Symbols - What does heaven look like
Eros
The Greeks and Romans recognised three aspects of love and personified them as
- Venus/Aphrodite – feminine aspects of love
- Cupid/Erotes – masculine aspects of love
- Eros – divine love
In terms of direct spiritual input, therefore, as opposed to the love we give, Eros is the most important personification.

Eros personifies the function of Divine Love. Aphrodite and Cupid represent the functions of love that we possess ourselves.
The Greek god Eros and the Roman Cupid are not describing the same aspect of love. Eros according to Hesiod is the love that was the basis of the creation of the universe and as such was one of the first gods to be created, or to quote from Wikipedia “he is a primeval deity who embodies … the creative urge of ever-flowing nature, the firstborn Light for the coming into being and ordering of all things in the cosmos”. Only later was the god debased to match Roman myth
Observations
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- Abravanel, Judah Leon - Dialoghi d’amori
- Anacreon - Eros
- Auden, W H - Refugee Blues
- Auden, W H - September 1st, 1939
- Bouguereau - Cupid
- Bouguereau - Cupid and Psyche
- Bouguereau - Le Guepier
- Bouguereau - The Youth of Bacchus
- Bouguereau - Whisperings of Love
- Bruno, Giordano – Cause, principle and unity - De l'amore
- Burne-Jones, Edward - The Baleful Head
- Canova - Eros and Psyche
- Caravaggio - Amor victorious
- Chagall - midsummers night dream
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - Reason for Love's Blindness
- Crowley - 06 The Lovers
- Custance, John - Wisdom, Madness and Folly - On the depressive phase
- Desnos, Robert - ô douleurs de l'amour !
- Dionysos - Villa of Mysteries Pompei - Eros
- Diotima – 01 Eros and his nature
- Diotima – 02 Eros and his role
- Diotima – 03 Eros and an allegory of his birth
- Diotima – 04 Eros and the Lovers of Wisdom
- Diotima – 05 Eros, Divine love and mortal love
- Diotima – 06 Eros and birth in beauty
- Diotima – 08 Eros, and the desire for immortality
- Diotima – 10 Eros and the vast sea of beauty
- Diotima – 11 Eros, to become the friend of God and be immortal
- Dürer, Albrecht - Symbolism - Melencolia
- Harunobu - Shunga
- Hesiod - Theogony - 02 Order of creation
- Hesiod - Theogony - 03 Order of creation
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Blindfold
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Boat to the Isle of Venus
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Dismembered by swords
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Dismemberment in the woods
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Hierophant
- Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - Thorny Forest
- Ibn El-Arabi - The Tarjuman al-Ashwaq - O doves that haunt the arák and bán trees
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1772
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 74
- Mellery, Xavier - Immortality
- Michelangelo - 1532 Victory
- Moreau - Inspiration 1893
- Mutus Liber 01 Cover
- Parmenides - On Nature - 12 to 19
- Poussin - The Triumph of Neptune and birth of Venus
- Rider-Waite - 06 The Lovers
- Rops - Felicien - L'Amour Mouche
- Rosary of the Philosophers - 09 The Rejoicing
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Beata Beatrix
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - Portraits of Alexa Wilding 3
- Schwabe, Carlos - Hope raising up Wounded Love
- Schwabe, Carlos - The Virgin of the Lilies 1899
- Segantini - Love at the Fountain of Life
- Shaivism - Concepts and symbols - The Dance
- Spencer, Stanley - Symbolism 05 - The Nativity
- The Means of achieving spiritual experience - Shaivism – 01 Sexual techniques - The experience of absolute Light attained through maithuna
- The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine - Key 05
- Von Stuck, Franz - 1887 Amor imperator
- Von Stuck, Franz - Cupid at the Masked Ball
- Wirth, Oswald – 06 The Lovers
- Yeats, W B - Collected poems - What if I bade you leave the cavern of the mind
- Zhang Guolao - Secrets of Embryonic Breathing