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The Esoteric Graces
Giving, accepting, returning – the circle must not be broken
Giving, accepting, returning – the circle must not be brokenPERHAPS NO OTHER group from antiquity has so persistently engaged the allegorical imagination, or served so well to conceal and preserve, as in an innocuous vessel, some perilous alchemy of the mind.’1
Traditionally nature goddesses in harmony with the cults of the Great Mother, the Graces expressed the beauty and fecundity of the natural world on which people depended for survival.2 Originally clothed, and only sculpted nude in the Roman Republic from the fourth century BC, there have been many representations and interpretations since antiquity.3 Different meanings evolved and attached themselves to the attractive group. A treatise on liberali
