Psyche and Eros – or the personification of the human soul through the object of romantic love
"Psyche was a ravishingly beautiful princess, and all her subjects admired her unearthly beauty and purity. People, enraptured by her beauty, forgot to visit the temples and pay homage to the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite.
When Aphrodite learned about the beauty of a mortal girl named Psyche and about the empty temples, she was filled with great envy and anger. Aphrodite called her son Eros, the god of love, who was his mother's inseparable companion, executor of her will and assistant in all her divine deeds (classic). She ordered him to go to Psyche and pierce her with one of her arrows so that she would fall in love with the most repulsive and ugly man in the world and be miserable all her life.
Eros listened to his mother, but when he saw Psyche - he was captivated by her beauty and loveliness and fell deeply in love with her, deciding to defy his mother for the first time.
Eros married Psyche and they lived happily ever after in the god's heavenly palace. The only thing that tormented Psyche was that she should not see with her mortal eyes the face of Eros while he stood in her arms. He always remained invisible to her and that was their arrangement.
Once her envious sisters came to visit. They made her dawn on her Divine Husband and taught her to see him when he slept. At first Psyche disagreed, but they insisted that he might be a monster or hideously ugly. Psyche yielded to her curiosity, and one night, while Eros was sleeping beside her, she held a candle to his face, but when she saw his divine beauty she trembled and a drop of wax fell on the god's chest and burned him. Eros woke up and disappointed by the act of betrayal and infidelity on the part of his beloved - he ran away and abandoned her. He returned to his mother to heal his wounds.
Psyche regretted her weakness and fell into despair. She went looking for her lover all over the world, but she never found him. She asked Hera and Demeter for help, but they refused for fear of offending Aphrodite.
Deeply despondent, Psyche made up her mind and went directly to Aphrodite and asked for her help to get her lover back. Aphrodite, pulling her hair, decided to take advantage of the situation and threw Psyche to her servants Sadness and Sorrow, agreeing to help her - after she passed the tests set by her. The tasks were overwhelming, often compared symbolically to the trials that Hercules faced.
The first task was to divide one ton of mixed wheat, peas, lentils, barley, millet, poppy seeds in one day. Psyche sat down to cry when an ant heard her and called all the ants in the kingdom for help. The task was accomplished.
Aphrodite then commissioned Psyche to collect the golden wool from a nearby herd of sharp-horned killer sheep. This time a divinely inspired green reed whispered to Psyche to wait for the sheep to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon and only then collect the golden fleeces. Psyche followed the advice and brought Aphrodite a requested golden wave. The goddess was still not impressed.
The third test was for Psyche to pour a jar of the dark waters of the River Styx, which separated the Underworld from the Earth. Psyche no longer had the strength to cry and went to the river, which was guarded by an unheard of monster. One of the eagles of Zeus remembered that he owed a favor to Eros, and as soon as he saw Psyche near the Styx, he descended from the clouds, took the jar from her hands and filled it with water. The third trial was over.
Aphrodite, however, had a much darker task, far surpassing all others in degree of difficulty. And she asked Psyche to go down to the Underworld and put in a box some of the beauty of Persephone, the underworld goddess of the dead, and bring it to her. Reasoning that the only way she could visit Hades was to die, a desperate Psyche climbed a high tower with the intention of plunging herself into hell. The only thing that kept her going was her love for Eros and the hope that she would find him. Inspired again by divine providence, the tower revealed to her a better way.
First she went to Mount Taenarus in the Peloponnese, where she found a hole leading to Hades. She did not go there empty-handed, taking with her two coins and two pieces of bread soaked in barley and honey.
She used the first coin to pay Charon the fare to ferry her across the River Styx and the first loaf of bread to throw to Cerberus, the guardian dog of the Underworld, and thus enter the palace of Hades. There she found Persephone and, following the advice of the tower, rejected all her fancy meals, asking instead for a favor. Persephone agreed after Psyche's story and she took some of her beauty and returned to the land of the living, bribing Cerberus with her second loaf and paying Charon with her last coin.
However, the curse of the box made Psyche, in her desire to be even more beautiful for her lover, open the box with Persephone's beauty. Fell in place, falling into an eternal sleep.
At that time, Eros, torn by sadness for Psyche, decided that it was high time to look for her. Finding it, he returned the magic to the box and he and Psyche handed it to Aphrodite.
Eros took his beloved to Zeus with a request to make her immortal so that they could live in eternal free love. Zeus agreed and blessed their union. Not long after, the daughter of Eros and Psyche was born, whom they named Volupta, the Goddess of Pleasure."
Psyche is the Greek word for soul. Psyche is responsible for our soul and its longing.
Eros is the Greek word for desire. God of love, eroticism and sex. It represents our life energy.
The love story of Psyche and Eros has been retold many times and is one of the most beloved stories as its roots lie in the foundations of many children's fairy tales.
The legend of this love story tells us how by following the innermost desires of our soul, we meet with it and experience unconditional love and become immortal. Yes, of course, through hard trials, purification and strong faith.
Just like the heroine of this legend, the human soul goes through many difficulties on its earthly path and thus gains strength and wisdom. The card shows us where (which house) and how (in which sign) we will experience this longing of our soul (Eros) in this incarnation.
The soul is a representative of the feminine energy in each person. In the legend, it is said that in her struggle Psyche received help and support from various natural and divine forces. This shows us once again that the kingdom of Earth is always our best friend, and following our intuition is the surest way not to get lost. And the Faith that God is always with us and helps us even in the darkest days and nights, through "unknown ways".
Asteroid Psyche leads us to the very core of our being. "Know thyself" also means not questioning our love, faith and Path. Regardless of all external factors, which are often role models, wrong beliefs, past incarnations, childhood traumas, etc. Through Psyche we reach ourselves, passing through seemingly impossible trials and receive Eros, our Love.
The story of Psyche and Eros is the story of our soul and its spark, the story of the innermost deep desires. Eros is the personification of longing and our strongest passions. The legend reveals to us once again that by unfailingly following our heart and its Path, no matter how many times we stumble along it, we will always reach immortality. Because there is no truer Path than the Path of Unconditional Love. Be it to a specific person, project, vocation, dream.
Psyche and Eros show us that everyone has a longing in their soul, and if until now humanity has never put Love first, then the Age of Aquarius will teach us exactly that. The Divine Spark is within each of us, and until we follow it, we will never feel full satisfaction, Love and meaning in our lives.
Rumyana Velichkova