Over this last weekend, my wife got a spur of the moment tattoo - her first - and it was of the Venus symbol. Inspired by this, and having wanted for quite a while to get a statue of Aphrodite, I called my local occult bookstore to ask if they had any in. Sure enough, they had one. I went down to the shop, purchased the statue, and returned home. I went to the place in my house where the statue was to reside, and prepared to do a ritual. However, as I was taking the statue out of its styrofoam packaging, it seemingly flew out of my hands, landing across the room, shattering the statue. I quickly thought back to when I purchased the statue, and remembered that my initial, automatic reaction was, "Well, it's not my favorite, but it'll do". It became immediately obvious that Aphrodite, in her vanity, had been offended by this; ergo, the statue was not acceptable. I did a ritual anyway, apologizing and vowing to her that I would find another, more suitable statue for her.
Luckily she and I seem to still be on good terms, so it definitely could have been worse, but the bottom line is: Don't insult Aphrodite!
