vide time and opportunity for Aphrodite to develop. A couple may
need to take vacations away from their children, in a relaxed setting
where they can enjoy themselves, talk, and make love. Or a woman
may learn to give and receive a massage. Or she may take a belly-
dancing class as a means of being at ease with and enjoying her
body—a prerequisite for taking pleasure in lovemaking.
Cultivating an interest in art, poetry, dance, or music serves a
similar purpose in the aesthetic sphere. One can develop the ability
to become completely immersed in a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic
experience. Once one is engrossed, then an interaction between
oneself and the aesthetic medium can occur, out of which something
new may emerge.
APHRODITE THE WOMAN
Ever since the goddess Aphrodite emerged from the sea in all her
undressed glory, curvaceous, golden-haired, sexy women such as
movie queens Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, and Marilyn Monroe have
personified the Goddess of Love. Sometimes this goddess type runs
true to form, blond hair and all, but more typically an Aphrodite
woman is recognizable by her attractiveness rather than by her ap-
pearance alone. The Aphrodite archetype creates a personal cha-
risma—a magnetism or electricity—that, combined with physical
attributes, makes a woman “an Aphrodite.”
When Aphrodite is an active part of a plain woman, that woman
does not draw men to her from across the room. Those who come
close, however, find her engaging and charming. Many rather ordin-
ary-looking women with Aphrodite qualities attract others with the
magnetic warmth of their personalities and their natural, unselfcon-
scious sensuality. These “plain Janes” always seem to have men in
their lives, while their more well-endowed, objectively pretty sisters
may sit by the phone or sit out a dance, puzzling, “What does she
have, that I don’t?”
YOUNG APHRODITE
As a child, the little Aphrodite may have been an innocent little
flirt. She may have had a way of responding to men,
Aphrodite: Goddess of Love and Beauty, Creative Woman and Lover