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

by Jean Shinoda Bolen

Myths evoke feeling and imagination and touch on themes that are part of the human collective inheritance.

The Greek myths—and all the other fairytales and myths that are still told after thousands of years—remain current and personally relevant because there is a ring of truth in them about shared human experience.

Myths and fairytales are expressions of archetypes, as are many images and themes in dreams. The presence of common archetypal patterns in all people accounts for similarities in the mythologies of many different cultures.

Women’s lives are shaped by the allowable roles and idealized images of the time.