Gems of the Goddess

Psyche – the Goddess of the Soul

The Goddess always has lessons to teach us based on their experiences.  Today, we look at the transformation through the Greek Goddess Psyche’s story of winning her husband Eros back.

Psyche was a mortal – a stunning beauty, no less.  She wasn’t interested in love and romance, which upset Aphrodite, the Love Goddess, greatly.   Aphrodite decided to teach Psyche a lesson so she sent her son, Eros (known also as Cupid in Roman Mythology) to shoot her with one of his arrows.    However, when Eros went to do the job, he stumbled and got hit with his own arrow.  He immediately fell in love with her.
Because of not wanting to get in trouble with his mother, Eros took Psyche away to his home, married her and had a beautiful honeymoon.   Eros made Psyche promise not to look at him.  He would only visit her at night.   Her life was wonderful, she lived in beauty, but she wanted to know her husband.  She felt very lonely she couldn’t look at him.

Psyche talked to her sisters about it.  Her sisters, being jealous of Psyche, told her she must be married to a hideous monster and she needed to look at him.  So one night, Psyche shined light and found out she was married to the handsome Eros (Cupid).   Discovering the Psyche saw him, and brok e her promise to him, Eros left her.
Psyche went to Aphrodite, Eros’s mother, and asked for her help.   Aphrodite, seeing her chance to inflict pain and revenge, gave her a series of what seemed to be impossible tasks.  Even though Psyche doubted she could complete them, she went forward and tried.

The first was for her to sort a room full of grains.  The task was overwhelming to Psyche so she went into a corner and cried.  An army of ants took pity on her and finished the task for her.
Next, Aphrodite told Psyche she had to bring back Golden Fleece from a fierce Ram that had already killed several men that had tried to get the fleece.  Psyche had help though, a nearby Reed told her to wait until nightfall to gather the Fleece because the Ram slept at night.

The third task was for Psyche to gather water from the entrance of the Underworld.   When Psyche got there, she saw how dangerous it was.  However, an eagle took the jar for her and gathered the water.
Her final task was to get sleeping potion from the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone.  As she traveled back and forth, she would have to endure the cries of help from the unfortunate ones.  This task was the hardest and longest.  She accomplished it but at the end, she was extremely exhausted.  At that point, Psyche took some of the sleeping potion to get some rest.  Eros found her and, unable to rouse her from her sleep, wiped the sleep potion from her eyes and woke her up.   He then sent the sleeping potion to his mother and decided to get Zeus involved to help.

Zeus’s help was to make Psyche a Goddess, hence legitimizing their marriage in the Gods and Goddesses eyes.  Aphrodite had no choice but to support their marriage.  Psyche and Eros’s marriage was rebuilt.   Their marriage deepened because of her belief in herself but that took hard times for her to emerge with being comfortable with her skills and intuition.

Psyche is known as the Goddess of the Soul.  Her experiences – good, bad and ugly – made her who she is.  It is also a reminder to trust in the self that somehow there will be help.  Her totems are many of the animals that helped her or who she worked with – ants, ram, sheep and of course, butterfly for transformation.
Psyche encourages you to find courage, to keep going and to believe that you can do the task in front of you, no matter how difficult.