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Artemis: On Her Own Terms
By Catherine Thrush

Many of the Goddesses known to us from Greek myths are of far earlier origin. The peaceful and agrarian societies that flourished for millennia in most of Europe were Goddess worshipping people. They celebrated the creative power of Mother Earth in a myriad of forms; Gaia as the Earth itself, Hera as the Heavens, Aphrodite as the creative sexual power of woman, Demeter and her daughter as symbols of the cyclic nature of life and Artemis as the embodiment of the connection between nature and ourselves, only to scratch the surface.

Then, somewhere between 3000 and 5000 B.C., the peaceful Goddess worshipping societies were invaded and dominated by warlike nomads with violent male Gods and little regard for life. These invaders settled in the conquered lands and became the Greeks whose myths remain with us to this day. Unable to displace the Goddesses of the people they had conquered, they co-opted them instead. Hera, the Queen of Heaven became the much abused wife of the newer sky God, Zeus, Aphrodite, a symbol of woman's sexual power was saddled with an invalid husband, and Demeter, symbol of life and abundance, loses her daughter half the year to the God of death. Artemis alone escapes nearly intact from this rearrangement of the Deities, though she does gain a twin brother, Apollo and suddenly becomes the daughter of the much younger Zeus. The fact that she remains unwed and uncontrolled by any male deity is indicative of the powerful hold she had as a symbol of woman's wild, free and instinctive nature; a symbol that even the invading armies could not conquer or suppress.

At a time when, for women, marriage and slavery were different only by degrees; when women had few rights and were uneducated, untraveled and sometime unable to even leave their homes, one can certainly see the appeal of the wild and free life Artemis chose. The fact that she would have nothing to do with men and allowed only the company of women has made her of particular interest to many in the Lesbian community today. But whatever her preference or orientation, Artemis' first an only loves were freedom and wildness.

Greek myth describes Artemis as a lithe and graceful young Goddess running deftly through the moon lit forest. She is the original "Wild Woman" and was titled, "Caretaker of Wild Creatures" often symbolized in the company of deer, wolves, bears, lions, and almost any wild animal. She is also called "The Huntress" and "Mistress of the Bow". While this duality of caretaking and killing seems strange to us, for the earlier societies life and death were both equal parts of the cycle of life and the animals were seen as willing participants in the pageant of the hunt, reborn in the next generation.

The cyclical nature of life is again demonstrated in the monthly cycle of the moon - also the domain of Artemis. Each month the moon is reborn and swells only to fade away and then await new birth. All of nature is cyclical and Artemis' connection with that aspect of nature points out her innate connection to her own instinctual nature, something many of us in modern society have lost.

So what is Artemis' relevance in modern society?

In a society where nature is something you look at from the passenger seat of your Suburban, and the cycles we are most familiar with are at the gym, Artemis helps us get in touch with our own instinctive nature. While the Gods may be a matter of myth, woman's intuition certainly is not, and becoming more in touch with our intuitive and instinctive self, more in tune with our own emotional and spiritual cycles makes us feel more connected to our own nature and to that of the world around us. And a deep sense of connection to ourselves and others is fulfilling in many ways, making us more peaceful people, able to make better decisions and more comfortable with ourselves.

The Wild Woman archetype and the instinctual nature of women is the subject of much of Dr. Pinkola Estés work such as "Women Who Run With the Wolves" and many other modern authors. Certainly adding some wildness to our lives can be freeing emotionally and spiritually. And by wildness I mean, not a destructive lack of control, but a loosening of the mental and emotional chains that bind us, a disregard, at least temporarily, of the social pressures and constraints that tame and domesticate us.

Artemis' greatest gift to modern women is the understanding that, what is wild and untamed is not something to be feared but something to be celebrated, explored and reveled in, on our own terms.