Hetaira
Hetaira expresses a woman's freedom from conventional norms. She is youth, desire, daring, inspiration. Hetaira calls forth skills and talents—her own and those of her friends and admirers. Personal value is paramount. Her image is derived from the Greek patriarchal perspective in that despite being unmarried and unable to vote she possessed the right to own property where she could entertain her visitors and create elite circles. As the female companion and the spirit of self-willed pleasure-seeking, her skill in partnering defies limits. Success in competition does not interest her as much as frequent opportunity to explore new options. Hetaira is unfettered by having to support and maintain home life or group stability, or to advance causes to an institutional status—unless these offer her the promise of an exhilarating partnership. Her playfulness can result in creative discoveries, new trends, freedom from the past. She is fascinated by what is unique, perhaps in banter, perhaps in learning a craft, perhaps in the sexual excitement of a new lover. She awakens others to uninhibited adventure or to new depths of courage and risk. She is identified with the erotic energy in all life forms and is the form closest to the genius of the Trickster figures. Although humor can be an aspect of each form, it is especially characteristic of Hetaira's perspective on life.
In her disregard for the inevitability of collective norms, Hetaira can be trapped in a marginalized role as a Love Goddess acting out the projections of a repressive social group or of individuals who feel anonymous and in need of a goddess. Hetaira does not fear the consequences for family or institutional life should customs restrict her or demand conformity. For her, relationship engenders near divinity and risk and action alone affirm what is real. She can fail to perceive the real otherness of her lovers. The lightness of her quick presence can mean that her relationships are of short duration. Whether she is or is not a parent, she can fail to function as one when life demands it, remaining an equal and friend to those in her care. She can also fail to provide financial stability for herself. Unlike Mother who personifies the creative and preserving side of the Goddess Kali, Hetaira, while fully immersed in creative activity, frequently mirrors the Kali who destroys in order to awaken.
To experience Guinevere, Cleopatra, Beatrice, Tokyo Rose, Tina Turner, the Roller Derby Queens, Isadora Duncan, Yoko Ono, Goldie Hawn, the Duchess of Windsor, Helen of Troy, Edith Piaf, is to recognize that the Hetaira can be constrained by the social imagination to live out a fate which risks dying alone in her reckless departure from custom, imprisoned in her search for freedom. This off site link has a version of Gravity's Angel by Laurie Anderson.
