- Fostering bilateral cultural relations that lead to social and economic growth and development
- Promoting environmental protection through enhanced technology
- Celebrating women’s diversity and accomplishments and promoting equality in the business arena
- Creating a platform of mutual respect, cooperation and shared goals between women of the United States and Europe
- Mentoring and educating the youth to successfully lead in a rapidly changing, technology-driven global society with respect to the universal values.
THE GOAL
EAWCs’ goal is to erect a large bronze sculpture, 1.5 times life size, of the Artemis Award as a land mark for generations to come.
The monumental creation will be installed in a prominent place in the city of New York for the symbolic location the city occupies on the globe and to stretch the underlined message of women rising power and respect.
The monument will be fully funded by 24 donors, such as the hours of the day…… 24 donors, 12 as the Olympian Gods and 12 like the signs of the zodiac. Donors’ names will be inscribed in alphabetical order around the base of the monument to be witnessed by the rest of world.
THE GREAT GODDESS ARTEMIS
Historically, Artemis is usually considered to be the daughter of Leto and Zeus. Hera, Zeus’s wife, was furious upon learning of her husband’s infidelity and forbade anyone to offer refuge to Leto in order to give birth to her twins. Leto wandered around and finally settled on the island of Delos to deliver her children. Artemis was born quickly by her mother, Leto. However, due to a curse from Hera, Artemis was the one who immediately following her own birth, assisted her mother’s delivery of her brother in a long and difficult labor. Thus she is known as the patroness of childbirth. Apollo became mainly God of the sun and music and Artemis became Goddess of the moon and of the hunt, protector of animals, the forest, young girls and women in childbirth.
Artemis represents all that is wild, creative, and untamed. The Goddess Artemis is one of the longest lived of divine beings. She goes back in time when human living was more dependent on wild nature as hunters and gatherers. She must be one of the oldest Goddesses, since the Neolithic period. A Goddess dating back to 30,000 years or more, that was called “The Lady of the Animals” before she even had a name. She is the Lady of the Beasts and Great Mother, portrayed with animals and wings. Lakes, marches, and rivers are consistently connected with her, Artemis Limnaia (of the lakes), and the ocean.
Artemis gives and takes life with her swift arrows. She is the prime symbol of rejuvenation such as the moon grows until it reaches its’ fullest. Her name is usually derived from artemês, uninjured, healthy, and vigorous; according to which she would be the Goddess who is herself inviolate and vigorous, and also grants strength and health to others. Artemis is at the same time a thea sôteira; that is, she cures and alleviates the sufferings of mortals. She is the Goddess of all the transformative, dangerous, exciting moments in life. She embodies the spirit of freedom. She is the element of independence; completion and reassurance that exist in every woman, especially to those who refuse to conform and persist on following their path.
She is always a maiden with the original meaning of the word, the one that is unbound and not subdued. Myths called her a chaste virgin, unnecessary now, but
not then, when to be a virgin meant to belong to oneself, to have no outside restraints.
As originally conceived of, a virgin could and did have sex. Artemis belongs to the category of ‘virgin’ Goddess, Αιδοιος παρθενος, Revered Virgin, self directed, autonomous, focused consciousness, the world παρθένος, virgin initially it had the meaning of unwed woman. The function of the virgin priestesses was to dispense the Mother’s grace to heal, to prophesy, to perform sacred dances, to wail for the dead.
Artemis possesses an introverted and independent temperament (polar opposite to Athena), represents the goddess of Nature, concerned with matters of the outdoors, animals, environmental protection, women’s communities–she is practical, adventurous, athletic and prefers solitude. She symbolizes regenerative earth power over all living things. Both Artemis and Athena bore arms as protectress goddesses. Artemis, armed with bow and arrow, possesses the power to inflict plagues and death or to heal.
The worship of Artemis spanned time, space, and vast differences in culture, her cult sometimes merged with that of foreign goddesses, or these goddesses simply labeled “Artemis”, as can be expected of a Goddess who had developed into a complex, widespread figure so early in time. Parts of her mythology and ceremonies came from Anatolia, North Africa, and later Crete. Accordingly, she was worshipped at Rhodes, in Sicily, Pontius in Galatia, Ephesus, and North Africa. The Amazons built her shrines at Ephesus in Anatolia and in Greece.
Artemis often punishes men who try to rape women. Her followers are remembered as her nymphs and Amazons, roaming free in the forests and mountains. All wild animals seem tame around her, since they understand that she too is wild, and has no desire to cage them. Artemis’ very throne is covered with a wolf skin. Three intertwined areas fall under Artemis’ power as an elemental force in nature and the authority that demands obedience to instinct.
First is the survival of species, which she controls by seeing to it that each animal dies at its proper time. Second is her aspect as carrying souls from one world to the next, she also carries the memory of a different basis for society than violence and oppression.
This was often expressed in literature as the memory of a Golden Age, and the belief that human life could be better. Third, she is concerned with water and weather, like her Taoist counterpart Ma Tau P’o. Sailors still, in many cultures, carry tokens that can be traced to her as charms to maintain their safety while at sea.
A frequently repeated claim is that Aphrodite, the force of love, has no power over Artemis. While later this is interpreted as meaning Artemis has no affairs or intimate contact this may originally have been a more subtle point. No matter how strong love may be, it is not strong enough to call the dead back to life, or prevent death. Artemis represents the feminine archetype of Nature & the Wilds, virgin, pure, primitive of wild places, Mother of Creatures.
Artemis’ image at Ephesus depicts a torso covered with breasts conveying her as the fertile nurturer of all living things. She is also the Huntress, killer/destroyer of the very creatures she brought forth–demonstrating the light and dark side of the goddess. Artemis women containing both, feminine and masculine energies complete, whole in and of herself, her true relationship is with herself, particularly for Artemis, an intense love of freedom. Artemis possesses deep sympathy for the Earth and all its’ living beings and employs the role of protectress–she is enraged by the exploitation of nature and powerless creatures. Artemis’ gifts: Ability to focus, set goals and reach them; autonomy/independence, ability to develop meaningful connection with other women.
Understanding Goddess types, offers a woman very specific means of increased self-awareness of herself. By increasing our consciousness of these various energies we have an opportunity to affirm and express the more primary Goddess qualities as well as discovering ways to draw out the more recessive Goddess qualities from within. In this way, we bring into balance the hidden Goddess qualities. Mythology provides women today, an ancient mirror of womanhood, being a divine, guiding and supernatural force. Our psyche needs these images to nurture its growth. These mythic images can guide us to see who we are and what we might become. Goddess, from a feminine perspective, represents a particular feminine archetype. A Goddess is the form that a feminine archetype may take. Goddess types represent models of ways of being and behaving that all women share and recognize from the collective unconscious.
Goddesses, as a feminine archetype, remain alive to this day in the psychology of women; and, depending upon which energies are more pronounced, influence her personality with a distinct character, a way of being, a way of relating in the world a way of offering her special gifts.
Artemis is a Goddess of the edges and boundaries, between culture and civilization, virginity and marriage, war and peace, births and deaths. At any time of transition from one state to another, you are in the powerful Artemis’ domain.
In his Phaedrus, Plato described the Twelve Gods as astral deities who drive through the heavens, maintaining the order. This has been interpreted as supporting the association of the Twelve Gods with the Signs of the Zodiac. In Plato’s thought, the Twelve Gods were no longer the parochial set who watched over the prosperity of Athens and ensured its dominance over other cities, but universal deities concerned with the well-being of the Kosmos. Eudoxos of Cnidos, who is known today as ‘the founder of scientific astronomy’, is thought to have been responsible for identifying the twelve Olympians with the Signs of the Zodiac. Artemis (the Moon) stands as the ruler of Cancer, preceding the birth of Apollo (the Sun) the ruler of Leo.
Goddess Artemis stands for the law of spiritual purity. Her immediate assistance after her birth, in the birth of her twin brother Apollo the “light” symbolizes, “the soul purity the spiritual life with her coming to the world and her assistance in bringing forth the birth of spiritual light, Artemis Phosphoros (Bringer of Light), presuppose the complete and total purification of the human soul from passions, having as a result soul perfection.”
The spiritual purity, Goddess Artemis, in order to be born in our human souls we need to escape from every kind of passion, psychological and physical, a task difficult to achieve but not impossible. Respect is appropriate for this female form of Nature, not only for the reason that she perpetuates the human race, but because she offers to the soul eternal immortality, Artemis Soteira (Saviour).
Ideas and excerpts are taken, by Harita Meenee, Carla Osborne, Nancy “Creations” www. goddess-power.com, Ken Gillman, “Twelve Gods and Seven Planets”, Dido Kalergi, “The twelve Olympian Gods”, Classical book on the archetypical meaning of Artemis and other Goddesses of Jean Shinoda Bolen, “Goddesses for Everywoman” and composed by Exsekias Trivoulides.
