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

by Jean Shinoda Bolen

For a Demeter woman, marriage in itself is not an overriding priority, as it is for a Hera woman. Most Demeter women want to get married mainly in order to have children. Unless she has Aphrodite or Hera as active archetypes, the Demeter woman views marriage as a simply necessary step that paves the way for children and the best situation in which to have children.

A Demeter woman feels a deep need to be a biological mother. She wants to give birth and nurse her own child.

(In contrast, many Artemis or Athena women would just as soon inherit a ready-made family, by marrying a man with children.)

When her adult children resent her, a Demeter woman is deeply wounded and confused. She cannot understand why her children treat her so badly, while other mothers have children who love and appreciate them. She also cannot see that she may have contributed to her children’s difficulties. She is conscious only of her positive intentions, not of the negative elements that poisoned the relationship with her children.

The “before” phase takes many forms in real life. For the woman who faces an empty nest when her last child leaves home and then feels as if her sense of meaning has been “abducted,” the before phase was the close and caring family life that lasted for some twenty-five years.

For the woman whose daughter defies her to live with a man the mother considers an abducting Hades, the before phase was when her daughter seemed an extension of herself who shared the same values and hopes for the future.

Some Demeter mothers always fear that something bad may happen to their child. These mothers may act as if they anticipate the possibility of “an abduction” from the time a child is born. They consequently limit the child’s independence and discourage the formation of relationships with others. At the heart of the an...

A Demeter mother may feel guilty for any event that has an adverse effect on her child. Until she has some insight into her unrealistic expectations that she should be the perfect mother, she expects herself to be all-knowing and all-powerful, capable of foreseeing events and protecting her child from all pain.

In an effort to lead their own lives, some children of an overcontrolling Demeter mother may break away and stay away, creating both a geographical and an emotional distance between them. Often they do so when a mother has unconsciously tried to make them feel beholden, guilty, or dependent.

A Demeter woman must confront the goddess time and time again, if she is to take charge of her own life. Instead of an instinctive yes, which is Demeter’s response, she must be able to choose when and how and to whom she will give. To do so, she must learn to say no—both to a person who needs something from her and to the goddess within.

A Demeter woman must be able to choose when and with whom she will have a baby. She needs to recognize that the Demeter within her has no interest in the realities of her life and no concern for timing. If pregnancy is to happen at the right time in her life, she must resist Demeter by being vigilant about birth control.

Fatigue, headaches, menstrual cramps, ulcer symptoms, high blood pressure, and back pains are common in Demeter women who have trouble saying no or expressing anger when they are overworked and overloaded with too many responsibilities or children. The message indirectly conveyed through these symptoms is “I am worn out, pressured, and in pain—don’t ask me to do any more!”

They are also expressions of low-grade, chronic depression, which results when a woman cannot protest effectively, represses her anger, and r...

In a work situation, it is the same. She is the supervisor, editor, or mentor that “knows best” how the work should be done and thus may take it over, which stifles originality and self-confidence in her “child” and increases her own workload.

Whether a Demeter woman fosters dependency or, on the contrary, creates a sense of security in which the other person can grow and thrive, depends on whether she herself has a sense of bountifulness or scarcity. If she is afraid that she will lose the other person or that her “child” is “not good enough,” she may become possessive, controlling, and constricting. This insecurity makes her into a hovering or a smothering mother.

In this way she drops the burdens she was expected to carry, unconsciously acts out her hostility with noncompliant behavior, and indirectly expresses her resentment and asserts her independence. It would be far better if she could learn to say no in the first place, because passive-aggressive behavior makes her appear incompetent and feel guilty.

Purposefulness makes the same action significantly different. To straightforwardly refuse to do what someone else expects you to do, and state why, is a clear message; a passive-aggressive action is a muddled message encoded in a hostile act. If the other person cares about your needs, the clear statement is enough. Backing up the statement with action is often required when the other person is exploitive and expects to get his or her way at your expense.

Once a Demeter woman becomes aware of her needs (which she herself suppresses) and of her anger at having those needs discounted by others, she can consider following Demeter’s example. An underpaid and overworked essential employee can state her case for a deserved raise and additional help, for example, and not be heard until she makes it clear to her boss that she will not continue as she has been doing.

Learning how to express anger instead of bottling it up inside reduces depression. Learning to say no helps avoid getting depleted and depressed from being overextended and feeling unappreciated and martyred. Learning to “let go and let grow,” spares her the wrenching pain of having children (or her supervisees, staff, or clients) resent her and need to break away. Developing other goddesses within herself provides her with additional interests besides mothering.

Demeter women find it easy to recognize the maternal pattern they embody, including the difficulty of saying no. However, there’s too often a blind spot when it comes to looking at their negative feelings and negative behavior toward others. Since these feelings and actions are what most need to be changed, a Demeter woman’s growth is thwarted until she can see the whole picture. Demeter women have good intentions—which, coupled with the need to see themselves as good mothers, block their receptiveness to these insights. Such women are often very defensive. They counter criticism with statements about their good intent (“I was only trying to help”) or with a list of the many positive and generous actions that they, in fact, do.

When she’s asked to take on another responsibility, she needs to learn to focus on herself the caretaking concern she so readily feels for others.

When she has been treated badly, she needs to reassure herself that “You deserve better treatment” and encourage herself to “Go tell them” of her needs.

Metaphorically, this is what ends a depression: the archetype of youth returns. How it happens often seems mysterious. It follows weeping and rage. Time passes. Then a budding feeling stirs. Perhaps the woman notices what a beautiful blue the sky is. Or she is touched by someone’s compassion. Or she has an urge to complete a long-abandoned task. Emotionally, these are small signs of spring. Shortly after the first signs of returning life, the woman is herself again, once more full of vitality and generosity, reunited with that part of herself that has been missing.

More than simple recovery is possible. The Demeter woman can also emerge from a period of suffering with greater wisdom and spiritual understanding. As an inner experience, the myth of Demeter and Persephone speaks of a capacity to grow through suffering.

If Persephone provides the structure of the personality, it predisposes a woman not to act but to be acted on by others—to be compliant in action and passive in attitude. Persephone the Maiden also allows a woman to seem eternally youthful.

Other women remain the maiden for most of their lives. They are uncommitted to a relationship, to work, or to an educational goal—even though they may, in fact, be in a relationship, have a job, or be in college or even graduate school. Whatever they are doing, it doesn’t seem “for real.”

M. Esther Harding, a distinguished Jungian analyst, began her book The Way of All Women by describing the type of woman who is “all things to all men.” This type is the “anima woman” who “adapts herself to his wishes, makes herself beautiful in his eyes, charms him, pleases him.” She is “not sufficiently aware of herself to be able to give a picture of what her subjective life is like.”

A Persephone woman’s innate receptivity makes her very malleable. If significant people project an image or expectation onto her, she initially does not resist. It is her pattern to be chameleonlike, to “try on” whatever others expect of her. It is this quality that predisposes her to be an “anima woman”; she unconsciously conforms to what a man wants her to be.

Finally, some people know Persephone the Guide without the experience of being captive Kore. This is true for many therapists who work with dreams and images that arise in the imagination of their patients. They have a receptivity to the unconscious without having been held captive there. They intuitively know and are familiar with the underworld realm. Persephone the Guide is part of that person’s psyche, the archetype responsible for the sense of familiarity the person feels when she encounters symbolic language, ritual, madness, visions, or ecstatic mystical experience.

Just as spring cyclically follows the fallow period after harvest and the barren months of winter, bringing warmth, more light, and new green growth, so can Persephone become reactivated in women after times of loss and depression. Each time Persephone resurfaces in a woman’s psyche, it is once again possible for her to be receptive to new influences and change. Persephone is youthfulness, vitality, and the potential for new growth. Women who have Persephone as a part of them may stay receptive to change and young in spirit all their lives.

The receptivity of the Persephone archetype is the quality many women need to cultivate. This is especially so of focused Athena and Artemis women, who are in the habit of knowing what they want and acting decisively. They do not do well when they encounter a lack of clarity about how and when to act, or an uncertainty about what has the highest priority. For this, they need to cultivate Persephone’s ability to wait for the situation to change, or for their feelings to become clear.

A receptive attitude toward one’s own psyche also can be developed. A necessary first step is kindness toward oneself (rather than impatience and self-criticism), especially during periods when a woman feels that she is “lying fallow.” Many women learn that fallow periods can be healing respites that precede a surge of activity or creativity, only after they have learned to accept them as a phase and not a sin.

I think of the Persephone woman as having something willowy about her that bends to conform with circumstances or with stronger personalities. Going first in one direction and then another, depending on how “the wind blows,” she springs back when the force lets up, remaining unaffected in some significant way by experience unless she makes a commitment that will change her.

are potential character problems for Persephone women. Feeling powerless and dependent on others who are more powerful, they may learn to get what they want indirectly. They may wait for the opportune time to act, or they may use flattery.

Usually Persephone women avoid anger. They do not want people to get mad at them. They feel dependent on the generosity and goodwill of others whom they correctly perceive as more powerful. Therefore, they often treat their mothers, fathers, husbands, employers, and teachers like patrons whose good graces need to be courted. Narcissism is yet another pitfall for some Persephone women. They may become so anxiously fixed on themselves that they lose their capacity to relate to others. Their thoughts are dominated by self-questions: “How do I look? Am I witty enough? Do I sound intelligent?” And their energy goes into makeup and clothes. Such women spend hours in front of mirrors. People exist only to give them feedback, to provide them with reflecting surfaces in which to see themselves.

A Persephone woman is susceptible to depression when she is dominated and limited by people who keep her bound to them. An unassertive person, she bottles up her anger or differences rather than express them or actively change the situation. Instead, she holds in her negative feelings, and becomes depressed (anger turned inward—which is repression—becomes depression). Feelings of isolation, inadequacy, and self-criticism further contribute to her depression.

In contrast, a depressed Demeter woman looms large and has a big effect on everyone around her. Before she became depressed, she may have been an energetic, central figure, so there is a dramatic change in her behavior when she gets depressed—while a Persephone woman was unassuming to begin with, and merely fades away more when she’s depressed. Moreover, a depressed Demeter makes everyone around her feel guilty, powerless, or angry at the blame she implies. A depressed Persephone, in contrast, doesn’t stir up these feelings in others. Instead, they feel cut off from her. She is the one who feels guilty, blameworthy, and powerless. And often she feels inappropriately guilty for something she said, thought, or did. Consequently, a depressed Demeter is an enormous presence in the center of the household, while a depressed Persephone seems to disappear into the back rooms.

She valued emotional experience with others more than either independence from others (which motivated the virgin goddesses), or permanent bonds to others (which characterized the vulnerable goddesses).

Whomever or whatever Aphrodite imbues with beauty is irresistible. A magnetic attraction results, “chemistry” happens between the two, and they desire union above all else. They feel a powerful urge to get closer, to have intercourse, to consummate—or “know” the other, which was the biblical term. While this drive may be purely sexual, the impulse is often deeper, representing an urge that is both psychological and spiritual. Intercourse is synonymous with communication or communion, consummation may speak of an urge toward completion or perfection, union is to join together as one, and to know is to really understand one another. The desire to know and be known is what Aphrodite generates.

When Aphrodite influences a relationship, her effect is not limited to the romantic or sexual. Platonic love, soul connection, deep friendship, rapport, and empathic understanding all are expressions of love. Whenever growth is generated, a vision supported, potential developed, a spark of creativity encouraged—as can happen in mentoring, counseling, parenting, directing, teaching, editing, and doing psychotherapy and analysis—then Aphrodite is there, affecting both people involved.

The quality of consciousness associated with Aphrodite is unique. The virgin goddesses are associated with focused consciousness and are the archetypes that enable women to concentrate on what matters to them. The receptiveness of the vulnerable goddesses is equated with diffuse awareness. But Aphrodite has a quality of consciousness all her own, which I call Aphrodite consciousness. Aphrodite consciousness is focused, yet receptive; such consciousness both takes in what is attended to, and is affected by it.

Aphrodite consciousness is more focused and intense than the diffuse awareness of vulnerable goddesses. But it is more receptive and attentive to what it focuses on than the focused consciousness of the virgin goddesses. Thus it is neither like a living room lamp that illuminates everything within the radius of its glow with a warm, soft light, nor like a spotlight or a laser beam. I think of Aphrodite consciousness as analogous to theater lighting that illuminates the stage. What we behold in this limelight enhances, dramatizes, or magnifies the impact of the experience on us. We take in and react to what we see and hear. This special lighting helps us to be emotionally transported at a symphony, or to be moved by a play or by the words of a speaker; feelings, sense impressions, and memories are drawn out of us in response to what we see and hear. In turn, those onstage can become inspired by an audience, energized by the rapport they sense being directed toward them.

Aphrodite’s “in love” way of attending to another person as if he or she were fascinating and beautiful is characteristic of women who personify the archetype, and is a natural way of relating and gathering information for many women (and men) who like people and focus their total attention on them intently.

This is the mistake people often make when they respond to a woman who uses Aphrodite consciousness. Basking in the glow of her focus, they feel attractive and interesting as she actively draws them out and reacts in a loving or affirming way (rather than assessing or critical). It is her style to be genuinely and momentarily involved in whatever interests her. The effect on the other person can be seductive—and misleading if her way of interacting creates the impression that she is fascinated or enamored, when she is not.

we are engaged in transformative work, an emotional field is generated between us powerful enough to touch us both. As Jung noted, analysis involves the totality of both personalities. Both conscious attitudes and unconscious elements in doctor and patient are involved in a process in which both are deeply affected: “For two personalities to meet is like mixing two different chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed.”1

Aphrodite consciousness is present in all creative work, including that done in solitude. The “relationship” dialogue is then between the person and the work, from which something new emerges.

To make a dream come true, one must have a dream, believe in it, and work toward it. Often it is essential that another significant person believe that the dream is possible: that person is a vision carrier, whose faith is often crucial.

People speculate why there are so few famous women artists, or great chefs, or orchestra leaders, or noted philosophers—among the reasons given might be that women lack carriers of the Dream.

Women have nurtured the Dream for men, while men in general haven’t nurtured the Dream very well for the women in their lives.

We experience the alchemy of Aphrodite when we feel drawn toward another person and fall in love; we feel it when we are touched by her power of transformation and creativity; we know it when we appreciate the capacity we have to make what we focus on beautiful and valued because it is imbued with our love.