Articles #aPHRODITE

APHRODITE: MYSTIQUE & MYSTERIUM The Breath of the Soul Is the Heart of the Matter By Iona Miller, ©2016 https://ionamiller2017.weebly.com/aphrodite.html “The world of gods and spirits is truly 'nothing but' the collective unconscious inside me.” ~Carl Jung, On 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead, CW 11; Page 857. Summary: It is not easy to make an honest attempt to find words for the ineffable. Like unashamed Aphrodite, this essay hopes to titillate, to provoke, to promise even more than it may deliver. The naked mysteries and hidden charms of existence are concealed and revealed. We will flirt with ideas, but won't cover all of her aspects, exploits, or relationships. We may even mix metaphors, or skip promiscuously from subject to subject like a restless dreamer. We all have a keen grasp of the obvious when it comes to love goddess myths and basic psychology. Culture is part of our nature. Hopefully, each reader -- anyone who has had or lost a love, or is a devotee of the goddess – will find their own revelations arising within from the unconscious. A psychological approach to Aphrodite as image-making capacity attends and tends passionately to both psyche and logos. Image and words are the interplay of sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling. Born into Chronos, our 2 million year old soul longs for Kairos, spirit's time -- the opportune or crucial moment for significant change. Every moment is an opportunity if we tend and attend to it. Aphrodite, the divine Beloved, is the unseen third being that informs every relationship, every devotion. We suggest an archetypal sense of her in the world at large, beyond our libidinous cravings. Tending the heart is minding the soul. Imaginal figures invite us to share the wisdom of our own inner landscapes, dreams, intuitive callings, visions, feelings, and events. Ritual action expresses that relationship with wisdom greater than our conscious mind leading to a larger view of self and world. But technique is not soul. Aphrodite’s mystique is her sacred presence in the ordinary, inherent beauty apprehended as soul. But the creative and poetic power of language is also a natural feature of reality. Imagination and language transform the soul through Mystery. All the functions of the psyche converge in fantasy, in imagination. We are all equally prone to the seductions of our own inner images, thoughts, emotions, and sensations.