Prologue

"WHAT'S that you're humming?"

The tantalizing tune floats my way on a balmy, Aegean breeze, while lively waves are whipped into whitecaps below.

"Just a little song," Spiros tells me.

He has finished his meal at the seaside taverna, while I continue to eat: fresh, tangy feta; chewy, grilled octopus; and some meaty Kalamatas. We sip anise-flavored, iced ouzo--quintessential Greek concoction that sharpens the appetite, sweetens the mind.

"Which one?"

"I don't know yet; it just started to come to me."

Spiros raises his glass and clinks it gently against mine. Then he feeds me an olive, picks up my hand and kisses my fingertips.

"I'll call the song ‘Kathleen'," he says. "It will be about the amazing woman who found me." He kisses me again, this time on my chapped lips, my mouth still full of olive.

Now, years later, the song is my musical reminder of love at first sight—erotas me tin proti matia--a phenomenon that, though widely acknowledged, I'd never imagined could be true, until I went to Greece and it happened to me!

The Greek myth Psyche and Eros is propelled by love at first sight and shows what happens once Aphrodite gets involved. The love goddess seriously tests the lovers' resolve, all the while providing valuable lessons in how to progress from purely primal attraction to a complex, committed love.

Psyche's life changes when she first lays eyes on the sleeping Eros, and instantly falls in love; at that same moment, she accidentally burns the god, who awakens in pain, sees that Psyche has disobeyed his directive to never look upon his face, and flees, leaving Psyche suicidal. Psyche's transformation continues when she's informed by Aphrodite that, if she ever wants to see Eros again, she must complete four virtually impossible tasks: To separate, by nightfall, a great heap of the very tiniest seeds—poppy, millet, barley and such—and sort them all out neatly. To collect some fleece from the ferocious golden rams—a risky endeavor indeed—and bring back the glittery wool to Aphrodite. To fill a flask with water from the deadly river Styx, an evil place guarded by dragons and surrounded by slimy slopes. The fourth and final task the love goddess imposes on Psyche: To take a box, travel to the underworld--without becoming distracted by anything whatsoever she encounters along the way, otherwise, she'll be trapped in Hades forever--whereupon Psyche must ask Persephone to fill the box with her beauty secret, so she can return the mystery contents to Aphrodite.

While the actual tasks are revealing, the solutions illuminate the meaning of the myth. Because no other god or goddess dares to defy Aphrodite, Psyche learns that none are willing to come to her aid. But Psyche takes Pan's advice to engage in prayer and tender submissions to free herself from the bind she's in—and the universe responds. Tiny ants organize their six-legged legions into an industrious operation of nonstop activity until every seed is in place. Elegant river reeds inform Psyche how to get her hands on the rams' golden fleece—when the beasts come to drink, strands of their shiny fluff catch on nearby bushes, from where it'll be easy for Psyche to gather. A mighty eagle flies to the foul Styx to scoop its water into a bucket that he carries in his beak, back to Psyche. Eros himself comes to Psyche's aid after she presumably screws up and peeks at the beauty secret inside the box, a violation that places her into a deep-trance sleep, one the love god, of course, is able to undo.

Each task/solution characterizes a particular item on love's transformative agenda. Seed-sorting ants demonstrate the essential role decision-making plays in the cultivation of love; the evaluation, organization and communication of our thoughts are the foundations for love to flourish. Supple river reeds reveal the importance of flexibility to nurture love's growth and avoid confrontation; rejecting direct encounter can allow things to come to you. The eagle—symbol of unconscious courage and wisdom—shows that love prospers best when we rely on instinctual powers, along with rational thought. Psyche's underworld trip puts her, for the first time, in direct contact with sacred female energy. Though she gives in to neither pity nor fear, Psyche's seeming failure is what reveals her vulnerability, which serves as the catalyst for Eros to join her. By then the love god has been so moved by Psyche--her perseverance, patience and steadfast belief in the power of love, despite daunting obstacles--he makes a formal request on Olympus that he be allowed to wed her. This unprecedented marriage, between god and mortal, is the divine union of Eros and Psyche--love and soul. The heavenly wedding is followed by the birth of their child, Voluptas—pleasure, bliss and joy.

Similar to Psyche, who is made to steer through the straits and shoals of her love-tossed ventures, I must chart a course on my own sea of love, replete with obstacles and dilemmas mostly related to falling for a man in a foreign land. Because even though love transcends borders, governments don't give a damn. Before I know it I get plunged into a cultural immersion that completely changes life as I'd known it. Getting involved with a foreigner has always been challenging in the US--even before 9/11. To top things off, my man turns out to be a blues-rocker, who plays electric guitar! Dear reader, it doesn't get much more complicated than this. In terms of compatibility: A writer in search of some silent solitude is to a musician who's quite keen to kick out the jams, what a recluse spider is to a lightning bug—like night and day, antithetical to their cores!

While Aphrodite's tough treatment is partly to punish Psyche for burning her son, Eros, the goddess is more intent upon teaching the clueless lass the complicated lessons of love. The increasingly difficult—and dangerous—tasks Aphrodite imposes on Psyche are designed to prepare her for the challenges required for an exceedingly evolved, high-stakes love. Each solution that presents itself to Psyche helps further develop her emotional intelligence—she starts as a naïve, uncertain girl and becomes a wiser, more self-resourceful woman, who gains knowledge about the mysterious ways of love. She learns that love's bonds can be either strengthened or strained by the challenges us mortals are subjected to when we explore love's wilder terrains.

Sappho, lyric poet supreme and musical genius, is also a guide throughout my story. Fragments where she celebrates love and all its' glories, punctuate my prose. "Eros shook my/mind like a mountain wind falling on oak trees." Sappho's way with words serves as inspiration. Her brilliance lies in the ways she conveys those most-difficult-to-describe states of mind inhabited by all souls who enter the realm of love. "Eros the melter of limbs (now again) stirs me--/sweetbitter unmanageable creature who steals in." How fitting that Sappho played the lyre, precursor of the guitar. May her musicality accompany my story.

Had I studied more astutely the Psyche and Eros myth, perhaps I'd have better understood love's power to irrevocably change my life. Falling in love is like a one-two punch: Eros's arrow strikes,  delivering the initial blow, but it's Aphrodite's follow-up that really floors me. Events unfold following my first eyeful--to which I so deeply succumb—and, as in Psyche's situation, I learn, when I fall hard for my Greek guy, that Aphrodite runs the show; it's out of our hands.

As I set off for Greece I consider myself a worldly-wise kind of gal. But once I get to Hellas, Aphrodite sets me straight. She forces me to rethink everything I thought I knew about love. Like Psyche, I must fulfill a series of impossible, terrible tasks imposed upon me by the irresistible, irrepressible, indomitable goddess, Aphrodite, who shows me, "Love's goal is not know thyself, but reveal thyself."

© Copyright 2009 by Kathleen Cromwell. All rights reserved.