by Dianne Lobes

Created on: November 08, 2008   Last Updated: November 22, 2008

Artemis was a ravishing beauty in Greek archetypal images both visual and written, though she didn't rely on it to get her through.

Artemis wasn't like Aphrodite who knew how to relate to and seduce men.

Artemis was a killer beauty, literally, who was unaware of her beauty's power. Artemis learned early that she was powerful in other ways more characteristic of her essence.

Artemis was at the same time a great and gentle nurturer of women and children and the goddess of fertility, but a bit naive about corruption, vice and sex. She never created an unambiguous and successful relationship with a man she loved. The corruption and vice of her possessive and jealous twin brother Apollo had a hand in that tragedy. That's a whole story in itself.

The most shining quality and constant of the Artemisian archetype is her moral and physical strength. "I envied Artemis for her focused consciousness," said Gloria Steinem, no slouch herself.

Artemis was so strong that she could hold the tension of opposites, as her twinship implies. She embodied the supposed paradox of being a strong, smart and beautiful woman, though this "paradox" was always much more political than real. She held the tension of being a woman-identified, nurturing female who never married or gave birth, of being connected and disconnected from men, and of the grand triad of birth, life and death itself. Most of us run from paradox because of the accompanying and extreme stress - it's easier to jump into an existing category rather than create a new one of your own. Those who accept the challenge teach us to imagine the huge spectrum of life's possibilities - that things are not black or white, "this or that", but a subtle, many-colored artwork of creative choices, difficult struggles and sometimes compromised achievements which can nonetheless be satisfying and joyful. It's hard to embrace your own shadow.

Artemis was a trip.

Artemis was a newborn when she helped her mother give birth to her twin Apollo, which set her on the course of being a champion of childbirth and new mothers. The name Artemis means healthy and vigorous; she became the goddess who is herself whole and athletic, and who gave strength and health to others.

Knowing who she was from the beginning, she got what she wanted from papa god Zeus - bows and arrows, hounds, a retinue of helpers, and, most significantly for the times, the freedom to remain chaste and unmarried. Running wild and virginal, Artemis became an archer, a hunter, a woman of

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