Let’s talk about Aphrodite and Morgan le Fay.
In my spirituality I have always been called by two different deities, two different energies:
The ecstatic, luxurious energy of Venus, the adoration of the Goddess Aphrodite…
… and the alchemical, deep Avalonian mystery of the goddess and sacred guide Morgan le Fay.
Venus Morgana. Morgen Aphrodite.
The two are not as different as they first appear.
🌊 Both are associated with the sea, Aphrodite’s name meaning Sea Foam, and Morgana’s name meaning Born of the Sea.
🏝 They both rule islands – Morgana, the mythic isle of Avalon, Aphrodite, the paradise isle of Cyprus.
🍎 Apples feature prominently in their mythology – for Aphrodite, the infamous Golden Apple that awarded her with the honour of being most beautiful and most desirable – for Morgana, her land of Avalon is a land of apples, the Celtic fruit of wisdom and love.
Though we see Aphrodite as a goddess of light-hearted sexiness today she also holds roots as a much wider goddess – epithets such as Tymbochorus point to her as “She who stands upon the tombs” and she is described as “The Deceiver”… so she isn’t always sweet and lovely.
Aphrodite has several epithets that show her warrior strength, as Area (the armed) Praxis (lady of action) and Nikephorus (the victorious!) – which makes sense as her earlier ancestry as a goddess is in the divinities of love and war in the near east, Ishtar, Astarte and Ashtoreth.
This darkness has always been a part of Morgana’s mythology, for Morgen is an underworld and a twilight goddess – some of her roots are in the war goddess of Ireland, the Morrighan, and she holds within her the grief, rage and transformation of the otherworld. When she gets dark she gets very dark – and like Aphrodite, Morgana’s stories are peppered with pettiness, jealously and works of powerful magic.
However, she isn’t just a dark goddess – Morgen is a bright goddess, a faery goddess, and as such she holds the intoxicating power of desire, attraction, unity and eroticism – just like Aphrodite.
They both roll in groups of (mostly) women – Morgana with her Ninefold Sisterhood of Avalon Queens, Aphrodite with her posse of Graces and Muses – and they are both inherently goddesses of friendship, support and community.
So there are a lot of links between them.
For a long time I was suspicious of my own desire to forge a link between these two badass goddesses and energies, and very suspicious of everyone else that did so too. I thought we all just wanted it too much, so we were seeing things that were not there, that we were making stuff up to make ourselves happy.
But there IS a clear connection between the Greek myths and Morgana – the evolution and stories we have of her (and Morgana is a weird goddess because we don’t exactly have myths about her to go on, only medieval pulp fiction) are directly inspired and influenced by the myths of the ancient Greek enchantresses and sorceresses.
And as much as I was always told as a young witch never to mix pantheons or deities, these are the two that live in my heart.
And not just mine.
Every now and again someone will message me saying “Oh my gosh! I can’t believe there is another Aphrodite AND Morgan le Fay woman out there!!”
And I have talked to other women who have made the devotion of Aphrodite their life’s work who also SECRETLY harbour a deep connection with Morgana, the mistress of the mists of Avalon.
So I think there is something there.
I don’t quite know why, or what it is – and I don’t think I would trust myself to claim it as fact because, you know, I want it too much.
(Although in Italy there is a scholarly book out there detailing the link between Morgana and Circe that I desperately wish my Italian was good enough to read.)
But.
But.
In my heart I feel that connection. Aphrodite has a Morgana side, Morgen has an Aphroditic edge.
And my heart holds both, always.
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