up. Hippomenes pulled ahead in the race as she gazed at the golden
apple in her hand. Reflected back to her, she saw her own face, dis-
torted by the curves of the apple: “This is how I will look when I
grow old,” she thought.
Many active women are unaware of time passing, until sometime
in midlife when the challenges of competition or reaching goals
wane. For the first time in her life, such a woman may become aware
that she is not an eternal youth and reflect about the course she is
on, and where it is taking her.
Apple 2: Awareness of the Importance of Love. Then he threw the
second apple across her path. Atalanta once more focused on the
race and effortlessly gained on Hippomenes. As she stopped to re-
trieve Aphrodite’s second golden apple, memories of Meleager, her
dead lover, surged up in her. Yearnings for physical and emotional
closeness are stirred by Aphrodite. When this is combined with
awareness that time is passing, an Artemis woman’s usual focus is
diverted by a new receptivity to love and intimacy.
Apple 3: Procreative Instinct and Creativity. The finish line was
within sight as Atalanta drew up even with Hippomenes. She was
about to pass him, and win, when Hippomenes dropped the third
golden apple. For a split second, Atalanta hesitated: should she cross
the finish line and win the race, or take the apple and lose? Atalanta
chose to reach for the apple just as Hippomenes crossed the finish
line to win the race and Atalanta for his wife.
Aphrodite’s procreative instinct (aided by Demeter) slows down
many active, goal-focused women in the latter part of their thirties.
Career-oriented women are often caught by surprise by a compelling
urgency to have a child.
This third golden apple may also represent other than biological
creativity. Achievement may become less important after midlife.
Instead, the generativity represented by Aphrodite is directed toward
transforming experience into some form of personal expression.
If knowledge of Aphrodite is brought through the love of another
person, then an Artemis woman’s one-sidedness, however satisfying
it has been, may give way to the possibility
Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt and Moon, Competitor and Sister