Cupid
Monday is the annual day of love-Valentine's Day. For those in love it is a fun way to celebrate, and for the cynics it is an opportunity to shamelessly have a pity party. Regardless of your beliefs, love is our birth-right and we all deserve to give and receive love. I have always been captivated by Cupid. I find him to be so charming, and his bow and arrow are quite ironic, yet also very appropriate. My broken heart often feels as though an arrow was shot through it!
Cupid is the mythological love child of Venus (Aphrodite) and Mars (Ares). Often depicted as a slender, winged child, Cupid is the god of desire, erotic love, affection, and passion. His bow and arrow stand for his power, and when a person succumbs to a wound from his arrow, he or she is overwrought with uncontrollable desire or an uncontrollable urge to flee.
This depends on the type of arrow Cupid decides to use. A golden arrow is uncontrollable desire, and a lead arrow is the uncontrollable urge to flee. This is demonstrated in the ill-fated love story of Apollo and Daphne. Apollo insults Cupid’s archery style, and Cupid was not amused. Since he is a teenaged, winged being, he impulsively retaliated by shooting Apollo with a golden arrow and Apollo’s love Daphne with a lead arrow. Daphne was so turned off by Apollo that she prayed that her father would turn her into a Laurel tree. Her prayers were answered. Talk about love being a Dog from Hell.
Cupid is also the inspiration of the “Love conquerors all” movement. Wounds heal and make us stronger, and during the journey of healing, we all learn to love better. We learn our own worth and value, and once we love ourselves, we purely love all the wonderful people in our lives fully and unconditionally.
The legend of Cupid is a profound example of the various stages of love, and that it is not always sunshine and rainbows. It can ache, and temporarily break us into pieces, but that leads to forcing us to open-up and create the exquisite life that we all deserve.
