Aphrodite - When Her-Story became His-Story
There are two versions of Aphrodite’s birth. The first says that she was created from the genitals of Uranus.
Uranus (Heaven), refused to allow his children to emerge into the light and continuously embraced Gaia (earth). Cronus, his son, castrated him and threw his genitals into the sea. This produced Aphrodite. She came from the foam of the sea fully grown.
This creation story is distinguished as that of Aphrodite Urania, or Celestial Aphrodite. Aphrodite Urania is a goddess of pure and spiritual love.
The Urania birth story associates Aphrodite with the creation of the world and establishes her as one of the oldest divinities. As Aphrodite was born from the act that separated Heaven and Earth and created the world in between, she is present from the very beginning of time.
The second story of Aphrodite’s birth paints her as one of the younger divinities, and is more closely connected with her later reputation as a minor goddess.
In Homer’s Iliad, Aphrodite was born from the union of Zeus with the Titan goddess Dione. This incarnation is referred to as Aphrodite Pandemos, or Common Aphrodite. Aphrodite Pandemos is the baser of the two goddesses, and is associated with physical satisfaction.
These two stories shows us the transition between the Female energy consciousness and the Male energy consciousness. For thousands of years (40,000 to be accurate!) humans followed a spiritual path that was worshiping the Goddess and the Female energy qualities.
Around 8,000 BC a transition has taken place and instead of the Goddess humans started worshiping God and the Male energy force and qualities. With that started a whole transition in society’s values and daily life.
The Greek period symbolizes this transition. We can see this transition in these two versions. The first one recognizes Aphrodite as one of the ancient Goddess and her power is unlimited. In the second she is just the daughter of… and therefore she is only a minor player in the world that is now dominated by male Gods.
Another symbolic element is that the first story, which naturally comes from the period where the Goddess was still in power, the story has many layers of symbols in it.
Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and beauty is being born from genitals thrown into water, which has always been a symbol of feminine power.
This shows us that the story was not just serving as an historical document about the Goddess but symbolizing more.
The second one is a very simple plain story that does not have any depth to it except a report on events.
This is just a symptom of what happened when the consciousness of the Goddess has turned into the consciousness of God. Things became plain and without any deeper levels to them.
Next time about the meaning of Aphrodite in our modern times and what we can learn from her.
