Diffuse awareness explains the scanning consciousness that allows a parent to hear a child whimper through the din of conversation, or that enables a wife to know that her husband is upset, feeling ill, or under pressure when he walks in the door (sometimes even before he may be aware of it himself). This receptive, diffuse kind of consciousness can take in the whole or “gestalt” of a situation. (In contrast, the “focused consciousness” characteristic of Artemis, Athena, and Hestia—the three virgin goddesses—concentrates on one element to the exclusion of everything else.)
