The Whispered Flame
Aphrodite’s Gift of Love, Fire, and Transformation
Poetry is a language of Aletheia, revealing truth from the liminal space where the divine meets the mortal. Alongside music and art, poetry transcends metaphysics and calculative thought, becoming a final frontier for what lies beyond.
Through myth, we communicate "beyond the gods," navigating the liminal to glimpse the heavens. This poetic and mythological lens moves us beyond Husserl’s phenomenology of consciousness toward Heidegger’s heralding of Being.
Mythic poetry seeks to transcend the confines of subjective and objective thought. It stands before Being, open to grace and the gifts it bestows. By drawing allegories of “the gods,” from their universal archetypes, I aim to reframe them, seeking the liminal, where the light of “God” may be revealed.
My spiritual journey unfolded three understandings of Being in the world. The first was divine love with redeemed Aphrodite as the embodied allegory. The second was divine wisdom, guidance, and intellect with redeemed Athena as the embodied allegory. The third was Divine Order with Hera as the embodied allegory of royalty and majesty. My mythic poetry emerges from a Catholic mind interpreting Being as God has revealed it to me through stories and myths.
The Whispered Flame (Aphrodite's Gift)
Through rosy dawn, fair Aphrodite called
From hiding, loving whispers through the cold
Appearing, grasping hearts in burning flames
She smiled and handed them to me to hold
Two hearts, each flame entwined and curling ‘round
In softness forming signs that none can chart
The flames were love and danced - the two as one
Then Aphrodite pressed them to my heart
They burst beneath the gaze of love divine
The flaming hearts dissolved the cold and tears
A single flame now brought me warmth throughout
As Aphrodite, smiling, disappeared
In silence I still hear her glittering voice
She stokes the flame by speaking - never heard
When rosy colors can be seen at dawn
The flaming hearts can sense her presence stirred
©Walter Emerson AdamsEnjoy this video presentation of The Whispered Flame (Aphrodite’s Gift) . Lyrics by Walter Emerson Adams. Music and vocals by Suno. ©Walter Emerson Adams.
My mythic poetry seeks to restore the pre-Socratic, Hellenistic view of philosophy as a “love of wisdom,” contrasting it with the post-Aristotelian “pursuit of wisdom.” It reframes the gods and goddesses of early Hellenistic thought as harbingers of Being, foreshadowing later Christian thinking. Aphrodite “shining by a borrowed light” (Heidegger) embodies the unconcealment of divine love and beauty. The silent Being of alethic grace.