“Sing to me, O Muse, of the works of golden Aphrodite, the Cyprian, who stirs sweet longing in gods and subdues the races of mortal men as well as the birds that swoop from the sky and all the beasts that are nurtured on both land and sea.”
-Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

The golden goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality, Aphrodite was born from the foam of the sea; her name literally means “foam-born.” Aphrodite loved gaiety and followed her heart wherever it led her, entering into some of the most romantic love affairs of the age. Now recognized as one of the most powerful forces on Earth, Aphrodite’s influence is perhaps more widespread than that of any other god, for all people, no matter their character or position in life, possess a capacity for feeling.

On the front door, the goddess Aphrodite welcomes the viewer into her shrine and the domain of love and beauty. Her left hand holds a blooming bouquet of lilies to symbolize fertility, and her right hand cups the issuing smoke from an offering bowl of sage. She wears the golden girdle that her husband Hephaestus created for her, carved with stars and a beautiful silver crescent moon. A wreath of laurel leaves adorns her hair, and she stands upon one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, translated and written in the beautiful Elvish language of J. R. R. Tolkien:

Love is not love which alters when alteration finds,
nor bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
that looks on tempests and is not shaken.

Inside the shrine, Aphrodite is born from the foam of the roiling sea beneath her. She sits with her white arms clasped about her legs, gazing up into the night sky where moonlit clouds roll, lit by a single golden star: the planet Venus. On the back of the shrine, an orchard of pomegranate trees sway gently in the night’s breeze, lit by the amber moon above them and the surrounding stars. A bronze vase stands empty nearby, representing Aphrodite as the vessel of love: open to life’s chance meetings and encounters. When held up to the light, the amber moon shines through the breaking clouds. The stars brighten and dance in the sky over the newly born Aphrodite, casting their soft light upon the beautiful goddess.

Dimensions: 3" tall by 2" wide