Aphrodite at My Window: How the Goddess Has Walked With Me Since I Was Eight

Some people meet their guides in sacred ceremonies, through rituals, or in dreams. I met mine at eight years old on a sun-drenched day in Cyprus, standing at the Baths of Aphrodite. The air shimmered with heat, the rocks warm under my hands. I didn’t know then what a Goddess was supposed to feel like — but something in me recognized her. Like a whisper through time. Like she’d been waiting. I wasn’t a particularly spiritual child. More curious than reverent. But something about that moment lodged in me, sticky with magic and memory. I didn’t walk away converted — but I walked away marked. And she never really left.

For many years, she stayed in the background — a soft hum behind the noise of growing up, careers, identity shifts, and the wild dance of becoming. She was there in my love of beauty, in my small rebellions against burnout culture, in the quiet ways I learned to take up space in a world that asked me to be less.

But this year, something changed.

Suddenly, she was loud again. Not with drama, but with presence. With synchronicity. With that sacred nudge you feel in your bones before your mind catches up. I felt her more tangibly — in my body, in my rituals, in the mirror. And funnily enough, I didn’t know then that I’d be returning to Cyprus this year. That I’d be going back to the very place I first met her. It’s as if she did.

Now, decades later, I live in a city. A modern life. A“decent job” (whatever that means). Bills. A calendar that rarely stops spinning. And yet, Aphrodite is still here — perched in the poetry of my mornings, stitched into the seams of my everyday rituals. Every time I sit down on my mat to breathe, to move, to drop into myself through yoga or pranayama, I hear her — not in words, but in wings. The cooing of doves outside my window, right on cue. In this urban jungle of glass and steel, Aphrodite arrives as a soft rhythm of feathers and air. It's wild and oddly perfect. Because her energy — love, sensuality, beauty, power — isn't just ancient. It's everyday. She doesn’t just live in myth. She lives in us. In me.

Some people think of Aphrodite as just the Goddess of Love, but I know her as so much more. She's the unapologetic embodiment of divine feminine power. The fierce sensuality that refuses to be shamed. The softness that doesn’t equal weakness. The beauty that blooms from within, raw and real and fully claimed. She reminds me to honour my body, not punish it. To move in ways that feel good, not just productive. She’s there when I put on lipstick before a Zoom call even if no one will notice — because I notice. She's there when I choose rest over hustle. When I say no without guilt. When I flirt with life itself, even on a Monday (or at least I try my best).

The world teaches women to shrink, to please, to serve. Aphrodite teaches us to expand. To receive. To reclaim pleasure as sacred. And that’s what The Urban Mystic is all about — weaving ancient wisdom into the city grind. Making space for magic between emails and errands. Because the divine isn’t far away. She’s here, in our breath, our bodies, our choices. Sometimes, even in the wings of doves outside a city apartment window.