Sunday Snippet

Aphrodite - A Memoir of the Senses by Isabel Allende

I'd been looking around the house for weeks for my old copy of this book. There are a lot of things I'm looking for these days, in fact. This one was easy to replace, the other things, not so much.  I ordered it used from Amazon and it arrived in perfect hardcover condition for the less than the price I paid for the paperback when it was first released as such.

It is a delicious book full of stories, autobiographical detail, myths, lore, poetry, recipes and sweet little paintings about food and its connection to anything and everything erotic and human. 

I will share with you an excerpt from the introduction. (I could not find the painting Allende chose for this section, so I substituted with one by Frida Kahlo.  Further note:  I saw the painting up-close and personal at Tate Modern in 2005. One of the highlights of my museum going adventures.)

 The fiftieth year of our life is like

         the last hour of dusk, 

when the sun has set and done turns

naturally toward reflection.

In my case, however, dusk incites me to sin,

and perhaps for that reason,

in my fiftieth year I find myself reflecting

on my relationship

with food and eroticism; the weaknesses

of the flesh that most tempt me are not, alas,

those I have practiced most.

Wrath: Hera

For Kay's Seven Deadly Sins meme this week, I'm inclined toward both art and mythology. I thought Hera would be a good subject for the theme of wrath and vengeance.

Hera Wrath

HERA was the Queen of the gods, and goddess of the sky, women and marriage. These pages (click on link above) describes the wrath of the goddess, which in myth, was mostly directed against the mistresses of Zeus and his bastard sons. (N.B. Quotes for this section are still being compiled.)

click on the image for an interesting link to tales of Hera Wrath

Both sister and wife of Zeus, Hera is queen of the gods. The Greeks revered her as protector of marriage, especially married women. This may be because she had such a difficult marriage herself. Zeus was not the least bit faithful, always succumbing to his lust for other women - mortal as well as immortal. Hera herself, however, was always faithful despite the repeated attentions of others trying to take her away.

O royal Hera, of majestic mien, aerial-formed, divine, Zeus' blessed queen, throned in the bosom of cerulean air, the race of mortals is thy constant care. The cooling gales they power alone inspires, which nourish life, which every life desires. Mother of showers and winds, from thee alone, producing all things, mortal life is known: all natures share thy temperament divine, and universal sway alone is thine, with sounding blasts of wind, the swelling sea and rolling rivers roar when shook by thee. Come, blessed Goddess, famed almighty queen, with aspect kind, rejoicing and serene. -
Orphic Hymn 16 to Hera

The gods were so emotional and dramatic, weren't they? I love it.

(Headless Hera (not its real title, of course)

with apologies to Bobbie ;-)

The headless, marble statue of the ancient Greek goddess Hera dates back to the 2nd century B.C. and was discovered last year during excavations in the town of Dion, near Mt Olympus in northern Greece. Click on photo for the story on this amazing find