I begin to sing about Pallas Athena, renowned goddess, with bright eyes, quick mind, and inflexible heart, chaste and mighty virgin…” Homeric Hymn
In a coaching session with a client this past week, and then in an email dialogue with a writer, Athena came up as an active image or metaphor. Like most people, these two women knew Athena only in her more popular Greco-Roman aspects, that is, as the Goddess of War and Wisdom, as the Goddess that was born, full grown and fully armored, from the head of Zeus, her father. Zeus swallowed her mother, Metis (whose name means wisdom) before she could give birth in order to avoid the fulfillment of a prophecy.
As this goddes, Athena is a role model and powerful icon for claiming power in a man’s world, ideal for many contemporary women, especially business women. But, in entering into the male bastions, women often feel the need to assume the behaviors and attitudes of men, donning armor of business suits and briefcases. In the process, constantly pushed to prove themselves and to stay one step ahead, Athena women can suffer from high levels of stress, and lose touch with the inner feminine and, most importantly, with the source of their creativity.
But there is more to Athena than the warrior.
According to author Charlene Spretnak in her book, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, in her pre-Hellenic form, Athena is actually a much softer goddess. She is a creator, builder, and preserver of life and civilization. She nurtured and was a patron to all the arts. She especially protected architects, sculptors, potters, spinners and weavers. The olive tree, its cultivation and the pressing of its fruit into olive oil was sacred to her. Through her, civilization grew and flourished. She was revered by women.
So, if you look at both Athena as warrior and father’s daughter, and Athena as patron of the arts and her wise mother’s daughter, then she serves as a powerful icon and model for creatives.
I’ve been strongly connected to Athena for decades, especially as a weaver. And in Her I see the wonderful balance between masculine and feminine, between priestess and warrior, between creator and business woman.
As creatives, we need to stay tuned into the fertility of our bodies and our imaginations. We need to be wise about our creative rhythms, when it is time to give birth and to give ourselves up to creativity that entertains, edifies and transforms–to the beat of loom, the coiling of clay, and the writing of words.
We also need to be able to gear up, to put on our armor, take up our shield and go out into the world with our work, understanding the role and responsibility of serving and defending our work so that it may also serve others.
There is, of course, much more to Athena’s mythology, and she is an icon that shows up frequently in our dreams if we pay attention. She’s also a familiar figure in movies and books. Look for her there.
Reclaim the Goddess who is the patron of the arts, who through Her protection and her civilizing influence brings us back to our hearts and our creativity. Don’t get rid of Athena the Warrior. Instead, invoke the Goddess as her complete self.
Reclaim Athena’s power…all of Her power…for your own creative life.