Reality – oozing,
Dripping from his fingers
As though it was blood
Spilt from the wounds of men.
The rages and passions
Are his; he, simmering,
Darkest lord, controls most
Of that which we hold dear.
Yet we reject him:
We hide our faces and
Harden our hearts against him.
He is war, we say—
How can we trust him?
But Aphrodite did not suffer thus;
She, who some call the softest
And most beautiful of the gods,
Took him into her arms – her equal,
In all things.
Time flows like fingers;
Through the silky hair,
Over soft, golden skin,
Across hips and curses,
Until it finds you, Aphrodite:
You who gave birth to the kosmos
And do it time and time again,
When bodies meet and
Skin flushes with Love.
Sometimes I feel you here—
The magic of sunshine, the golden haze
That spreads down from the clouds
To hang as a crown atop my head.
I whisper your name in the shadows,
And dream of your eyes, heavy-lidded
With smoky rapture, with the ecstasy
Of a thousand nights, of all lovers.
Your couch is the most sweet of all,
And it is also the most transient,
Torn away in a moment of bitterness.
The beauty of the eternity lies here, now—
With you, my goddess.
Her name flows
Like honey or wine
From the lips of
Lovers and babes alike.
Her call hums
Through the veins
Of humans everywhere,
Men, women and children.
Her dance asks
To be freed from
The confines of the skin;
To live and love as if alive.
Her name spills now
From the eager throats
Of her doves, and is echoed
In dawn’s light by all that lives.
Aphrodite Anaduomenê is an oft-forgotten aspect of this wonderful goddess. It is not an aspect that is hostile to the interpretation of her as borne of Zeus and Dione, too—it exists separately from the question of her parentage, curving away from such questions with all the speed and skill of the winged divine.
The sea has always represented mystery. It is the Unknown – even more than our sprawling fields or city streets at night, when the amber light of the streetlights or of the lanterns held high can stave away the darkness. The sea cannot be pushed back, cannot be made anything other than well and truly Other. It ebbs and flows, rising and falling—it can crash down in a tangle of shimmering fury, or it can lap languidly against the shore.
Does this not describe Aphrodite, too? Even removed from her oceanic aspects, one cannot deny that this description also fits the goddess of beauty, love, sex and human nature. She might sun herself in summer-light with the Kharites, but she also dances in the winter months with the Erinyes. She is often shown, in art both Ancient and modern, without clothes; suggesting at her open nature, at her willingness to Reveal herself to all whom ask. But so many look only at the surface—at the beauty of the skin—that they do not look beyond, to the mysteries concealed in her veins and behind her smiling eyes.
Aphrodite Anaduomenê, rising from the sea, is the goddess of the otherworldly Unknown. She is a tantalising link between this world—that which is known and can be both experienced and perceived by the human senses—and the world of the gods, which is beyond our limited mortal perception. She, as well as few of her fellows (such as Hermes, the lord of the liminal spaces), represent the Journey, both between this world and the gods’, and in one’s own life.
In life, you cannot know everything that will happen – just as we can only ever guess at what truly occurs within the ocean. Even with our machines and all our modernity, we can never know what truly lurks at the depths of All That There Is. To find out that would be to discover the forgotten Links, to unearth the true depths of human consciousness and to reveal the shadows that linger in every mortal soul.
She rises from the sea to bring this knowledge in her wake. To open oneself to the ecstatic mysteries of Aphrodite is to open oneself to those of Life itself. Beauty, grace and pleasure are masks she wears, and so are grief, pain and loss. One must accept and even embrace each of Aphrodite’s masks to understand the depths of this ancient, sea-rising goddess—and she rises from the sea, the mystery of the Unknown, to help facilitate just this in her suppliants.
I soak my skin in ink,
In the heat and sweat
Stirred by being close to you –
This is my offering.
I stand on the bridge.
It arches high up to Olympos,
But its edges touch dark Dis.
It is your world; this is your home.
You do not live fully in
The world of light and sensation,
Nor in the cool depths of the dusk.
You live in the space in-between:
The bridges looming over the motorway,
The paths winding through the unknown,
The shore beside the rumbling sea,
And the long shadows of the twilight.
This is where I find you, my lord.
The in-between, which straddles each world
Without living truly in any, is where you linger.
It is where I belong, alongside you, Hermes.
Rainbow dust settles in her hair
And along the dark arch of her wings.
She pauses in her errand and turns to me,
Smiling. “Don’t you know me?”
Of course, I try to say, but my tongue
Is held fast by threads of gleaming ecstasy
And the reverence one cannot help
But hold for the mighty gods, above and below.
She steps out of her skin and into
Another, easier form. She laughs at me,
Covering her mouth with rosy fingers.
“I am Iris, messenger of the skies.”
I cannot speak, dazzled still by her.
My mind is a thorny world, tangled and painful.
She takes flight, speaks, and then she is gone. Her words
Linger as I awaken: “Blessed are those who help themselves.”
The pool gleams, opening its arms
In a most eager anticipation;
Sapphire light sparkles deep beneath,
Filling the onlookers’ eyes with need.
A god stands at the centre of the pool,
Its arms lifted in silent prayer –
Its eyes are closed, its face blank,
But for the smallest hint of a smile.
The onlookers fall to their knees
And worship at the altar of this god:
It does not stir; not even the Anemoi
Can rouse it from its still silence.
At a cue that none other can sense,
It lowers its arms, and opens its eyes.
Divinity pours forth, and the worshippers,
Acting as one, smile back at their god.
I sing of you, o soft-flowing Lethe;
Dark goddess of the murmuring river
That brings sweet oblivion in its wake.
I sing of you, dusk-whispering lady,
You who exists in black euphoria
And the madness of perfect clarity.
I sing of you, queen of the shadows.
Casting darkness over the human mind,
Guiding souls, living and dead, to forget.
For those who cannot speak – those silenced eternally
By Thanatos’ touch – I beseech you, Iron Queen, to
Watch over these children that will never know
The changing seasons directed by your mother,
That will never laugh and dance, as all children should.
Watch over these fragile butterflies as they flock to you,
Seeking a mother in the endless dusk of your abode;
Take them into your arms, Persephone Kore, and dance for them.
Make their eyes gleam with joy, instead of mirroring
The tears of their families, still alive in the bright world above.
Let them know a mother’s warmth, and keep them safe
From all that would cause them harm; they are dead, now,
But that does not keep the heartache of children at bay.
Ask that your mother, Demeter Anesidora, send forth
Warm fortune to help their parents to understand that
Death comes at any time. Ask that she tell them that
Their children are safe, with you, and that they will be
Reunited when it is their time to succumb to the eternal night.
The Mirror Palace 
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