love, took the god of war as her lover. Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love and sexuality, was also very warlike. This association reveals a psychological truth that is that the attractiveness of female beauty is often connected with, but does not cause, conflict between men. This is also true in much of the animal world where there is conflict between male animals over sexual access to females. [Beauty, Sex, and War]The Aztecs were great lovers of poetry, flowers, and chocolate which was a favorite drink of the Aztec nobility. It was made by drying cacao beans, roasting them over a fire, pounding them to a paste and mixing them with water. Other spices including chili, pimento and vanilla were often added to it. It was thought to have both medicinal properties and to be an aphrodisiac. There was a famous gathering of Aztec wise men and poets about 1490 when they met to discuss the true meaning of poetry. It took place at the house of lord Tecayehuatzin, prince of Huexotzinco. The poets and wise men lay on mats and were served tobacco and foaming mugs of chocolate by servants while they discussed the true meaning of flowers-and-song which is what the Aztecs called poetry. One Aztec metaphor for blood can be translated as 'flower'. Dead warriors spilled their blood to feed the gods and became eagle men who flew into the sun Xipe Totec, the god of spring. Spring was greeted by sacrificing impersonators of Xipe Totec. These sacrificial victims would be skinned and the skin then worn by the worshippers. This apparently repeated the cycle of the husk of corn about to ripen and the earth being renewed with vegetation. Through what we call their myths it is possible to see how these people tried to deal with their ambivalent feelings about both the beauty and bounty of their environment and its potential to wreak havoc and cause trauma. We find their practice of human sacrifice quite horrific yet it is quite possible to see how these myths ...
