Customer Reviews

We Goddesses: Athena, Aphrodite, Hera

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We Goddesses Is a dream come true for girls who love Athena,Hera,and Aphrodite! this book's Amazing text and pictures that jump right out at you will make it a lifetime favorite. It's as if Athena, Hera,and Aphrodite wrote it themselves! The thing is, they all had interesting beginnings. Well, that's all i'm going to tell you, so if you want to learn more just READ THE BOOK!

I fell in love with this book the very moment I saw it. Drawing on the oft-overlooked power and beauty of the ancient goddesses, Orgel spins wonderful tales from the perspectives of Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera. She provides excellent background in her introduction, and additional information at the end. One of my favorite features about this book are the marginal notes to help with pronunciation, which include a brief description of the character or location it describes. And, I should emphasize, the illustrations in this book are absolutely -phenomenal-! This book uplifts the strength and depth of femininity in a positive way, allowing girls to have wonderful, heroic role models missing in the common damsel-in-distress characters, or the over-emphasized feminist roles that I personally feel negate the message that each woman can function from her own personal genius. This book should be read and savored for the brilliant, enchanting work of art it is.

Orgel ties together a lot of myth and is amazingly faithful to the ancient sources despite the liberties she obviously takes. The book is a masterpiece. While the Goddesses may play important roles in Homer, too often we're looking from an all too male point of view--- Hera is the shrew, Aphrodite the over-sexed vixen and Athena, the puppet of her Father. Orgel's work leaves the Goddesses more alive, more vibrant, more mysterious than ever.

I would hesitate to give Greco-Roman stories to people - especially children because of the really very negative aspect of some of the myths which any child studying mythology can find out with further study - Zeus for instance is a rapist and a very - well, evil to sell to kids - or to anyone really unless you're a loving, intelligent, adult, and mythology is occasional consensual play for you..... probably not how most people practice it - the irony is that the morality of religion often exists in resisting it. Without care, it can be dangerous and extremely cruel. Teaching this mythology as religious morality or fako feminism (fascists favorite kind - they invent the fako to keep us from the real) is a problem.

On the other hand Zeus was originally a minor "god" tacked on later and made into the "king of gods" or some nonsense in later myths. There aren't many positive role models at all in Greek mythology that aren't rapists, warmongers, killers etc.... a lot of it is probably propaganda paid for by the bio-tech pyramid scheme of predation - although Apollo (the god of healing, reason and "light" also of prophecy, medicine, archery (as a last resort for protection hopefully), art, dance, poetry, intellectual knowledge and the care of herds and flocks) is a better representation of a male god for young people in some ways because of the healing, reason (doctors perhaps, education etc..., care of the small....), it's kind of tricky because he also had some bad stories attached to him and there may be subversive abuse which is how they like to do it. You could rewrite them, but it's difficult. I'm inspired by religious images and this book has beautiful ones, but I make them my own. I just erase the bad stories. The problem is, when myth is entrenched in art and history, what you do personally might not matter at all and can still have a bad effect on the people who follow it if you openly promote it. Many myths are altered and grow over time - I suppose it's possible to salvage some positive aspects of these pagan religions, I'll get to that later. I guess I love mythology because of the imaginative aspect of it - I used to, and still do take the good out and mess around with the myths on my own. Doing this with children however, I'm not sure.... there are adult themes.

So... if we deify warmongers, sexual abuse, violence and other negative aspects of mythology it can be problematic - many kids read these like comic books or adventure stories, but many people still do practice this religion and would like to resurrect it which could be a problem if you're trying to give your children a strong, gentle moral code and they get interested enough to be involved on a deeper level. A very mixed bag of things here, and I'm not sure it's better than Christianity and a couple other huge cults that sell child sacrifice and torture and have only submissive obedient, doglike images of girls and women to offer, as well as greedy, power-hungry, often extremely abusive men (again, the child torture and sacrifice, powerless, submissive women, silent women thing) - and has political power to boot. If the Zeus myth is sold as women's rights and "Goddess" culture have our brains and heart muscles turned completely to mush? Just a thought.

On a positive note, even though Greek religion has some really negative myths like this, because there is diversity in terms of experiences, goddesses as well as gods, better and stronger representations of women than male supremacist only religions (though the addition of Zeus and other assaulters makes this an iffy premise - there are some attempts at leadership for women etc... Athena was a leader although in the Zeus rewrite she gets her power from a male rapist, originally the story is more positive), as well as a few heroic savior type of men, it is perhaps slightly better than the myths that are only male supremacists with no female leadership or power. Diversity even with evil negative traits is somewhat helpful to counteract the pure fascism of a few major abusive religions, which is why I sometimes think there's hope to work with these things that have many representations of the divine, transform them or find the good in them. At any rate, I think religion and art needs to be checked by good people and maybe laws also - considering the power it has - that children have been killed and martyred in some religions for causes they know nothing about and don't understand - perhaps wouldn't agree with unless they are aggressively mind controlled, killed en masse as we have experienced with cults like Jonestown etc.... young girls and women enslaved, sexual abuse of all kinds... some religion is like poison and you need to watch out for non-morality sold as morality if you want to protect your little ones these days. Having said that...

If this is one of the few diverse religions offered it might be a haven for girls looking to escape completely powerless roles, desperate times call for desperate measures and all that. There are strong aspects to the "goddesses" in these myths - although glorifying war can be problematic, teaching young girls to find the strength to fight when no other option is possible is great. It is a divine quality to be able to use strength (as a last resort and carefully) to defend justice, goodness, honor, your children and family as well as the people of the world. Athena is also the Goddess of civilization and the arts and industry - which for a young boy or girl is very important - learning technology, politics, virtue, science and industry is very good for young girls especially, because it is often not emphasized for them. Necessary even to protect them and their futures. I like this book mostly for the artwork and how she is represented, although the story is entertaining in a way. In original myths Athena was born of Metis only, not emerging from Zeus's head as some myths represent her, btw. There are a few variations including a combo of the two. I believe that the Zeus story is a predatory rewrite of the myth and is wrong to teach young people. We can do the same - rewrite over it, although you'd have to rewrite a lot of myths to fix this religion in general. You'd probably want to give your children the Metis only version as an alternative. There's also a castration, revenge myth and others in further Greek mythology (not in this book but easily available for curious kids) that are just.... not really for children. So if you go there with this book, protect them from the wrong kind of further study.

Also Aphrodite was not just a goddess of erotic love as commonly represented in our culture, the greeks also had words to express different kinds of love, like friendship "philia", a general non-erotic love, "agape" or true love, and "eros" intimate love, which is where the word erotic comes from. Also, "storge" a kind of spontaneous affection. Isn't it beautiful to teach so many words for love? This is one aspect of the good in this religion that is possible to be inspired by. Maybe invent a thousand words for a thousand different kinds of love and care!

Also, I love the way that Aphrodite is represented in Greek art sometimes as muscular, implying that love is strong and it takes work and it can defend itself. Here she is drawn beautifully and softly and I like that representation as well. Young women might relate to her eros aspect discovering their sexuality and femininity while even younger girls might relate to the friendship aspect of Aphrodite. This could maybe be taught by a parent as an add-on to the book.

So... In general it's not the mythology I'd present or support for young people because of the presence of some of the more negative aspects present in many Greek myths - which they will no doubt find out - however it is a good introduction to the love of Goddesses and finding the divine in girls if you can make it your own, have knowledgeable adult supervision, be careful, and do what the Zeus myth did in the first place - rewrite some of the myths! I see them as Goddess types which are living changing role models in my imagination. I would've left Hera out and replaced her with Artemis, since she is more more hero-friendly, and more interesting to young girls who tend to love animals (she was a guardian, the protector of animals as well as women in childbirth.)

Do a little playacting with your children maybe, act them out or invent activities, teach them to be involved actively in morality and transforming bad into good, making their own art from their hearts, transforming negative myths, finding the good in existing myths etc.... Maybe introduce them into thinking about how religion can dupe us into believing that cruelty is kindness, evil - good, excitement in stories deceptively dangerous and abusive - or conversely to find the good - like Aphrodite's strong love.... etc... You could discuss - Is defensive strategic warfare ever good as per Athena? Can you protect animals as well as hunt them as per Artemis? Would Artemis and Athena if they were to combine their talents, contrive a better way to protect animals and women (Athena's knowledge of science, technology and the arts and Artemis's protective desires, as well as the strong love of Aphrodite combined? Maybe Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite would invent birth control for animals instead of predation as a way to control populations, or an alternative diet for predators that is nourishing so Artemis and predators didn't control populations through cruel death with hunting. Gardens where animals can be protected as well as have some freedom....? Laws (Athena) that outlaw the bio-tech creation of species that can't defend themselves or are harmed by their design would appeal to Artemis's protective qualities. Some women (and a few men) are hurt and abused and never leave their homes because of no shelter for them and their beloved pets - they fear for their animals or children. Maybe women's shelters that also take in animals would help them. Athena/Artemis/Aphrodite combined. You could start an underground shelters for the millions of animals killed and thrown away like trash or created for entertainment, wilderness shows (their agonized terror and deaths are exciting!!) circuses, forced work, pets etc.... Make the Goddesses your own - transform them) This kind of creativity as heroic living mythology is exciting for kids, especially if you make it part of your lives with activities etc.... Athena could help Artemis study animals and their natures and how best to be kind to them (Aphrodite.)

Adding a cleaned up version of Apollo (I believe he's salvageable because he is supposedly the god that heals and creates art, poetry, reason, light and life), would add poetry, healing, warmth and love, as well as a good male presence in his healing aspect. This myth is also corrupted by cruel propaganda artists however, be careful. Discussing all this (in simpler terms) for kids could be good. For adults if you like to collect children's literature, the artwork is beautiful and the story entertaining and it will be a nice supplement to your study of mythology and spirituality if you're looking for Goddesses and are already knowledgable and in control of your moral life.

This book is well written and it cleverly tells the stories of Athena, Aphrodite and Hera. However, it is not intended for younger readers who may have an interest in mythology due to the Percy Jackson series. The story of Aphrodite is particularly mature in subject matter.

The premise that the goddesses are usually overlooked in Greek mythology set me laughing even before I looked inside the covers. Come on! It's the gods who are usually overlooked in Greek mythology, if anything. Who runs the whole show in the Iliad? Athena, Hera and Aphrodite. Zeus is a helpless henpecked husband who does nothing, while Apollo has his hands completely tied because the goddesses always get their way. Athena dominates the Odyssey.

Meanwhile, the monologues really don't work. They just feel weird, having the goddesses narrate their own actions, at times nice, at times evil. Godesses are meant to be looked up at, and talked about. They are also supposed to be somewhat irrational beings. Thus, the first person thing doesn't quite cut it.