Goddesses in Everywoman:: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives

by Jean Shinoda Bolen

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. From the earliest time she can remember, she recalls “figuring things out” or “being smart about everything.” But a verbal little girl with a matter-of-fact mind often misses whole areas of subjective experience that she may eventually want as an adult. She may need to discover in herself the child she never was, a child who can be confused or delighted by something new. To recover her child self, an Athena woman must stop approaching new experience as “a sensible adult” would (as she has done since she was a child). Instead, she needs to approach life as if she were a wide-eyed child and everything were new and to be discovered. When a child is fascinated by something new, she takes it all in. Unlike Athena, she doesn’t have a preconceived notion of what it should be, isn’t skeptical, and doesn’t put well-worn, familiar labels on the experience and file it