Aphrodite in Myth: Mother of the Erotes

In my persona; gnosis, my personal idea of what the Gods are, there are actually only a few Gods. That numbers around 24, but I never say that that is the absolute truth, because no man can ever truly know the absolute truth about, well, almost anything.

In my personal pantheon, there is a clear distinction between Eros, the primordial God that brings things together, like gravity, and the Eros of later myth who is better known among the English speaking world as Cupid. Further, the mythos also gives us the Erotes, plural of Eros, who are like little angelic Cupids that do the bidding of their mother and give mankind things like Love, Jealousy, Hatred, etc.

Cupid Eros and the Erotes are, to me, simply angelic aspects of the Goddess Aphrodite herself, as are most of her mythic children. The Erotes are kind of special, though, because like Venus, the Roman Aphrodite, the little Cupids have made their way into the modern world in many ways. Many of the Christian representations of angelic figures like Cherubs are clearly based on them, and in many ways, the modern idea of “God is Love” would render this aspect of the Christian God as Aphrodite herself. But that is a discussion for some other time.

The Cherubic Erotes are mischievous little creatures, and are often depicted as infants, with that lack of propriety, that lack of sense, and that lacking a sense of consequence that children of that age would have. They are like the most primal aspects of Aphrodite, sheer unfiltered emotion, and that is something we are all familiar with, because like these little Erotes, emotion comes and plays havoc with us and then goes upon its merry way.

The little Erotes are Aphrodite as she manifests in all of our little emotions, the vast complexity of which make us all what we are.

The Erotes are emotion. Not just what we human beings generate and feel, but that which is manifest in the cosmos itself. Thoughts and emotions are spontaneous in us, and often we ask ourselves where do they come from? I believe we humans generate them ourselves, but the very existence of emotion is due to the manifestation in our universe of the power of Aphrodite.

Emotion is also chaotic. Spontaneity is, by its very nature, a chaotic process, one which is inherent to our universe from the most base to the most expansive of its aspects, and as such I have to wonder if this does not make Aphrodite herself part of the primordial (basic) functions of the cosmos.

That would seem an easy enough question to answer, after all, aren’t all Gods part of the basic function of the cosmos? Yes, but I am talking about the Primordial aspects of the cosmos, the elemental structure of the universe. If Eros’ power is manifest in gravity, and Ge’s in matter, then might not Aphrodite’s be manifest in chaos? Might her power not be part of what we call quantum uncertainty?

Just a question for you to ponder.