12 Greek Gods and Goddesses

Cruel and fickle, passionate and vindictive, jealous and insecure, petty and insane: the inhabitants of Mount Olympus represent an attempt by the ancient Greeks to explain the chaos of the universe through human nature. Thus, like every deity invented before and since, these gods and goddesses are embodiments of human solipsism. (Of course lightning is caused by a giant, angry man in the sky…obvi. I mean, what else could it be?) The stories of their battles, bickering, and sexual conquests have indelibly influenced the course of Western language and narrative. Here is a selection of some of the A-list names of the Greek pantheon.

• Aphrodite

  

  Titian: Venus and Adonis© Photos.com/Jupiterimages

  Aphrodite was the goddess of love, sex, and beauty. Unsurprisingly for a love goddess, she was said to have emerged from the foam generated when the severed testicles of her father, Uranus, were thrown into the sea by his son, the Titan Cronus. (Or is that surprising?) Kind of makes Botticelli’s surreally lovely Birth of Venus—which depicts Aphrodite’s Roman counterpartemerging from the waves—a little more visceral, doesn’t it?

  
  

• Athena

  

  Athena© Sergey Rusakov/Shutterstock.com

  Athena was the goddess of reason, wisdom, and war. She famously sprung fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. A major figure in the Odyssey, in which she instructed Odysseus, she also guided Perseus and Heracles through their trials. The Parthenon was her chief temple in Athens, which is named in her honor. Her Roman equivalent was Minerva.

  
  

• Artemis

  

  ArtemisAlinari/Art Resource, New York

  Artemis was the fleet-footed goddess of the hunt. Often depicted in painting and sculpture with a deer or a hunting dog, she was both huntress and protectress of the living world. Her Roman equivalent was Diana.

  
  

• Ares

  

  AresAnderson—Alinari/Art Resource, New York

  Ares was the god of bloodlust. (His half-sister Athena represented the more "noble" aspects of combat and civil conduct during war.) Though his fellow deities weren’t particularly fond of him, the Spartans had no problems, er, donating some prisoners of war to his worship. And sacrificing dogs…yeah, that’s right, Ares liked dead puppies. Jerk. His Roman equivalent was Mars.

  
  

• Apollo

  

  Apollo Belvedere, restored Roman copy of the Greek original attributed to Leochares, 4th century bc; in the Vatican Museum, RomeAlinari/Art Resource, New York

  The twin brother of Artemis, Apollo was among the most important (read: feared) of the gods. Son of Zeus, he disseminated the will of his divine compatriots through various means, notably oracles. The Oracle at Delphi was his mouthpiece; a 2001 study determined that the oracle was likely hallucinating due to ethylene gas rising from the rocks beneath the temple.

  
  

• Demeter

  

  Demeter© Magryt/Dreamstime.com

  Demeter, an agricultural goddess, was mother to Persephone, who was abducted by the underworld god Hades to be his bride. While searching for her stolen daughter, she accepted the hospitality of the royal family of Eleusis. The Eleusinian Mysteries, perhaps the most important religious rites in ancient Greece, are attributed to her teachings. Her Roman equivalent was Ceres.

  
  

• Dionysus

  

  Dionysus© Photos.com/Thinkstock

  Dionysus was a son of Zeus born to a mortal mother. When Zeus accidentally killed her, he sewed the young Dionysus into his thigh and, when the young god emerged, passed him to the care of the maenads. The cult of Dionysus revolved around intoxication, sex, and savage ritual sacrifice. He was often symbolized by a bull due to his association with the sacrificial animal. Elements of his character are seen in the Roman god of wine, Bacchus.

  
  

• Hades

  

  Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Pluto and ProserpinaAnderson—Alinari/Art Resource, New York

  Hades ruled the world of the dead, with which he was sometimes synonymous. The chilly lord of the underworld was among the few Greek gods to come across as dispassionate. He was not the ultimate judge of the souls that wandered his domain nor did he mete out their punishments for sins committed during their mortal lives. He was, however, cunning; he tricked Persephone into eating enchanted pomegranate seeds so that she would have to remain with him for a portion of the year.

  
  

• Hera

  

  the gods on OlympusAlinari/Art Resource, New York

  The queen goddess of Olympus, Hera was both sister and wife to Zeus. Though she is often depicted as reserved and austere, she was mercilessly vindictive when it came to her husband’s [many] extramarital adventures. Unfortunately for the objects of Zeus’s godly affections, Hera tended to torment the "other women" (and their offspring, including Heracles) rather than Zeus himself. Her Roman equivalent was Juno.

  
  

• Hermes

  

  HermesCourtesy of the trustees of the British Museum

  Like many gods in the Greek pantheon, Hermes presided over multiple spheres. He was a pastoral figure, responsible for protecting livestock, and was also associated with fertility, music, luck, and deception. In the Odyssey, he is depicted as a messenger god. His Roman equivalent was Mercury.

  
  

• Poseidon

  

  PoseidonWGS Photofile

  Poseidon is best known as the Greek sea god, but he was also the god of horses and of earthquakes. (Thus, many of his temples were inland.) And he had some seriously strange children. Though humanoid, he fathered both the winged horse Pegasus (by Medusa, no less) and the Cyclops Polyphemus, who is blinded by Odysseus and his crew in the Odyssey. His Roman equivalent was Neptune.

  
  

• Zeus

  

  Ganymede and Zeus in the form of an eagle, antique marble statue; in the Vatican MuseumAnderson—Alinari/Art Resource, New York

  With the assistance of Hades and Poseidon, Zeus overthrew his father, Cronus, king of the Titans, and became the chief deity in a new pantheon comprising mostly his siblings and children. In addition to controlling the weather, Zeus was noted for his chronic infidelity to his sister-wife, Hera. Among the results of his weakness for comely mortal women was Helen of Troy. His Roman equivalent was Jupiter.

  
  

 

5 Famous Deaths at the Hands of Loved Ones

 Marvin Gaye, who was shot to death by his father, is just one of many tragic stories in Hollywood in which the perpetrator was someone close to the victim.

The saying goes, "There's no greater loss for a parent than the death of a child." But can you imagine when that death ends up being at the hands of the actual parent? It's a hard pill to swallow. This, however, is what happened to Motown superstar Marvin Gaye when he stared down the barrel of a gun held by his own father on April 1, 1984.

Here are some famous murders that occurred at the hands of a loved one:

R&B/Soul Singer Marvin Gaye: April 1, 1984

Marvin Gaye

Photo: Rob Verhorst/Redferns

The fatal shooting of Motown's "Prince of Soul," Marvin Gaye, Jr., goes down in the record books as one of the most famous and tragic deaths in music history.

Born Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (he later added the "e" in his surname) in 1939 in Washington, D.C., the R&B/soul singer had 18 Top 10 hit singles and is best known for such classics as "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "What's Going On," "Let's Get It On," and his 1982 comeback song, the chart-topping "Sexual Healing," which earned him two Grammy Awards.

Plagued by drug abuse, the artist moved in with his parents, preacher Marvin Gay, Sr., and Alberta Gay in the West Adams area of Los Angeles. A day before his 45th birthday on April 1, 1984, at approximately 11:38 a.m. PST, a fight broke out between father and son over the senior Marvin's treatment of his mother during an argument over insurance papers. The fight allegedly turned physical when, as Alberta said in a 1985 Ebony article, that her son pushed and kicked his father. As the story goes, Gay Sr. allegedly retaliated with a gunshot from a .38 pistol to his son's chest followed by a second gunshot reportedly fired at point-blank range.

Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten: August 14, 1980

At the height of her short-lived career, Playboy model/actress Dorothy Stratten suffered a tragic ending at the hands of her estranged husband, Paul Snider, founder of male stripping act, The Chippendales.

Born Dorothy Ruth Hoogstraten on February 28, 1960, in Vancouver, the blonde beauty came to fame after being named Playmate in the 1979 issue of Playboy, and appearing in such movies as Skatetown, USA and Americathon the same year. She was named Playmate of the Year in 1980. The rising star married Snider in 1979, but the pair was estranged at the time of her murder. On August 14, 1980, the two met on at the couple's former home to discuss a divorce. Instead of splitting amicably, Snider shot her to death with a shotgun and then committed suicide with the same gun. Reportedly, police believe that Snider raped and abused her corpse before pulling the trigger on himself. Both bodies were naked when police arrived.

Since her death, Stratten became the subject of two movies, a song, and several books, including Jamie Lee Curtis' portrayal of her in Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story, and singer Bryan Adams's song "The Best Was Yet to Come." She was only 20 years old when she was killed.

Actress Dominique Dunne: November 4, 1982

Just four months after appearing in the 1982 blockbuster supernatural thriller, Poltergeist, 22-year-old actress Dominique Dunne was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, sous-chef John Thomas Sweeney, at her West Hollywood home. The attack put her in a coma for five days until she was declared brain dead and taken off life support.

Dunne was the daughter of heiress Ellen Griffin and Dominick Dunne, a film producer, writer, investigative journalist, and television host, and the niece of novelists Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Her first break as an actress came when she was cast in the 1979 movie, Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker. She soon appeared in the hit '80s television shows, Lou Grant, Hart to Hart, and Fame, before landing her first feature film role in the Steven Spielberg-produced supernatural thriller Poltergeist.

The trouble with her boyfriend Sweeney began shortly after the two moved in together, just weeks after meeting. A few months prior to her murder, two altercations occurred, one being his first attempt on her life by strangling. In 1983, Sweeney was acquitted of the second-degree murder charge, but was still found guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and also convicted of a misdemeanor assault for a previous attack. He was sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison, but only served three years and seven months.

Comedian Phil Hartman: May 28, 1998

Cocaine use and alcohol reportedly contributed to Brynn Hartman's decision to shoot her husband, actor Phil Hartman, at point-blank range with his own Smith & Wesson .38 as he slept in the bed they shared in their Encino, Calif. home. She shot him twice in the head and once on his side.

Hartman, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live, NewsRadio, and for voicing several characters on The Simpsons, had reportedly threatened to divorce his wife of 11 years, during an argument over her drug use. Along with her drug problems, which resulted in two stints in rehab, Brynn also suffered from depression. She was taking the antidepressant drug, Zoloft, at the time of the shooting.

Shortly after admitting to a friend that she killed her husband in the early morning hours of May 28, 1998, Brynn climbed into the couple's bed where Phil's dead body still lay and sitting up against the headboard she put the gun in her mouth and fired her own fatal shot. When police arrived, they found Brynn's dead body slumped over that of her husband, orphaning the couple's two children. In 1999, Hartman's estate filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Pfizer, the manufacturer of the antidepressant drug that Brynn was taking, as well as her psychiatrist. Pfizer settled.

Bonnie Lee Bakley: May 4, 2001

Though out of the public eye for some time, Robert Blake — star of Truman Capote's 1967 film In Cold Blood, and the 1970's show Baretta — became a household name again after he was charged with murdering his wife of one year, Bonnie Lee Bakley. 

The high profile trial intrigue centered on Bakley's background and the couple's strange history. She was widely known as a con artist and for allegedly swindling men for money and had been arrested for writing $200,000 in bad checks, along with having more than 30 fake identifications. She served jail time before meeting Blake in 1999 and becoming his wife after a paternity test proved he was the father of her daughter, Rose, which she initially named Christian Shannon Brando after claiming Marlon Brando's son, Christian, was the father.

On May 4, 2001, the couple had dinner at a restaurant, and upon leaving the restaurant, Blake claimed to have realized that he left his revolver in the restaurant and returned to retrieve it. When he came back to the car, he found his wife dead with a gunshot wound to her head. Blake was charged with one count of murder with special circumstances, two counts of solicitation of murder, and one count of murder conspiracy. He was acquitted in 2005 but found liable for the wrongful death of his wife in the civil case filed by Bakley's children and ordered to pay $30 million in restitution.

What Is Unconditional Love? Is It The Key To Long Lasting Relationships?

 

“Don’t take too long to find

True love transcends all time

That non-reacting, everlasting love

Give me your unconditional love.”

These lyrics by Donna Summer sum up two important qualities about unconditional love: non-reacting and everlasting. When most of us think of unconditional love, we think of true love, love that is given freely, without asking or expecting anything in return. While a love like this has been sung and written about, it does lead one to wonder about its application in real life. What is unconditional love in the context of modern human relationships? And does it really work long term?

Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License

So what is unconditional love really? Simply saying, unconditional love is just that – love given freely, without any conditions or expectations. Some might say that unconditional love is what true love really is, and everything else is just a kind of contract – there’s giving only as long as there’s receiving. If you’re the kind of person who rolls her eyes at the mention of ‘soul mates’ or ‘the one,’ you might think unconditional love belongs to the same category – romantic and great for poetry, but not really practical in real life.

However, science begs to differ, and there are studies that prove that humans are capable of unconditional love, and that it’s not the same as other kinds of love. Mario Beauregard and his associates conducted a study, where they used fMRI to examine the brain imaging of several people. These people were shown images depicting various kinds of love and their resulting brain responses were studied.

The study threw up some interesting findings; when the participants looked at images of unconditional love, seven areas of their brain fired up, of which four areas were absent in other kinds of love. These areas generally include feelings like pleasure, empathy, and compassion. So there you go, science agrees that unconditional love exists in real life and not just in ballads!

Different kinds of love

Now, unconditional love can be romantic, maternal or any other kind of love. In fact, the most common instance of unconditional love that all of us can relate to is that between a mother and her child. For this reason, some researchers even refer to unconditional love as ‘maternal love’ – a kind of love that only thinks about the benefit of the other person and stays alive even if there is no reciprocation. You might say that a parent is biologically wired to feel that way towards a child, but unconditional love also exists between siblings and friends. As long as the love is given unreservedly, it is unconditional!

Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License

When we come to unconditional love in romantic relationships, it becomes a little more complicated and difficult to define. It’s not really hard to fall in love with someone; it’s when the love transcends time and circumstances that it becomes truly unconditional love. When you love someone for who they really are deep down, only then can unconditional love be possible in its truest sense. It is a bond, but it isn’t binding; it is forever keeping the other person’s best interests at heart while giving them the space to grow.

A great example of unconditional love can be seen in The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. I’m assuming you’ve watched the movie if not read the book, where Noah loves Allie and treats her with lots of love and tenderness – even though Allie’s got Alzheimer’s and doesn’t even remember him or their 50-year-old marriage. Allie hasn’t got anything to give Noah anymore, but none of that has any impact on Noah’s pure, unconditional love for her.

What unconditional love isn’t

Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License

Reading about unconditional love, it’s possible that people get the wrong idea about it, that unconditional love means complete submission of yourself and your life to the one you love, and tolerating and accepting everything they do – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Well, nothing could be further from the truth! To clear things up on this front, here is a list of what unconditional love isn’t:

1. Being a doormat – Just because you love someone to the ends of the earth doesn’t mean that they have the right to walk all over you; that’s just exploitation. Unconditional love means giving the other person due respect by maintaining your own.

2. Being blind – If the object of your affections is going astray, and you keep mum for fear of contradicting them, your love is not really of much use to them, is it? Not having conditions for your love doesn’t mean that you enable destructive behavior which will anyway ruin a person at the end.

3. Changing someone – If you find yourself trying to change the other person’s behavioral traits or personal characteristics to suit your own version of the perfect partner, then I’m sorry, but that’s not unconditional love! As Chris Moore says, “Love is to love someone for who they are, who they were, and who they will be.”

4. Infatuation – Know that feeling when you think you’re in love and you want to follow the other person wherever they go? Well, that’s just infatuation and nowhere near unconditional love.

Unconditional love begins from within

By now, it’s clear that unconditional love for a person doesn’t mean that you live the life of a sacrificial lamb or suffer in silence. This goes on to prove that true love for another person can only begin by feeling unconditional love for yourself. Self-esteem is an important requirement of unconditional love, and if you think poorly of yourself or tend to blame yourself in every situation, you need to work on yourself first. Unconditional love can only come from a place of total acceptance and peace, not from a place of negativity.

Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License

Successful relationships where both partners shower unconditional love on each other are usually between people who have some core values in common. But for this to work, it requires having a good knowledge of your own thoughts and beliefs, as well as loving yourself for the person you really are. When you are ready to accept yourself for all your strengths and weaknesses, it becomes much easier for you to do the same with another person, paving the way towards a relationship of deeper understanding and love.

While unconditional love benefits from self love, it also improves your perspective of your relationship and life in general. You tend to let the small things go, by focusing on the big picture. You learn to be grateful for all the pleasures in your life and you become more compassionate and forgiving – even towards yourself.

How we think of ourselves is also tied to how we feel when we’re on the receiving end of unconditional love from someone else. When people feel they’re being given more than they deserve, they begin to self-sabotage. Such feelings can be very deep-rooted, probably originating from an absence of unconditional love in childhood. Again, in such situations, the healing needs to begin from within, so that we can open up our hearts to both give and receive love. As Morrie Schwartz said, “The most important thing in this world is to learn to give out love, and let it come in.”

Unconditional love and unconditional relationships

We now have the answer to the question of what is unconditional love, but how does this information apply to the daily practicalities of a modern romantic relationship? As you can imagine, loving someone from a distance is easy, but when you’re living with them and having to deal with mortgages, bosses, check-ups, and busted tyres, it can be hard to feel any kind of love! However, crisis situations and similar circumstances prove to be the true test of unconditional love, and if you’re able to get over these, you’ve nailed it!

Image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License

Of course, this is easier said than done, but relationships were never meant to be easy! Unconditional love cannot be forced by any means, and trying too hard can only backfire. However, being mindful of the situation and realizing that you need to go easy on yourself first before loving another can help. Another point to consider is that all of us eventually change as we go through life, and unconditional love being based on a person’s basic nature, doesn’t waver in the face of change. You just find your new normal and move ahead; the rest just falls in place on the way.

With an open, honest channel of communication, the ability to listen empathetically, a heart to forgive and the willingness to respect boundaries, unconditional love can be a lovely mutually beneficial exchange between two people. Unconditional love does require many things – courage, generosity, maturity – but, it’s all worth it when you think of the lifelong bond that you’ll share with the love of your life.

As Nicholas Sparks says in The Notebook, “I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.”

Featured image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License

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Fabida Abdulla