The Goddesses

Throughout my creative practice, I return again and again to the stories of the Goddess.

I am drawn to the ancient women who appear in mythology as powerful, creative, wise, wild and deeply connected to the natural world. In particular, I find myself looking beyond the familiar Greek and Roman versions of these stories, towards their older and more primordial layers, the stories that existed before they were reshaped by later cultures.

The more I explore these ancient traditions, the more I wonder what has been lost along the way, what has been transformed, and what these stories might still have to teach us.

For me, the goddesses are not simply figures from the distant past. They are archetypes through which we can explore different aspects of being human, creation and destruction, sexuality and motherhood, darkness and light, intuition, wisdom, death and renewal.

They also remind us of something I feel deeply connected to: that we are part of nature, and that life moves in cycles.

These are some of the goddesses who have become particularly important in my work.

Rhea

Earth Mother · Birth · Renewal

Rhea is one of the ancient mother goddesses associated with Crete. I am drawn to her as a primordial Earth Mother, a figure connected with fertility, creation and the great cycles of nature.

In the Cretan traditions and interpretations that inspire my work, Rhea gives birth to the divine child at midwinter, within the darkness and protection of a cave.

There is something about this image that I find deeply moving: life being born from darkness at the very turning point of the year.

It speaks to the mystery of creation and to the knowledge that even when nothing appears to be happening on the surface, something may be quietly preparing to emerge.

Ariadne

The Underworld · Bees · Death · Return

The Ariadne most of us know is the young woman who gives Theseus the thread that allows him to escape the labyrinth.

But I am much more interested in the older Cretan layers of her story.

In the traditions that inspire my work, Ariadne is connected with the underworld and the seasonal movement between death and renewal. At the end of winter, she descends to care for the souls of the dead and, together with the Melissa, the sacred bees, guides them towards new life.

At the end of summer, her mother Rhea comes to tell her it is time to return to the upper world.

I love this image of mother and daughter moving between the worlds, following the great rhythm of the seasons.

Ariadne reminds us that descent is not something to fear. Darkness, endings and periods of stillness are woven into the cycle of life.

Aphrodite

Beauty · Love · Emergence · Regeneration

Aphrodite is perhaps one of the most misunderstood and transformed goddesses of the ancient world.

We tend to know her as the goddess of beauty, sexuality, love and seduction. But I have become increasingly interested in the more primordial Aphrodite, the goddess who rises from the sea foam and is connected with the regenerative and creative forces of nature.

Her beauty, to me, is not beauty for vanity's sake, nor beauty as something offered for the pleasure or approval of another.

It is the beauty that emerges when we feel whole, alive and true to ourselves.

And her love is not simply romantic or sexual love. It is something deeper, a force of connection, devotion and creation.

The story of Aphrodite also makes me think about the way women's beauty has been understood over time.

She was beautiful. Men desired her. And somehow, in the stories that followed, the woman became responsible for the desire of the men around her.

The beautiful woman became both object and scapegoat.

I find this transformation deeply revealing.

Perhaps Aphrodite invites us to reclaim something that has been lost: the understanding that a woman's beauty and sexuality belong to her.

That the female body is not an object.

And that beauty does not exist for the gaze of another.

Perhaps beauty is something that emerges naturally when we become more fully ourselves.

The Goddesses in my work

Rhea, Ariadne and Aphrodite are just some of the goddesses who have found their way into my creative practice.

Others appear throughout the Lunar Diary, my paintings, illustrations, jewellery and workshops. Each carries her own story, symbolism and particular kind of wisdom.

I don't necessarily see these ancient stories as something we need to take literally. What interests me is their ability to speak across thousands of years, to touch something in us that still feels recognisable.

Perhaps this is why I keep returning to them.

They offer another way of seeing the feminine. They remind us of our connection to the earth, to our bodies and to the cycles of life.

And they invite us to remember that we, too, are cyclical.

There are times to dream, times to create, times to bloom, times to descend, times to rest and times to begin again.

The stories may be ancient, but I believe they still have something to say.