Tag: aphrodite

winebrightruby:

The June night is sticky with fragrance, jasmine-drenched. Aphrodite’s laughter silvers the air. Ares, most handsome of gods, has returned from the battlefields of Thessaly, and the Gulfborn goddess prepares for their reunion.

In her chambers, Aglaia drapes ropes of Mississippi River pearls around her neck. From her ears, opals set in Alabama gold cast back the candlelight. Thaleia holds open a gown of finespun cotton, light and cool against Aphrodite’s skin, as rosy Euphrosyne combs vanilla oil through the queen’s hair.

But when Aphrodite reaches for a brush to darken her eyelids and color her cheeks, nothing her handmaidens offer is soft enough. No brush nor sponge nor even plush rose petal deserves to scrape across the goddess’s flawless skin. Her temper runs hotter than the summer evening, and more than one delicate statuette ends up flung at the walls. But at last, Thaleia brings in a handful of gauzy flowers from a tree in the courtyard. The silktree mimosa blossoms are paler than moonlight and softer than a whisper. Aphrodite dips them in her alabaster vessels and exclaims in delight as they float across her cheeks. In gratitude, she kisses the flowers and scatters them back in the courtyard before leaving for her assignation, leaving the mimosa blossoms newly stained pink with her blush and carmine.

From that night forward, the silktree mimosa has bloomed in shades of pink, as a sign of Aphrodite’s favor. To show that she will never forget the flower that served her when she needed it, she had them planted in her temples and made them one of her sacred symbols.

garrisonbabe:

i would love to see artwork of a black Aphrodite with pearls and roses sewn into cornrows or dreadlocks. like so much of the art and interpretations of Aphrodite are so white. she’s the goddess of love and beauty like variety would be lovely just sayin’. 

and there’s the excuse “well, she’s greek”

well…. she’s a fucking goddess. if Zeus can show up as a fucking swan and Poseidon can turn into a goddamn horse Aphrodite can be black and fucking beautiful

(i) aphrodite spends her nights stumbling out of bars the hands of unfamiliar men wrapped around her waist. she smells like hard liquor and cigarette smoke. when dusk turns to dawn she’s always the first to leave. always running. It’s better this way, safer this way she reasons.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             (ii) artemis traded in her bow and arrow for a gun. she still hunts she just hunts a different kind of prey now. she goes out at dusk and comes back home at dawn. bruised and bloody. a few bullets missing from her gun. somewhere buried deep in the body of a man who wore cruelty as if it were a second skin. who did not take no for an answer.
  
(iii) persephone first saw hades in a club. He was the kind of boy her mother had warned her about. Boys like that her mother had said are nothing but trouble. but persephone had never minded trouble very much. she walked up to him her lips painting a shade of pomegranate and asked if she could buy him a drink.

modern goddesses  (via bye1997)

nymphei:

Aphrodite Areia / Αφροδίτη Αρεια

Every soft petal
That flew into the wavering wind
Whispered of the horror
And the crimson blush on cheeks;
Kind and rosy
They fluttered like so many fragile heartbeats
Landing on the chests of fallen soldiers

Her arrival on the battlefield was expected
Seen from the way the wind curled
To let the divine force of her appear
The blood-soaked ground shuddered beneath her
The flowers flattened against the earth
The sun drew a breath and held it

Sun rays did not touch her fair skin
Nor did she radiate the beams
No
Except
There was no light where she stood
She inhaled it
Kept it
Breathed
The sun collapsed

asphodel-grimoire:

iamidae:

temples-wreathed-in-laurel:

Talk to me about Winter Aphrodite.

The goddess who picks up shards of half-frozen glass and smiles as if she were looking in the mirror.

Talk to me about her chilling romances with ice-bringing Theoi, Khione and her terrifying beauty. Hair shimmering with snowflakes and crystals that glimmer like diamonds. 

Aphrodite dwells in sun-kissed meadows but won’t hesitate to marvel at the wintry wonderland each year. Rolling through the cold, there isn’t anything that brings laughter faster. 

aphrodite kicks up the snow until it reminds her of the seafoam of her birthplace

she runs her fingers along frozen cheeks, delighting in the rosy blushes of tiny children wrapped up by their mothers in scarves knitted of silky yarn and parental love

sweet olympia dances across the drab winter cloud cover, shaking loose snowflakes

she stands in coffeehouses where people retreat from the harshness of nature, and she smiles as youths buy each other peppermint lattes to avoid saying “i love you”

family gathers, leaving just enough space for her, and there is the knowledge below all the hustle and bustle, that love is all the brighter for the darkness that surrounds it

this is what i am on tumblr for