Psyche, and Robert Johnson in She. Psyche is a pregnant mortal wo-
man who seeks to be reunited with her husband, Eros, God of Love
and Aphrodite’s son. Psyche realizes that she must submit herself
to an angry and antagonistic Aphrodite if she is ever to be reconciled
with Eros, so she presents herself to the goddess. To test her, Aph-
rodite gives her four tasks.
The four tasks of Aphrodite have important symbolic meanings.
Each one represents a capability that women need to develop. Each
time Psyche masters a task, she acquires an ability she did not have
before—an ability equated in Jungian psychology with the animus
or masculine aspect of a woman’s personality. Although these abil-
ities often feel “masculine” to women who, like Psyche, need to
make an effort to develop them, they are natural attributes of Artemis
and Athena women.
As a mythological figure, Psyche is a lover (like Aphrodite), a wife
(like Hera), and a pregnant mother (Demeter). Moreover, in the
course of her myth she also goes to the underworld and returns (and
so resembles Persephone as well). Women who put relationships
first and react instinctively or emotionally to others need to develop
the abilities symbolized by each task. Only then can they assess their
options and act decisively in their best interests.
Task 1: Sorting the Seeds. Aphrodite leads Psyche into a room and
shows her an enormous pile of seeds jumbled together—corn, barley,
millet, poppy, chick peas, lentils, and beans—and tells her that she
must sort each kind of seed or grain into its own pile before evening.
The task seems impossible until a host of lowly ants come to her aid,
placing each kind, grain by grain, in its own mound.
Similarly, when a woman must make a crucial decision, she often
must first sort out a jumble of conflicted feelings and competing
loyalties. The situation is often especially confusing when Aphrodite
has a hand in the situation. “Sorting the seeds” is, then, an inward
task, requiring that a woman look honestly within, sift through her
feelings, values, and motives, and separate what is truly important
from what is insignificant.
When a woman learns to stay with a confused situation and not
act until clarity emerges, she has learned to trust “the
Aphrodite: Goddess of Love and Beauty, Creative Woman and Lover