show
compassion.
In the Chinese Buddhist tradition comes the
Goddess Kuan Yin, the spirit of compassion, whose
name is so powerful that its mention is believed
to ease suffering.
Competition, conflicts, and alliances occur within
a heroine’s psyche as they once did on Mt.
Olympus. But afterward comes the happy ending--
when our goddess unites with her hero. I wish the
best of luck with your own heroines as they put on
their goddess crowns!
AUTHORS
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