E-Book Overview
A classic work of female psychology that uses seven archetypcal goddesses as a way of describing behavior patterns and personality traits is being introduced to the next generation of readers with a new introduction by the author. Psychoanalyst Jean Bolen's career soared in the early 1980s when Goddesses in Everywoman was published. Thousands of women readers became fascinated with identifying their own inner goddesses and using these archetypes to guide themselves to greater self–esteem, creativity, and happiness. Bolen's radical idea was that just as women used to be unconscious of the powerful effects that cultural stereotypes had on them, they were also unconscious of powerful archetypal forces within them that influence what they do and how they feel, and which account for major differences among them. Bolen believes that an understanding of these inner patterns and their interrelationships offers reassuring, true–to–life alternatives that take women far beyond such restrictive dichotomies as masculine/feminine, mother/lover, careerist/housewife. And she demonstrates in this book how understanding them can provide the key to self–knowledge and wholeness. Dr. Bolen introduced these patterns in the guise of seven archetypal goddesses, or personality types, with whom all women could identify, from the autonomous Artemis and the cool Athena to the nurturing Demeter and the creative Aphrodite, and explains how to decide which to cultivate and which to overcome, and how to tap the power of these enduring archetypes to become a better "heroine" in one's own life story.
E-Book Content
Goddesses in Everywoman Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.
To my mother, Megumi Yamaguchi Shinoda, M.D., who was determined to help me grow up—as she hadn’t— feeling that I was fortunate to be a girl, and could do whatever I aspired to as a woman.
From the seed grows a root, then a sprout; from the sprout, the seedling leaves; from the leaves, the stem; around the stem, the branches; at the top, the flower…. We cannot say that the seed causes the growth, nor that the soil does. We can say that the potentialities for growth lie within the seed, in mysterious life forces, which, when properly fostered, take on certain forms. M. C. Richards, Centering in Pottery, Poetry and the Person
Contents Epigraph
iii
Acknowledgments
ix
Foreword by Gloria Steinem
xi
Introduction to the Twentieth-Anniversary Edition
xv
Introduction There Are Goddesses in Everywoman
1
1. Goddesses as Inner Images
13
2. Activating the Goddesses
25
3. The Virgin Goddesses: Artemis, Athena, and Hestia
35
4. Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt and Moon, Competitor and Sister
46
5. Athena: Goddess of Wisdom and Crafts, Strategist and Father’s Daughter
75
6. Hestia: Goddess of the Hearth and Temple, Wise Woman 107 and Maiden Aunt 7. The Vulnerable Goddesses: Hera, Demeter, and Persephone
132
8. Hera: Goddess of Marriage, Commitment Maker and Wife
139
9. Demeter: Goddess of Grain, Nurturer and Mother
168
10. Persephone: The Maiden and Queen of the Underworld, 197 Receptive Woman and Mother’s Daughter 11. The Alchemical Goddess
224
12. Aphrodite: Goddess of Love and Beauty, Creative Woman and Lover
233
13. Which Goddess Gets the Golden Apple?
263
14. The Heroine in Everywoman
278
Appendix Who’s Who in Greek Mythology Cast of Characters (list describing the gods and goddesses) Goddess Chart (summary in chart form)
297 297 301
Notes
303
Bibliography
313
Index
321
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