In a previous video, we explored the masculine archetypes, looking at both their positive, integrated or mature aspects and negative, shadow, or immature sides. Now, we’ll take a look at feminine archetypes. It is important to note that Carl Jung did not aim to create a systematic list of all the archetypes, because there are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life.
However, certain Jungians have built on his model, offering templates to visualise both the masculine and the feminine psyche. While not exhaustive, these can be valuable for understanding oneself and others. Unresolved issues, when unaddressed, turn into complexes—emotionally charged clusters of ideas or images that can hinder us.
They belong to the personal unconscious and are gathered through one’s experiences in life. Behind complexes, are the archetypes of the collective unconscious— primordial images or patterns of behaviour that we inherit at birth. Everybody knows that people “have complexes”, what is not so well known is that complexes can have us.
These semi-autonomous elements interfere with our will. The fact that these experiences are painful is no proof of pathological disturbance. Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpart to happiness.
A complex is only pathological when we’re unaware of it, letting it control us unconsciously. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. To access the positive aspects of any archetype, it’s essential to ask not if the shadow side appears in our lives, but how it manifests.
If you feel “possessed” by an impulse and later regret your actions, you’re likely encountering the shadow—the unknown part of your personality, rooted in the personal unconscious and considered a complex (although there’s also a collective or archetypal shadow, representing the unconscious and repressed side of society). When we turn away from some part of our psyche, the shadow runs after us, but we run away from it. The unconscious shows the face we show it.
If we reject something within us, then it becomes destructive to us. We should, rather, confront it and ask it what it wants, as it holds insights essential for healing our fragmented selves. The challenge of shadow-work is recognising when the shadow takes over and acknowledging it, instead of being overpowered by it.
The shadow is an ally who helps us find “the medicine in the wound” or “the cure in the poison”. Too much poison kills; a little poison cures. In her 1984 book, Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives, psychiatrist and Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen delves into seven feminine archetypes within woman’s psyche, based on the goddesses of ancient Greece, whose names and mythologies have endured for more than three thousand years.
Myths are not mere fictitious stories or fantasies of the human mind, but perennially recurring patterns that describe fundamental concerns of the human condition. What fulfils one woman may mean little to another, depending on which feminine archetype is constellated (or activated). Knowledge of the feminine archetypes provides women with vital information about their psychological difficulties, allowing them not just to understand themselves, but also their relationship with others.
They also explain some of the difficulties and affinities women have with men. Knowledge of the “goddesses” provides useful information for men too. Men who want to understand women better can use feminine archetypes to learn that there are different types of women and what to expect from them.
When you recognise the forces influencing you, you move closer to fulfilling the age-old maxim, “know thyself. ” If you can learn about your own patterns of being, you can save yourself from some suffering. The Greek gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus have different personalities, and as a whole, they include the full spectrum of human attributes.
The twelve Olympians included six gods and six goddesses. Bolen explores six of these goddesses—Artemis, Athena, Hestia, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite—and Persephone, Demeter’s daughter. These seven feminine archetypes are divided into three categories: the virgin goddesses (Artemis, Athena, Hestia), the vulnerable goddesses (Hera, Demeter, Persephone), and the transformative goddess (Aphrodite).
All three types of goddesses must be expressed in a woman’s life for her to work meaningfully, love deeply, and be creative and procreative. Every woman holds the potential of each goddess within her, but in each individual, certain patterns are constellated while others remain dormant. It is important to note that archetypes do not look out for the best interests of us mortals.
They usually exist outside the concerns of human values and are amoral forces similar to instincts. Just as they can teach us about ourselves, we can also teach them about human morality, rather than completely submitting to them. Identification with an archetype can make us lose our humanity, lead to ego-inflation and grandiose delusions.
You are not an archetype; it is a force beyond your conscious control. This is very different from the integration of an archetype, whereby you acknowledge its independence and acquire insights from it in order to help you with the struggles of your daily life. The virgin goddesses—Artemis, Athena, and Hestia—embody independence and non-relationship aspects of femininity.
They resist emotional attachments, prioritising personal meaning over social expectations. Artemis and Athena are achievement-oriented, while Hestia turns inward to her spiritual centre. The virgin goddess aspect is a pure essence of who the woman is and of what she values.
The term “virgin” means undefiled, pure, and untouched, indicating that a significant part of a woman is psychologically virginal, rather than strictly referring to physical virginity. Focused consciousness typifies the virgin goddesses. They have the ability to concentrate their attention on what matters to them, and become absorbed in what they are doing.
Focused consciousness is like an intense beam of light that illuminates only what is focused on, leaving everything outside its radius in the darkness. In its most concentrated form, it can be like a laser beam, so piercing or dissecting in its ability to analyse that it can be incredibly precise or destructive—depending on what it is focused. Artemis, known to the Romans as Diana, is the goddess of the hunt and moon.
As a child, she sat on her father Zeus’s lap, who promised to grant her every wish. She requested a bow and arrows, a pack of hunting hounds, nymphs as companions, the wilderness as her domain, and eternal chastity—all of which Zeus granted. Since then, Artemis has roamed the wilderness with her nymphs, minor deities of mountains, woods, and streams, whom she leads as a protective “Big Sister.
” Armed with a silver bow and unerring aim, she is the skilled archer of the wild. As the goddess of wildlife, Artemis is associated with many undomesticated animals that symbolised her qualities. She is the first-born twin sister of Apollo, God of the Sun.
Their mother, Leto, was a nature deity, the daughter of two Titans (the pre-Olympian gods); their father was Zeus, chief god of Olympus. As soon as she was born, Artemis helped her mother through the difficult labour of Apollo, earning her a role as goddess of childbirth. Women addressed her as “helper in pain, whom no pain touches.
” It is also noteworthy that Artemis repeatedly came to her mother’s aid. No other goddess is known for this. As the goddess of the moon, Artemis was at home in the night, roaming her wilderness domain by moonlight or torchlight.
Her male counterpart, Apollo, represented the city, while she symbolised the wilderness; he was associated with the sun, and she with the moon; he tended domesticated flocks, while she connected with wild, untamed animals. In mythology, Artemis swiftly protected those who sought her help and punished those who offended her. When the hunter Actaeon stumbled upon her bathing, she transformed him into a stag in anger, and he was torn apart by his own hounds.
This shows her mercilessness. She tends to judge actions in black and white, viewing them as either wholly good or wholly bad, along with the individuals behind them. Artemis also inadvertently killed her beloved Orion, provoked by her brother Apollo, who challenged her to hit a distant target without revealing it was Orion.
This tragedy highlights how the one man she loved fell victim to her competitive nature. Psychologically, Artemis is the archetype of the independent, achievement-oriented feminine spirit. This archetype is present in women who are capable of focusing intensely on whatever is important to her and to be undistracted from her course.
An Artemis type is not averse to competition, if anything, it heightens the excitement of “the chase. ” Many supportive fathers are like Zeus, in providing the “gifts” that will help their daughters to pursue their ambitions. However, problems arise when parents criticise or reject an Artemis daughter for not being the girl they expect her to be, accusing her of being “too masculine.
” Typically, the daughter outwardly adopts a defiant pose while feeling wounded inside. This creates inner conflict about her competence, leading to self-sabotage—her own doubts are her worst enemies. She incorporates her father’s critical attitude into her psyche.
Deep down, she struggles with feelings that she is not good enough, hesitates when new opportunities are offered, achieves less than she is capable of, and, when she succeeds, still feels inadequate. A common mother-daughter difficulty that Artemis types have is with mothers whom they view as passive, weak or immature. Determined not to resemble their mothers, they avoid expressing vulnerability and usually find themselves rejecting what is considered feminine—softness, receptivity, and stirrings towards marriage and motherhood.
As the archetypal sister, Artemis women are usually supporting younger women. However, such a woman often prioritises her career, creative project or cause over a loving relationship. She usually lacks interest in long-term relationships, and when she does have one, her mate is often a colleague or competitor.
If she is unable to keep the competitive element out of the relationship, it usually kills it. When the Artemis woman is in conflict with men, it usually mirrors the early father-daughter dynamics. The shadow side of Artemis is associated with her ability to hurt others.
She has a contempt for vulnerability and dependence, as it shows signs of “weakness”. An Artemis woman may have a series of relationships that go well only as long as the man keeps some emotional distance and is not always available. One moment she may be present, and the next she disappears.
As a consequence of her inattentiveness, people who care about her feel insignificant and excluded, and become hurt or angry at her. The coldness and heartlessness of the Moon Goddess may appeal to some men partly because of her indifference and impersonal eroticism. The goddess Artemis has a destructive aspect symbolised by the Calydonian boar, a monstrous creature with eyes that glow with blood and fire, driving flocks into chaos.
Her rage, only surpassed by the goddess Hera, is typically directed at men, while Hera’s is aimed at other women. The heroine Atalanta ultimately slayed the boar by throwing a spear through its only vulnerable spot. The destructive rage of an Artemis woman can only be quelled by confronting her own destructiveness, as Atalanta did.
She must recognise this aspect of herself before it consumes her and damages her relationships. Facing the inner boar takes courage, as it requires acknowledging the harm she has caused to herself and others. Humility is the lesson that returns her humanity—she becomes all too aware that she, too, is human, all too human; and not an avenging goddess.
Athena—known as Minerva to the Romans—is the goddess of wisdom and crafts. She is the warrior goddess, protector of numerous heroes and the patron goddess of Athens, a city named in her honour. Athena is the only Olympian goddess potrayed wearing armour, and typically holds a spear or shield.
Her major symbols are the olive tree, the owl, and the snake. She is also the goddess of various crafts, including weaving, goldsmithing, and pottery. Athena’s entrance into the company of the Olympians was dramatic.
It was foretold that Metis, the first wife of Zeus, would give birth to a daughter equal to Zeus in courage and wisdom. When she became pregnant, Zeus swallowed her. He then suffered a painful headache and Athena was born out of his forehead, fully grown and wearing gold armour, emitting a mighty war cry.
Athena values rational thinking and stands for the domination of will and intellect over instinct and nature. Her spirit is found in the city; for Athena, the wilderness is to be tamed and subdued. The Athena archetype is followed by a woman who is ruled by her head rather than her heart.
Unlike Artemis whose mode of adaptation was separation from men, Athena seeks identification with men. She enjoys being in the midst of powerful men who have authority, without feeling emotional intimacy and becoming his “right-hand woman. ” She is the archetypal “father’s daughter” and is a defender of patriarchy “the rule of the father.
” Being born as a fully grown adult, the Athena archetype represents an older, more mature, version of a virgin goddess than does Artemis. Her pragmatic attitude and lack of romanticism or idealism make her the epitome of the “sensible adult. ” As a strategist whose tactics brought many victories for the Greeks, the Athena archetype is present in those women who excel in male-dominated fields such as science, the military, and engineering, where she feels quite comfortable being one of the few women in her field.
Such a woman may use her ability to think strategically to further her own projects, or as companion-advisor to an ambitious man on the rise. Athena is invulnerable and unmoved by irrational or overwhelming emotion. Her intellectual armour defends her from emotional turmoil, as she coolly assesses what is happening, and what she will do next.
Athena lives for her work. She is also spared the despair and suffering that may follow bonding with others or needing them. Thus, she cuts herself from empathising with anyone else’s deep feelings, and typically lacks jealousy and rage.
The Athena woman is no puella aeterna (eternal girl); she doesn’t play Cinderella or wait for rescue through marriage. The idea of “Someday my prince will come” is entirely foreign to her. Youth or beauty is not essential for an Athena woman.
For her, growing older is not a loss, on the contrary because she is more powerful, useful or influential in her middle years than as a young adult, her confidence and well-being may even be enhanced during those years, when other women area anxious about looking older and becoming less desirable. Learning objective facts, thinking clearly, and taking the exams themselves are all exercises that evoke this archetype. Work has a similar effect.
To behave “professionally” implies that a woman is objective, impersonal, and skilful. A woman who feels deeply for others may enter medicine or nursing, for example, and find that she needs to learn dispassionate observation, and logical thinking. One of the shadow aspects of Athena can be described as the “Medusa effect”.
On her breastplate, Athena wore a symbol of her power—the aegis, a goatskin decorated with the head of Medusa, whose terrifying appearance turned to stone anyone who gazed at her. When an Athena woman is in a position of authority, she is unempathetic and critical of any weakness, which intimidates and petrifies others. However, she is unconscious of her behaviour.
She is merely doing her job well, focusing on facts over feelings. Athena is less concerned with questions of fairness or morality; her primary focus is on whether a strategy is effective. Women who embody this mindset reflect the darker side of Athena.
Bolen describes a patient who was entirely intellectual, recounting her life in a detached, factual way, devoid of emotion. This lifelessness immediately had a numbing effect on Bolen, who realised that this “turning to stone” sensation was an issue the patient carried into all her relationships. One of the archetypes hidden in Athena’s shadow is the Inner Child.
The goddess Athena was never a child; she was born as an adult. This metaphor is not far removed from the Athena woman’s actual experience. Such women were pushed out of the childhood world too soon, they have lost the positive and magical aspect of the puella aeterna.
The woman must discover the child that she never was. This can be done through play. Athena, as the goddess of crafts finds non-work play that creates a tangible result more fulfilling, such as weaving and sewing.
In fact, all the crafts offer Athena women an inner balance to an outer-world focus. Another archetype hidden in Athena’s shadow is the Great Mother. Athena was unaware of her mother Metis, whom Zeus had swallowed.
So too, metaphorically, Athena women are born “motherless. ” Hestia or Vesta is the goddess of the hearth, and is the least known of the Olympians. She was rarely depicted in human form.
Instead, she was felt to be present in the living fire at the centre of the home, temple, and city. Entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, the Vestal virgins. Their vow of chastity was considered vital to the survival of Rome, and any violation led to the severe punishment of being entombed alive.
Hestia is the sacred fire that provides light, warmth, and heat for cooking. As such, she was greatly honoured, receiving the best offerings made by mortals. Hestia was the first-born child of Rhea and Cronos, the divine descendants of the primordial Gaia (Mother Earth) and Uranus (Father Sky).
She is the elder sister of the first generation of Olympians, and symbolises the archetype of the wise old woman. In order for a house to become a home, Hestia’s presence was required. Hestia women find that their home is a sacred place and putting things in order is a meaningful activity rather than a chore.
For her, cleaning a room is no trivial matter. By organising the chaos from the outside, she attains inner harmony—reflecting the microcosm-macrocosm relationship. By becoming absorbed in doing her tasks, she replaces the ordinary chatter of the mind into a pervasive inner quiet.
Visitors to a Hestia woman’s home sense an immediate harmony between her personality, and the essence of the Goddess of the Hearth. An intangible quality gives the home a feeling of a serene sanctuary. Hestia was the first one of her siblings to be swallowed up by Cronos and the last one to be regurgitated, spending the longest time captive in his dark bowels—and the only one to be there alone.
This isolation is psychologically significant. The saying “Still waters run deep” fits a Hestia woman—reserved and quiet, yet possessing intense, hidden emotions. A Hestia girl often feels as alienated or isolated from her siblings as she does from her parents—and she truly is different from them.
Such a girl conveys an “old soul” quality about her. When faced with difficulties, she is likely to withdraw emotionally, retreating inward for solace. As a child, she is often helped to “get over her shyness or timidity”—which is how others often label her inwardness.
Moreover, she is absent from social dramas, resembling the goddess Hestia who took no part in the romantic pursuits or the wars that occupied the other Olympians. For a Hestia woman, time is not so much quantitative (chronos) as qualitative (kairos). She doesn’t seek to “kill time”, but rather participates in qualitative time, where everything feels perfectly aligned with the right moment—leading to a flow state.
Because her self-identity is anchored to her inner self, a Hestia woman does not become devastated by external circumstance. She also does not need a man to feel emotionally fulfilled. Without him, her life would not lose its meaning or purpose.
Her ego is aligned with the Self, embodying what the ancient Greeks called apatheia—a serene state where one is unshaken by emotional turbulence. Hestia’s apatheia provides the other archetypes with wisdom and balance, following the “middle-path”, the point between excess and deficiency. She represents, in fact, the archetype of the Self—her round hearth with a sacred fire at the centre resembles a mandala, a symbol of wholeness.
The two major emotional crises that face women are the empty nest and widowhood. But although Hestia women can be wives and mothers, they don’t have a strong need to be in either role. Instead, coping with the outer world is their true challenge—representing Hestia’s shadow.
A Hestia woman lacks ambition and drive; she neither seeks recognition nor values power, and strategies to get ahead are foreign to her. As a result, achievers who measure worth by tangible standards often overlook or undervalue her. Additionally, her warmth can seem too impersonal and detached.
She must learn to express her deep inner feelings outwardly to others. A Hestia woman is by nature uninterested in making a good impression on others and in wearing a persona, the mask of social adaptation that a person presents to the world. She presents herself as too naked—she reveals too much, is too honest, allowing people to see what others would keep covered up in the same situation.
In large gatherings, she frequently feels inadequate, awkward, and shy, as if she has “nothing to wear. ” Moving on to the vulnerable goddesses—Hera, Demeter, and Persephone—they represent the wife, mother, and daughter archetypes, respectively. Their identities centre on relationships, reflecting women’s needs for affiliation and bonding.
The quality of consciousness associated with the vulnerable goddess archetypes is called diffuse consciousness, like the warm glow of a lamp illuminating everything within its range. This receptive, diffuse kind of consciousness can take in the whole or “gestalt” of a situation—unlike focused consciousness, which zeroes in on a single element. When a relationship-oriented woman returns to focusing on her studies, one inevitable source of conflict between her and those who live with her—are their interruptions when she studies.
Her receptive, diffuse awareness makes her easily distracted, while the man in her life may unconsciously feel her focused consciousness on work as a rival taking her away from him. It is as if an unseen warm light has been turned off, making him vaguely anxious and insecure—sensing that something is wrong. His “unnecessary” interruptions often irritate her, reinforcing his sense of rejection.
As soon as the man does not take personally her change from diffuse awareness to focused consciousness, the tension dissolves. Hera, also called Juno in Roman mythology, is the goddess of marriage, queen of the Olympians, and both sister and wife to Zeus. One of her symbols is the cow, an image long associated with the Great Mother archetype as a provider of nourishment.
The Milky Way—our galaxy, named from the Greek gala, meaning “milk”—originates from the myth of the Great Goddess, whose milk created it. This then became a part of Hera’s mythology, when milk spilled from her breasts, the Milky Way was formed. The Hera archetype first and foremost represents a woman’s yearning to be a wife, with the absence of a man causing deep grief.
Bolen describes a divorced 32-year-old nurse who said, “I feel like I have a big hole in my psyche, or maybe it’s a wound that never quite heals. ” Women who move through a series of brief relationships, leaving when challenges arise or the initial magic fades, or those who feel disconnected from their spouse, can benefit from integrating the Hera archetype. When the instinct to bond as a partner is weak, it must be consciously developed.
This is possible only if a woman recognises the importance of commitment and has the determination to maintain it. A Hera woman needs the prestige, respect, and honour that marriage connotes for her, and she wants to be recognised as “Mr. Somebody.
” Without a husband, she feels purposeless, making her unlikely to seek divorce, even under poor treatment. She finds fulfilment in making her husband the centre of her life. Her first serious breakup can be a significant emotional wound, and as she ages, being unmarried often deepens her inner emptiness, intensified by social expectations.
For her, work and education are secondary aspects of life. A Hera woman considers her wedding day the most significant in her life. She now becomes the wife, which fulfils a drive she has felt as long as she can remember.
Marriage is an archetypal experience for her—in her mind, she will always be the wife—even after a divorce has occurred. Beyond fulfilling the inner need for partnership and the outer recognition of husband and wife, Hera as the marriage archetype also represents a mystical striving for wholeness through a hieros gamos (sacred marriage). Just as marriage involves a physical union, it also encompasses a spiritual connection, where man and woman become one flesh, achieving a greater sense of wholeness than they would alone.
In alchemy, it is represented as the union of King and Queen (the central masculine and feminine archetypes), and is known as the coniunctio, the final stage in which the philosophers’ stone is created. Hera’s shadow lies in unconsciously identifying with her husband, losing her self-identity and allowing him to decide how she will spend her life. A Hera woman’s happiness depends on her husband’s devotion to her, on the importance he places on their marriage, and on his appreciation of her as his wife.
If these are lacking, she is devastated. Such a woman can avoid a lot of grief by not allowing herself to be propelled unwisely and prematurely into marriage. A Hera woman may project the image of an idealised husband onto a man and then feel betrayed when he doesn’t meet her expectations.
With very little provocation, she suspects infidelity and feels humiliated in public by her husband’s inattention. When he is away, she is frequently left at the mercy of the jealous demons that torment her imagination. To mask her insecurities, she reacts with rage, rather than depression.
This makes her feel more powerful and in control. In Greek mythology, the goddess Hera did not express her anger at Zeus for his infidelities but directed it toward the other woman instead. Such a woman’s tendency is to channel the pain of rejection and humiliation into vindictive rage toward other women.
The shadow side of the Hera archetype predisposes women to displace blame from her man—on whom she is emotionally dependent—onto others. Even if her children reveal the abuse of her husband, she will say, “You have no right to talk to your father that way! ” Her loyalty is always with her husband.
She also seeks to damage the other woman’s reputation with lies or even resorting to physical harm. When a woman is overwhelmed by Hera’s shadow, one possible solution is suggested by the myth of Hera’s son Hephaestus—known as Vulcan to the Romans—the God of the Forge. According to one account, Hera abandoned him at birth due to his lameness.
He symbolises a potential inner strength, which the goddess herself rejected but which is still available. In contrast, Hera favoured her other son, Ares, God of War, whose uncontrolled rage on the battlefield mirrored her own vindictiveness. Hephaestus had his forge inside a volcano.
Symbolically, he represents the possibility that volcanic rage can be contained and channelled into creative energy to make armour and weapons as works of art, used by the great heroes of ancient Greece. Work of any kind, mental or manual, can serve as a means of sublimating rage—a much healthier option than letting rage slowly consume you. Demeter, goddess of grain, presided over bountiful harvests.
The Romans knew her as Ceres—to which our word cereal is related. She was the fourth wife of Zeus, also her brother. She had one only child, her daughter Persephone, whom she is linked with in her mythology.
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter describes Persephone gathering flowers when she is suddenly abducted by Hades, the God of the Underworld. Her mother, Demeter, hears her cries and rushes to find her. She searches for nine days and nine nights, neglecting her duties as the goddess of agriculture, causing a great famine that threatens to destroy all life.
Concerned for humanity, Zeus sends Hermes to the Underworld to negotiate Persephone’s release. Hades agrees, but before she leaves, he gives her some pomegranate seeds, which she eats. Upon seeing her daughter, Demeter rejoices, restoring fertility and growth to the earth.
However, because Persephone had eaten food from the Underworld, she became symbolically bound to it and had to spend some time with Hades. Thus, Persephone spends one-third of the year in the Underworld, causing winter as Demeter mourns her absence, and returns in spring for the remaining time of the year, bringing life and growth. This myth explains the natural seasons and serves as an allegory for the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
It became the basis for the Eleusinian Mysteries, the most sacred and important religious rituals of ancient Greece for over two thousand years. Through these mysteries, people would experience a symbolic death and rebirth, and no longer fear death. If you die before you die, then when you die, you don’t die.
The mother archetype is represented by Demeter, whose most important relationship was with her daughter. And although other goddesses are mothers, Demeter is the most nurturing of the goddesses. She represents the maternal instinct fulfilled through pregnancy and physical, psychological or spiritual nourishment.
If a Demeter woman’s need to nurture is rejected, it can lead to depression. Many Demeter women resent feminists for devaluing the role of motherhood; they want to be full-time mothers and now feel pressured to work outside the home. When Demeter grieved, nothing would grow and famine threatened to destroy humankind.
Similarly, a Demeter woman’s shadow is expressed by withholding emotional or physical contact from her child, as well as needed nutrition. She also experiences her child’s growing autonomy as an emotional loss for herself. Her children usually remain Mother’s little girls or Mama’s boys well into adulthood.
Such a mother is frequently overcontrolling, believing that “Mother knows best”, which can stifle her children’s self-confidence, and increases her own workload. If she feels overburdened, she becomes resentful but usually doesn’t express it directly. Instead, she is likely to suppress her feelings and to work harder at getting everything done.
Eventually, her true feelings are expressed, and she begins to show passive-aggressive behaviour. To refuse to do what someone else expects you to do, and state why, is a clear message; a passive-aggressive action is a muddled message encoded in a hostile act. Later in life, if her grown children live far away or are emotionally distant, a Demeter woman may develop “empty-nest depression”, a deep sense of loss and purposelessness when children, who were central to their lives, grow up and move away.
Moreover, when her daughter goes out with another man, she frequently feels as if Hades is abducting her Persephone. A Demeter woman might stay with a man just because she feels sorry for him. He may be a puer aeternus or eternal boy, an immature self-absorbed boy who avoids responsibility and has a sense of specialness.
Demeter women, however, can be highly agreeable and do not see this as an issue. As far as she is concerned, the world is unkind to him. His thoughtlessness often hurts and angers her—but if he then tells her how she’s the only person in his life that really cares about him, all is again forgiven.
The goddess Persephone—whom the Romans called Proserpina—was worshipped in two ways, as the Kore (Maiden), a young goddess associated with grain and spring, and as queen of the underworld, a mature goddess who reigns over the dead souls. Although Persephone was not one of the twelve Olympians, she was the central figure in the Eleusinian Mysteries, where the Greeks experienced the renewal of life after death through Persephone’s annual return from the underworld. Though Persephone was first taken to the underworld as a captive, she later becomes its Queen, symbolising her growth and transformation.
Symbolically, the underworld represents deeper layers of the psyche. Schizophrenic patients who lose their anchor in reality and are submerged into the dark depths of the collective unconscious mirror Persephone’s abduction. Women who emerge from the dark night of the soul having gained insight about life, can help guide others through the underworld or archetypal reality of the psyche.
Only the wounded healer heals. After Persephone emerged from the underworld, Hecate was her constant companion. Hecate, goddess of the dark moon and the crossroads, ruled over the uncanny realms of ghosts and demons, sorcery and magic.
This companion is a symbol of having survived the other world. Persephone’s shadow expresses a woman’s tendency toward passivity, naivety, and a need to please and be wanted by others. She is the puella aeterna who doesn’t commit herself to anything or anyone (be it work, education or a relationship), because making a definite choice eliminates other possibilities.
Persephone’s shadow is embodied in the woman who is so indecisive that she waits for something or someone to transform her life, like a girl waiting for her prince to come and be eternally in love and live happily ever after. If she finds him, however, she is quickly disappointed and finds that reality is nothing like her fantasy. In her book, The Way of All Women, Jungian analyst Esther Harding describes this type as the “anima woman”, who receives the projection of a man’s anima and conforms to the image.
She “adapts herself to her man’s wishes, makes herself beautiful in his eyes, charms him, pleases him. ” She is “generally unselfconscious, she doesn’t analyse herself or her motives; she just is; and for the most part she is inarticulate. ” In other words, it is her pattern to unconsciously conform to what a man wants her to be.
With a Persephone, a man feels he can be perceived as powerful, dominant and not have his authority or ideas challenged. He also feels that he can be innocent, inexperienced, or incompetent, and not be criticised. Such a woman may stay a daughter who thinks of her mother as a “real mother” and of herself as merely playing at the role.
On the other hand, the daughter of a Persephone mother may think, “I didn’t have a mother—I was the mother. ” Narcissism is yet another pitfall for some Persephone women. They may become so anxiously fixated on themselves that they lose their capacity to relate to others.
They spend hours in front of mirrors. People exist only to give them feedback, to provide them with reflecting surfaces in which to see themselves. As the Maiden grows up and reaches midlife, realistic barriers now arise that make her aware that dreams she once entertained as possibilities are now beyond reach.
She avoids the inevitable responsibilities of adulthood and dreads old age. Since change is inevitable, she is reluctantly dragged along in life, like a prisoner in shackles. Whenever the real world seems too difficult, she retreats into her fantasy world.
At some point, however, what was once a sanctuary becomes a prison. She may become confined in her inner world and be unable to come back to ordinary reality. Withdrawing gradually from reality, some Persephone women seem to slip into psychosis.
They live in a world full of symbolic imagery, and have distorted perceptions of themselves. Others simply avoid what is really happening by staying in this fantasy realm when reality is too overwhelming. A Persephone woman must make a commitment and stay with it.
If she does this, she may gradually transform from an eternal girl to a mature woman. If in the course of her life a Persephone woman has evolved from Maiden to Queen, she may gain the presence of a wise elder who knows the mysteries that make life and death meaningful. She has had inner experiences that dispels her fears about growing old and dying.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty is in a third category all her own as the transformative goddess. In Greek mythology, Aphrodite caused mortals and deities (with the exception of the virgin goddesses) to fall in love and conceive new life. She valued emotional experience with others more than either independence from others (which motivated the virgin goddesses), or permanent bonds to others (which characterised the vulnerable goddesses).
The consciousness associated with Aphrodite is unique. Unlike the diffuse awareness of the vulnerable goddesses, Aphrodite’s focus is intense yet receptive, more attuned to its subject than the single-minded concentration of the virgin goddesses. This “Aphrodite consciousness” resembles stage lighting that highlights the scene, drawing our attention effortlessly to what is in the “limelight” and inviting a relaxed, yet absorbing, concentration.
In her psychotherapeutic work, Bolen observed that she was fully absorbed in listening to her patient while her mind remained actively engaged, making mental associations with what she heard. If she became too receptive, she lost objectivity; if she became too distant, she risked losing empathy. Thus, analysis requires a balance of receptivity and emotional distance, as both the conscious and unconscious of doctor and patient are involved in a process in which both are deeply affected.
Aphrodite, known to the Romans as Venus, is the most beautiful of the goddesses. “Golden” was the most frequent epithet used by the Greeks to describe Aphrodite. Her mythological origins vary: in Homer’s version, she is the daughter of Zeus and the sea nymph Dione.
In Hesiod’s version, however, Aphrodite’s birth is more dramatic—Cronos cut off the genitals of his father Uranus and cast them into the sea, from which Aphrodite emerged as a fully grown goddess. Aphrodite chose Hephaestus, the lame God of the Forge, as her husband, making Hera’s rejected son her lover—though he was frequently cuckolded by her (she had relationships with various gods and mortal men). Their marriage represents the union of beauty and craft, out of which art is born.
Aphrodite represents the archetype of the Lover. When two people fall in love, each sees the other in a “golden light” and is drawn toward the other’s beauty. There is magic in the air; a state of enchantment or infatuation is evoked.
Each feels more beautiful, more godlike or goddesslike than their ordinary selves. Aphrodite represents not only the procreative instinct that ensures the continuation of the species, but also the creative impulse, the birth of inspiring ideas, and of new creations. She is the femme inspiratrice or muse, bringing the spark that keeps creative endeavours from becoming overly rational and stale.
The shadow of Aphrodite is the inevitability of aging, a devastating reality for the Aphrodite woman if her attractiveness has been her chief source of gratification. However, the middle years are less difficult for Aphrodite women who are engaged in creative work. As they have more experience to draw inspiration from, and more highly developed skills with which to express themselves.
Aphrodite women tend to live in the immediate present, taking life in as if it were nothing more than a sensory experience. She responds as if there would be no future consequences to her actions. Emotional priorities will continue to carry more weight than practical considerations.
She falls in love very easily, each time sincerely convinced that she has found the perfect man. In the magic of the moment, the man may feel himself a god in love with a goddess, only to be dropped and replaced. As a consequence, she leaves in her wake a series of wounded, rejected, depressed, or angry men who feel used and discarded.
To end this pattern, she must learn to love someone who is an imperfect human rather than a god, freeing herself of grandiose delusions and of short-lived romantic interest. We may distinguish between two shadow patterns of Aphrodite. In the first, a woman clings to a man who mistreats or belittles her, sacrificing everything for fleeting attention.
Though unhappy, she feels trapped by the relationship’s addictive hold. In the second, a woman chases after a man who openly rejects her, resorting to obsessive or disruptive behaviours. She might call him constantly, follow him to another city, or even get arrested for breaking into his house.
To break free from Aphrodite’s “curse”, she must recognise the destructiveness of the attachment and choose to let go. To give a brief overview of the feminine archetypes: Artemis personifies the independent, achievement-oriented feminine spirit; Athena is the self-assured woman who is ruled by her head rather than her heart; Hestia embodies patience, steadiness, and a love for solitude; Hera’s focus is on finding a husband and being married; Demeter represents a woman’s drive to provide physical and spiritual sustenance for her children; Persephone expresses a woman’s tendency towards compliancy and passivity, and finally, Aphrodite impels women to fulfil both creative and procreative functions. Each speaks for an aspect of the woman’s psyche (her total personality).
What goes on in our heads can be thought of as being like a committee of different personalities—male and female, young and old, some loud and others quiet. Ideally, a healthy ego chairs this committee, deciding who should speak and maintaining order by being observant and effective. When there is too much conflict—the inner equivalent of an Olympian war can occur—and if a woman’s ego cannot keep order, one goddess archetype may intervene and take over the personality.
Then, symbolically, that archetype rules the mortal. If the ego doesn’t restore order, it can lead to a mental breakdown or psychosis. More frequently, however, it leads to moodiness or depression, which can be seen as censored or unlived aspects of the archetypes.
When the ego is aware of the archetypes and their different needs and motivations, the tension is resolved. But, if the ego has a bias and only recognises some archetypes while neglecting others, it eventually leads to disorder. Since we do not care about them, they do not care about us.
It is not just what happens to us that shapes who we are, but what happens in us that makes the difference. How we feel and how we react inwardly and outwardly determine who we become, much more than the degree of adversity we encounter. The true cost of anything is what we give up in order to have it.
Courage is not being fearless, but taking action in spite of fear. This is the quality of the heroine. She does not let herself be victimised.
She understands life’s obstacles as a rite of passage. To take the responsibility of making the choice is crucial and what defines the heroine is that she does it.
