may be successful. For example, when Dana was working on her
thesis it was often hard for her to muster the effort to do library re-
search. But imagining herself as Artemis on a hunt gave her the
impetus to get to the library and seek the articles she needed. The
image of herself as Artemis activated the energy she needed for the
task.
Actively imagining goddesses can help a woman know the arche-
types active in her psyche. She might visualize a goddess, and then,
once she has a vivid image in her mind, see if she can have a conver-
sation with the visualized figure. Using “active imagination”—as
this process that was discovered by Jung—is called, she may find
that she can ask questions and get answers. If she is receptively at-
tuned to hear an answer that she does not consciously invent, a
woman using active imagination often finds herself as if in a real
conversation, which increases her knowledge about an archetypal
figure that is a part of herself.
Once a woman can tune in to the different parts of herself and can
listen, observe, or feel her differing priorities and competing loyalties,
she can then sort them out and measure their importance to her. She
then can make conscious choices: when conflicts arise, she decides
what priorities to place above others, and what course of action she
will take. As a result, her decisions resolve inner conflicts instead of
instigating internal wars. Step by step, she thus becomes a conscious
choicemaker who repeatedly decides for herself which goddess gets
the golden apple.
Which Goddess Gets the Golden Apple?