Love, Sex, and Eros: The Myth of Eros and Psyche

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I know a couple of you have been asking, "Hey, I don't see any availability," and that's because the calendar only books out to 30 days and then it updates every Sunday, so new slots become available on Sundays, so that's the deal with that. There is also one other offering that I have just recently rolled out, and that is a personal mythic poem based upon your natal chart. You can look at that on my website too, but basically that's just me writing a poem about your astrology. It's not so much a natal reading or an analysis as it is letting your chart speak to me intuitively and me turning it into a poem. It's a really cool offering for gifts, for even anniversaries or weddings, anything like that. I can do dates, I can do people, I can do what I can do at all. So go check that out if you're interested in those more details on the website. Okay, so today's episode is going to be a cute one. A little while ago, I started toying with the idea about focusing on relational astrology, which means "sinistry" and anything that has to do with love and romance. Relationships have always been such a huge focus in my life. I was definitely the girl who would ditch you for her boyfriend, you know, I know who I am, and that is absolutely me to a T. My moon is in the 7th house, the ruler of my 10th is in the 7th house, so relationships they're my passion, and having such a passion for relationships, it only makes sense that it would bleed into my work. So today we're going to begin an astrological series I'm going to be calling "Love, Sex, and Arrows". Throughout this series, we're going to explore what sinistry is and how we can use it practically, all sorts of placements we should be looking at that inform us about attraction and love, and anything I feel important to mention when using astrology in the name of love. To begin our journey, we're going to start with one of my personal favorites when it comes to love and sex and astrology, and that is none other than Arrows and Psychie. I'm going to be devoting this episode to going over the mythology of Arrows and Psychie in depth. I want us to have a deep understanding of the myths of all the placements that we're going to be exploring. Unlike the traditional planets, a lot of the placements that I'll be talking about aren't the forces we're consciously thinking about in our day to day life. They're more subtle, and unless we're consciously exploring them and being present with their energy, we can often overlook their beauty and attribute it elsewhere. A lot of the times we just think, you know, Venus's love and that's it. Or Mars is our sex drive and attraction and that's it. And that's not the case. There are smaller placements, there's asteroids, there's other things that we need to be looking at when we're taking Cynistry as a big picture look, and we're really looking at Cynistry as a whole. You need to look at everything. So today we're going to learn who Arrows and Psychie are, where they come from their mythology together, how they influence us, and what we can do with the knowledge we gain from understanding them in the context of our own desires and soul development. In Greek mythology, Arrows is the god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart is Cupid. Arrows has two main different origin stories. The first and earlier of the two comes from the ancient Greek poet Hiciod. He wrote about Arrows being the god of love and one of the primordial gods. Another even older source that mention Arrows is Permanides, who was a pre-sacratic philosopher. Permanides actually believed Arrows to be one of the first gods to ever come into existence. And there's another early orfic belief that Arrows wasn't primordial, but rather the child of Nix, who was basically the personification of nighttime. Nix was a goddess, but not really because Nix is nighttime. The primordial gods are very interesting in the sense that they're not like goddess and goddesses like Zeus and Aphrodite, but they are the embodiment of nighttime or the wind or things like that. And the orfic belief, you know, Nix laid this cosmic egg, which Arrows was then born from. So basically, this older group of myths like to say that Arrows was one of the OG gods, one of the original. It's saying that love is a primordial force and that passion gives birth to life. Without love, there is no life, and I do really like that take on it. The other origin story of Arrows comes later, and I think this is the more popular story of Arrows, which is him being the son of Aphroditean Aries or Venus and Mars in Roman context. Now let's talk about the story of Arrows and Psychie. Arrows, or Cupid, is involved with a few different myths, but the one that's most notable is his love story between him and Psychie. The myth of Arrows and Psychie really showcases why he's the god of love, sex, and passion. And as with all myths, there's a few different versions of the story, each with their own varying little details, but the overarching theme is still present. I'm going to tell the story, the way that I have most often seen it told, and the one that I think gives the most astrological context as well. Arrows is the son of Aries, the god of war, an Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Being the goddess of love and beauty doesn't mean you're all sugar spice in everything nice. The phrases "hell-hath no fury like a woman scorned" and "all is fair in love and war" weren't created for no reason. Aphrodite had noticed that her devotees had been waning lately. There was something distracting them, something taking their attention away from her. But it wasn't just something. It was someone. Aphrodite soon learned about the maiden with such striking good looks that she rivaled the goddess herself. Men were falling at her feet, worshipping her, and foregoing their devotion to the actual goddess of love and beauty. This fair maiden's name was none other than psyche. With psyche's reputation growing, it soon began to threaten Aphrodite, an enraged Aphrodite sends her son, Arrows, down to earth to put a curse on the soul of any and every man who dare worship, or really even look at psyche. Arrows is a bit of a trickster in his own right, so he says sure, why not? He's all set to poison the souls of mortal men, but then he too lays his eyes upon psyche, and he is immediately taken by her. You could say that he was struck by one of his own arrows the moment he saw her. This changed everything. Arrows was no longer on board to carry out his mother's wishes, instead he had to figure out a way to make psyche his own. Since Arrows is a god, he can enlist the help of other gods, which seems really helpful when you're trying to get the most desired creature in the world to know to see what love you. So Arrows goes to Apollo, and he's like, "Hey man, I really need you to do me a solid on this one." And Apollo was like, "No worries brother." Apollo soon delivers an oracle message to psyche and her parents, saying that she's to marry a wicked beast whose face she may never see. And that she's to be left near Madelimpus for him to find her, and make her his bride, and no one else can be around, you just gotta leave her there, and then, you know, the beast will come and snatch her up the end. Psychies' parents were devastated. They figured that since they had such a beautiful daughter, her fate would be much better than this. They could not believe that she was destined to marry a never-to-be-seen by the light of day beast. But the prophecy was gospel, so they took their daughter to Madelimpus and let her be taken by the anonymous beast. As the oracle foretold, she was whisked away in the night by a winged creature and brought to a palace. As just psyche surprised, she found the palace to be quite stunning. There were invisible servants to fulfill her every whim, and she was surrounded by luxury, she had food and drink whenever she desired, but she was more often than not alone. The only time her husband visited was at night. Psychie was still unaware that she was married to a god, and she was forbidden to ever look upon her husband in the daytime. For a good long while, she was pretty much cool with that. He was nice, and he treated her beautifully. He was doding and passionate, but her loneliness in the daytime was starting to get the best of her. She pleaded with her husband to let her sisters come and visit. One day Arrows finally relented. He said that they could visit, but he warned that they would likely be her downfall. Psychie just being excited that she could finally have visitors said, "Oh my gosh, yes, this is great," so she invited her sisters to come visit her, and so she could just show them how she's living, and just share her life with them, finally. Like most sisters and fairy tales and myths, they're extremely envious as soon as they see the fact that she's living this luxurious life. It's very much the evil step sister trope that is going on here. And they're so envious, in fact, that they decide to try to ruin Psychie's marriage. They tell her that her husband is a monster, and he's not to be trusted. They harp on the fact that she's not even allowed to see his face, and that he keeps her locked away in this beautiful palace with everything she could ever want in need. Now, Psychie's sisters don't know. Arrows was actually a god they didn't know that he was obscuring his true form from Psychie, but they still use the whole, you don't even know what he looks like or deal to try to chip away his Psychie's happiness. They really tried to harp on that fact, which I kind of get, but at the same time, you know, Psychie was happy and she should have trusted her instinct. But in some tellings of the myth, the sisters even go as far to say that her husband will surely murder you, and any children that you may have, so you better kill him before he kills you. After her sister's leave, she retires to bed with her husband. While Arrows is fast asleep, Psychie is haunted by the words of her sisters. She thinks that it can't be true, but the seeds of doubt have already been planted, and this is where the myths tend to differ the most. In one version, Psychie is said to take the stance that she will prove her sister's wrong, and she will look upon the face of her lover by candlelight and prove that he is no monster. And in the other version, the seeds of doubt planted by her sisters take root, and Psychie sets out not to only look at her husband, but to also kill him. And the one where she's trying to kill him is the myth that I most often see, and the one that I sort of lean into, as far as significations go astrologically. But whichever version you choose to protect in, they end the same. Psychie approaches the bedside of her lover with a candle, and a knife, depending on who you ask, to illuminate his face, and finally bear witness to the beast that she married. When she brings the candle to his face, she sees not a beast, but the most beautiful creature she's ever laid eyes on, struck by the beauty, passion, and desire exuding from the God before her. She accidentally drips candle wax onto arrows, and this startles him awake. But what startles him more is the betrayal of his lover. And this is where the real drama begins. Aros not only feels the sting of betrayal from the only thing he's ever loved, but he also sees her allegedly holding a knife. The shock and dismay of the situation causes Aros to take flight. Psychie, realizing her mistake, tries to cling to Aros mid-flight. She pleads for forgiveness, and admits that he was right about her sister's corruption, and Aros does not care for these petty apologies. He shakes her off, and he leaves her, and he vows that she will never see him again for this betrayal. Aros goes back to his mom, who's basically like, "See, I told you she was common mortal trash. Now go to your room and stay there forever." And then Psychie is left to wander the earth, trying to figure out how to restore the love. She had been so foolish to break. Aros was licking his wounds, and Aphrodite was trying to figure out a way to make Psychie's existence a living hell. Aphrodite may have been annoyed with her son for marrying what in her eyes was her rival, but that's her baby boy. And she wasn't about to let Psychie go unpunished for hurting him. Psychie is filled with despair and sorrow over her lost love, despite knowing how much her mother-in-law hated her. She was driven by her love to make things right. She approached Aphrodite and pleaded for a way to fix things between her and Aros. Now, just think about having to go to your mother-in-law and ask for forgiveness to get your husband back. Let alone your mother-in-law be a literal goddess that's hated you since day one. Night for naught, I think Psychie was sorry. Aphrodite saw this as an opportunity to make life even harder still for Psychie. She was like, "Yeah, I'll talk to Aros for you, but only after you do these four teeny tiny little things for me." Which brings us to the impossible tasks or Psychie's hero's journey. The first task was to sort out a giant mound of grain into organized piles. An Aphrodite surely thinks that this will take her the rest of her life to do. There's no way that it can be done by a mortal. Psychie is doing her best and she's really trying to sort this grain and she's picking little seeds here and putting little pellets there and she's getting really exasperated, but luckily for her, some ants walk by and they see her struggling and they help her out. The second task is to obtain a golden fleece from these magical golden mountain sheep. And apparently these things were violent and aggressive, so Aphrodite was probably hoping the sheep would kill Psychie. As Psychie was contemplating how to obtain the fleece without losing her life, a nearby river spirit gives her advice on the matter. She collects the fleece while the sheep are asleep and moves on to the next task. The third task is to bring a jug to the river that runs between the earth and the underworld and fill it with water. Obviously, anything that has to do with the underworld is kind of perilous and some myths say that there's dragons involved that make it hard for Psychie to fill the jug, but regardless of any obstacles that she faces and eagle flies down, grabs the jug and fills it for her. She returns to Aphrodite, successful yet again. Remember when I said that anything having to do with the underworld is perilous? Well, that's exactly where Aphrodite sends Psychie next, straight to the underworld, literally straight to hell. Going to the underworld was a challenge, even for some gods, let alone a mortal. But to gain back the love of her husband, Psychie was going to do anything. So she set out to the underworld to retrieve Persephone's eternal beauty potion. Some kind of beauty cream. They probably, I don't know if they have it all to these days, but they may. So Persephone's eternal beauty potion was what she was after. She braves the underworld, and she actually retrieves this potion of eternal beauty. She also thinks, you know what, I deserve a little bit of this potion since I'm the one who went to hell and got it. Plus Aphrodite is a goddess, she doesn't need it at all, and I'm married to literally the most beautiful man I've ever met and I gotta try to keep up. So she opens the box, she opens, you never open a box from a god, but she opens the box, she wants the beauty cream. Well, when Psychie opened up the box, it wasn't a potion of beauty, but rather a potion of eternal sleep. In some myths, it is that Morpheus even pops out. So Aphrodite hedged her bets that Psychie couldn't resist opening the box, and she set a trap for her. And yes, Psychie fell for the trap, she pretty much went into eternal sleep. Now where was Aeros through all this? At this point, Aeros had finally decided to leave his room and quit sulking. Maybe he's thinking, you know, maybe knife or not, I might have went a little overboard, might have been a little dramatic. So he goes out to find Psychie, and when he does, boy is he pissed. His mom further meddled into his affairs, and it left the woman he loved in a death-like slumber. He takes action and shoots her with one of his arrows imbued with his power, the power of true love and passion. Once the arrow hits Psychie, her consciousness is restored. Aeros said, come with me, we're gonna make things right once and for all. Aeros flies them to go see none other than Big Daddy's Zeus. He pleads with Zeus and explains how he needs his marriage to Psychie to be legitimate and recognized among the gods, and she needs to be immortal with him. Zeus must have looked at the young couple with fondness for his own days of trickery and love, which is a story we'll get to later in this series, because he granted Aeros everything he asked for. They were married among the gods, and Psychie was named the goddess of the human soul. So the god of sex, love and passion, at last united with the beautiful goddess of the soul, together forever, as one. That's the myth of Aeros and Psychie, I know it was a little bit long, but I think it's important to know these stories if we're going to really truly understand the significations of the placements. Plus, there's themes in the story that we've seen time and time again in modern day stories, beauty in the beast, Cinderella sleeping beauty and snow white. Each of these stories has parts that match up with the myth of Aeros and Psychie. These themes stick around and keep being repackaged for us to consume, because they speak to a deep part of our Psychie, and they ignite our passions. If we look at the myth as a whole, it's a blatant love story. It has all the makings of a modern day romantic comedy, the scheming mother-in-law, the tragic mix-up that brings about a rift, the hero's journey to rectify the situation, and finally the rejoining of the lovers. Aeros and Psychie were obsessed with each other, nothing was going to keep them apart. Aeros embodies pure passion and Psychie is the soul. The two of them combine create our soul's desires. Aeros is what we lust after and Psychie indicates our soul's growth. Now that we have a strong understanding of the background and myth of Aeros and Psychie, let's talk about what they mean as far as astrological placements. Aeros and Psychie are both asteroids. There is a placement called the Lot of Aeros or the Part of Aeros, but I am not talking about that. I am strictly talking about Aeros the Asteroid. Aeros is asteroid number 443 and Psychie is asteroid number 16. For those of you who are into numerology and tarot, that equates to Aeros as justice and Psychie as the tower. Aeros being justice is him holding her accountable for her actions. It's like hey babe, I love you, but you were gonna stab me with a knife and I think you need to even the scales here a little bit before I can kiss and make up with you. And then you have Psychie having this dark knight of the soul and having to go through her hero's journey to regain the trust of her lover. There's even a point in some myths that talk about Aeros and Psychie where Psychie is said to want to throw herself off of a tower because she's so desperate and about to give up the chase for Aeros because the tasks that Aphrodite have given her are so impossible and she feels despair and she doesn't know what to do and she's really going through the muck and she wants to throw herself off of a tower. It's also very interesting to me that for Aeros' card being justice, it matches up with Libra and Libra is rolled by Venus and it's just about the lovers and not the lovers the tarot card, but it has much to do with balance and love and beauty and harmony symmetry is linked to beauty. So there needed to be a balance struck between these two. They needed to really again, even the scales before they could move forward together. This is Orbit is mainly around Mars and Psychie's Orbit is between Mars and Jupiter. I find it really cute that Psychie has her Orbit between both Mars and Jupiter since it was Zeus who made her immortal and blessed their union as legitimate among the gods. So she's nestled safely between her husband and the king of the gods. And both of them having an Orbit with Mars lines up perfectly with the signification of desire, passions and the deep sexual energy they have for one another. Aeros moves roughly one and a half degrees every two days and Psychie moves about one degree over the span of five days. Psychie's Orbit takes a lot longer and she stays in a side much longer than Aeros does. Both of them can experience retrograde movement which drastically changes their time in a sign. I've already alluded to the fact that Aeros indicates our passion and desires, but let me be very clear, I'm mainly talking about sexual energy. Aeros is our desires, yes. But those desires are within the realm of attraction and love and it definitely can indicate our turn-ons and sexual expression. This is one of the big reasons Aeros is so helpful in Synergy. It can indicate exactly what it is about our partner that we're attracted to or even why everything else might be so awesome about the relationship. But the sexual chemistry just isn't there. I will say that Aeros does indicate passions in general like a love of our imbuedy, creativity and joy can come from the same wellspring as erotic energy. It's really all the same, but when specifically using Aeros in Synergy it becomes sexual and nature due to the blending of two people's desires. What is it that you crave about the other? What is it that lights you up and inspires you when you see someone you're attracted to? The best way I can describe Aeros energy is this. Have you ever been driven to write poetry about someone? Make a mixed tape about them or daydream about a future with them? That's Aeros energy. The force that inspires you to be a better version of yourself for someone. That's Aeros. The deep longing we feel after having to part with a lover we just spend all day with. That's Aeros. Even the secret, unrequited crushes we feel that make us dress a little cuter or pushes out of our comfort zone. That's Aeros. So here's a quick list of key words for Aeros significations. Love, passion, desire, erotic energy, primal force, sexual turn-ons, attraction and how we pursue what we're attracted to. If Venus' foreplay and Mars' execution, then the Sun of Venus and Mars is the erotic liminal. It's the space right between excitation and explosion. The briefest moment of pleasure and the eternal desire of that pleasure. Symbols related to Aeros are rabbits, a bow and arrow, hearts and wings. He's also been linked to roses, torches and cherubs. Pretty much all of the Valentine's Day items that you see. These are Aeros symbols, these are Cupid, Aeros one and the same. Now let's talk about the significations of Syke. When Zeus made Syke a goddess, she became the goddess of the human soul. So when we look at Syke and our birth charts, we're essentially looking at our souls development. Syke's role in the myth of her and Aeros was a much more tumultuous part. She was the one who enacted the betrayal that divided the two. She was the one who had to take the hero's journey to bring the two back together. She was basically going through Soul Boot Camp the entire time. She was pushed to her limits, but kept going regardless of her own fears. It was the power of love that pushed her through and transformed her soul. One of the main symbols used for Syke is a butterfly, and I think that perfectly sums her up. The fragility to love, that a lot of us are careless about when we first encounter it. Learning to love another person is one of the hardest things we go through as humans. Our souls are changed by the experience, whether for better or for worse. The growth that we experience through the love of another person can be all inspiring. Two souls dancing together, learning from each other and growing in harmony with one another. You could say that the myth of Aeros and Syke is one that foretells the transformation of our souls through divine love. Syke is emboldened by her love of Aeros. She is made to be a better person, but that same love also drives her to the brink. She nearly throws herself off a tower and just barely escapes eternal sleep. Our Syke placement shows us both of those things. The things that embolden us and push us to be better, but also the things that test us the most, and that may reveal the darkness before we receive the light. Just like Aeros, Syke is a great placement for Sinistry. It shows us where our soul converges with the soul of another. It tells us what soul-level work is required for this relationship to take flight. It's the work you two as a couple must do in order to transform and be ready to receive divine love. On its own, Syke tells us the work we need to do in order to blossom in Sinistry, it tells us the work we need to do to truly experience Aeros. Because just like in the myth, you can have Aeros with someone and not really realize it and take it for granted. Working with our Syke placement allows us to actualize Aeros in our relationship and within ourselves. So let's just still Syke down into some key words. Soul, home of the soul, hardship, atonement, transformation, spiritual development, soul growth, eternal and everlasting. While my sweet babes, that's the story of Aeros and Syke and their significations astrologically. In the next episode, we're going to be exploring how Aeros and Syke express themselves through each of the 12 zodiac signs. If you want more moon content before the next episode, you can sign up to become a moon member and receive monthly horoscopes, full moon reminders, retrograde guides and more on my website moonmattersastrology.com. And if you want to just check out what I'm doing on Instagram, head on over to Moon Matters and Fish All. I will see you all you babes later.