Aphrodite, Ares, and Why We Often Fall for our Opposites

I recently read the love story of Aphrodite and Ares: the goddess of love and the god of war. They are warned by Olympus their opposing natures will bring nothing but agony, that temperaments must match within a lasting union (not to mention she was forced to marry Haphaestus).

But the goddess of love bows before no one but her heart.

At first, Ares cannot stand Aphrodite. His whole life is death and brutality. Her romanticism and softness is alluring but delusional to him. And for Aphrodite, a garden cannot grow from soil soaked in blood.

And yet, we are drawn to people who embody the parts of ourselves we’ve forgotten. Together, they were a fault line. Two plates pressing against each other, neither yielding to the other, but the pressure between them could crumble mountains. Or Olympus.

After a passionate affair with Ares that ends in public shame, they cannot stand to be near the other. Centuries of distance pass. She returns to her temples and gardens, and he returns to battlefields. But they left a mark on each other that grows like a wild seed.

When the Trojan war breaks out, Aphrodite fights on the front line to defend her son. The goddess of love and beauty, who has never known battle, picks up a sword and starts swinging. She’s not particularly skilled at war, but she finally understands the man whose life is built on it.

His absence forces her to develop a strength, and the ghost of her memory slowly softens his edges. He finally recognizes beauty is not an accessory, but what brings him alive.

This is Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, another version of Aphrodite and Ares. She watches over him, protecting him. He sleeps peacefully, able to rest for the first time in his immortal life, entirely disarmed by love.

They have a daughter together. And you know what her name is?

Harmonia. And it makes me wonder, if Love and War coming together gave birth to Harmony, because they integrated their opposing natures. She finds her strength, and he yields to softness. The tension between them is no longer destructive, but transformational.