GODDESS: IN HER MANY FORMS - MEDITATIONS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meditate on the Archetypes of the Goddesses Within You. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Venus, Goddess of Love and Beauty * Demeter, Goddess of Grain and Maternal Archetype * Persephone, Maiden and Queen of the Underworld * Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Craft * Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow * Hecate, Triple Goddess of the Phases of the Moon * Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth * Diana, Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt * Juno, Goddess of Commitment * The Moirai, the Three Spinners of Fate * The Muses of Meditation, Memory and Song -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VENUS Luxuriate with Venus, Goddess of Love and Beauty. Commune with Venus (Aphrodite, Aphrogenia, Anadyomene, Astarte, Cytherea, Cypris, or Dionaea, as she is also known), when you want to celebrate your sexual passion, your sensuality and all your "tender" feelings! To know her within you is to know your creativity, fertility and your enjoyment of love, affection and beauty in your life. Invoke her to bring your senses to more awareness of these properties. Look in the western sky for Venus' bright light. Look for Venus in the beauty of the sea -- her place of birth -- or a sunset. Call on her to bring harmony to your life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DEMETER Nurture with Demeter, Goddess of Grain and Maternal Archetype. If the archetype of Demeter (or Ceres, as she is also known) is alive in you, then you are rejoicing in the yearning to provide physical and spiritual nurturing to your children, or perhaps your inner children or chosen children. Invoking Demeter involves honoring your power to sustain life through all its phases -- gestation, birth, marriage. She is the archetype of the Great Mother inside us all. Focus on her to ground yourself in your physical body and to nurture it. You can also act on Demeter's behalf by being an activist for environmental issues, as Demeter is the goddess of the earth mother and natural agricultural cycles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PERSEPHONE Honor Transitions with Persephone, Maiden and Queen of the Underworld. Persephone (Prosepina, or Kore, as she is also known) represents the transition from innocent maidenhood to adult womanhood, knowledgeable of the depths of the psyche. In myth, Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, was abducted to the underworld by Hades when she had been entranced by a lush field of narcissus blossoms. In her grief over the loss, Demeter the Goddess of Grain, stopped the natural agricultural cycles. Eventually Persephone was allowed to return to the world each spring to bring fertility back to the earth, and thus she became a symbol of renewal that returns each year. She also became a guide for other Goddesses to the underworld, and thus she became a symbol of our deepest knowledge of ourselves and the value of sharing our journeys with other women. Thus she represents the continual spiral that is our psychic development. Meditate on Persephone to become more aware of your simplicity and complexity. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ATHENA Consult with Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Craft. Athena (Glaukopis/"owl-eyed", Gorgopis/"gorgon faced", or Minerva, as she is also known) within us represents that part of ourselves that is summoned to provide logic and self-assurance. Her totem bird is the owl. She is ruled more by her head than her heart. Your inner Athena can be fostered by practicing skills and crafts. Athena is the Goddess of weaving, horse training, flute playing and other military, political and domestic crafts. She invented the wheel and all arts & sciences. Athena sprang from Zeus' head fully formed. If your archetypal Athena is strong, you may have always seemed mature, even in childhood. You may need to develop your abilities to let yourself be free, unrestrained and immature. Set up an altar to Athena with olive branches, blue candles, and amber incense. Envision Athena and invoke her by saying: Athena is my strength. She is my armor. I walk in peace and safety. Her shield deflects all harmful. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IRIS Let Your Feelings Flow with Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow. Iris was attendant and messenger to the Goddess, Juno, and thus the feminine counterpart to Hermes. She represents balance, action and intelligence in dealing with the flow of feelings. You invoke her when you make decisions based on sympathy, kindness and the wish to preserve relationships and harmony. This provides a balance to Athena's detachment. However, sometimes Iris represents ambivalence and a lack of separateness from others that can also be an extreme to be avoided. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HECATE Deepen with Hecate, Goddess of the Moon. Hecate is portrayed as a triple-faced Goddess, representing the maiden, mother and crone and the three phases of the moon. She is a mighty sorceress or witch. She is often described as inhabiting the heavens, earth and the Underworld, thus having access to our collective unconscious. She represents fertility, the menstrual cycle, crossroads, intuition and fluctuation. She represents hope when we are confused and our understanding seems vague and mysterious. Foster your awareness of your depth by invoking Hecate through focusing on your dreams, fantasies and using art experientially. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HESTIA Feel at Home with Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth. Hestia (also known as Vesta or Vestal Virgin) is the inward-focused, meditative goddess of spirituality represented by the warmth of the fire in the center of the hearth. Invoke Hestia by making your hearth and home beautiful and by reorganizing in the meditative, centering quality of homemaking activities, such as by taking the time to slowly rearrange your closet or bedroom. Creating order in your home can be a path to creating inner order. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIANA Become Active for Yourself with Diana, Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt. Call on Diana (or Artemis as she is also known) for inner strength. She is the virgin goddess of the woods, whose totem animals are the deer, bear and hare. She is an archer who's arrow never fails which can serve to inspire you to make goals with determination. You are invoking Diana when you spend time not focusing on relationships but rather on yourself and your own development. Explore your environment by taking a hike or traveling. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JUNO Enhance Your Capacity to Bond with Juno, Goddess of Commitment. Meditate on Juno (or Hera, Hebe, Theria as she is also known) to aspire to know your own fullness of power and healing. She is the Goddess protector of women and marriage, "the Lady of the Cities," "the organizer," the lady of civic law, child raising and relationships. She is the Goddess of the summer bounty and the June bride. Juno, Hera, Queen of the Powers, Bring me, bring out my own, my own. Let all that is needed be done well, be done well. Let me sing of your glory under the moon. I am ready for my personal power. I am the arm that does your work. I am the mind of your thoughts. I am the will of your achievements. I am the conductor of your power. Hera, Juno, Hebe, Theria, I am the heart of your love. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE MOIRAI Meditate on your Life with the Moirai, the Three Spinners of Fate. The Moriai are the mythical spinners of the thread of human life and destiny. They represent that part of ourselves that is in our center that makes unconscious choices based on our fate in life. This image invites us to look at our part in calling our experiences to us, both negative and positive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE MUSES Seek Inspiration from the Muses of Meditation, Memory and Song. In the act of creating you invoke the muses. They invite us to live our lives in self- expression and in recognition of the inspiration in nature all around us.