The Five-Star Weekend Series and the Goddess Archetypes
The series The Five-Star Weekend recently aired, and as an adaptation of the bestselling novel I read and loved years ago, I was eager to watch it. I finished it in two days because the story beautifully captures something many women understand deeply: friendship, grief, reinvention, and the sacred power of gathering with other women.
The main character, Hollis, is navigating the death of someone close to her. Amid this grief, she decides to host a girls’ weekend at her home in Nantucket, inviting women from different chapters of her life—childhood, college, motherhood, and her more recent years.
As the five women come together, each one reveals a different expression of the feminine psyche. Through an archetypal lens, we can see how each character embodies a goddess energy. Archetypes are timeless patterns that transcend culture, time, and place. They show us the many ways women love, protect, create, transform, lead, grieve, and begin again.
Tatum, Hollis’s childhood friend, embodies loyalty, devotion, and the sacred complexity of long-term partnership. Married for many years, she speaks honestly about how difficult marriage can be, while also honoring its sacredness. She reflects the archetype of Hera in Greek mythology, or Juno in Roman mythology—the goddess connected to commitment, partnership, and the vows that shape a woman’s life. Tatum is also approaching a descent, a transformational threshold, as she awaits medical test results that may change how she sees herself and her future.
Dru-Ann, Hollis’s college friend, carries the energy of Athena. She is career-focused, assertive, strategic, and determined to make a name for herself in the corporate world. She represents the woman who has learned to lead, compete, think clearly, and move through the world with ambition and intelligence.
By the end of the story, Dru-Ann begins to recognize how much of her life has been centered on work. Her perspective starts to shift, opening the door to a softer and more spacious understanding of success.
At one point, Dru-Ann tells the other women that she could not imagine being married to one man for so many years, especially after Tatum speaks about the sacredness of marriage. Tatum, in turn, carries resentment toward Dru-Ann because she has achieved a kind of material and professional success that Tatum has not pursued in the same way.
Here we see two different ways of honoring a woman’s path. One is not better, wiser, or more valuable than the other. There are no hierarchies in archetypes. Some women find fulfillment in one lifelong partnership, while others find fulfillment through independence, career, reinvention, or multiple chapters of love. Women are diverse, and when we gather with openness, we can celebrate our differences instead of measuring ourselves against one another.
Brooke, Hollis’s motherhood friend, reflects the archetype of Demeter in Greek mythology, or Ceres in Roman mythology. She is devoted to her children, her home, and her family role. Yet during the weekend, she begins to realize that she is being called beyond the identity of wife and mother. She longs for another facet of herself to emerge—one that feels alive, desired, and free. As she makes courageous decisions about her marriage and opens herself to love again, she begins to embody Persephone as well: the woman who descends, transforms, and returns with a new sense of self.
Gigi, Hollis’s middle-aged friend, can be seen through the archetype of Hekate, the goddess of thresholds, transformation, and wisdom. She represents maturity, self-discovery, and the power to adapt through life’s challenges. Over the course of the weekend, Gigi becomes a catalyst for change, helping the women see what is hidden, what is ending, and what is ready to be reborn.
Hollis also carries Demeter energy as she tends to her daughter, her friends, and the emotional needs of those around her. Yet after the death of someone close to her, she too enters a descent—a transformational phase that asks her to grieve, soften, and open to a new version of life. As she reconnects with an old high school boyfriend, she begins stepping into a new chapter of love, identity, and possibility.
The weekend at Hollis’s house becomes a sacred container for women to come together. They support one another, confront old wounds, explore their feminine identities, and witness each other’s resilience. Each woman carries more than one archetype, and each is capable of sending one energy into the background while bringing another forward. This is how layered and complex the feminine psyche truly is. We are not one thing. We are mothers, lovers, leaders, healers, seekers, friends, and women in constant becoming.
Some weekends with women—with friends, sisters, and soul companions—can become deeply transformational. I experienced something similar this past weekend in an intimate gathering with two women who held space for me. It became a safe container where emotions surfaced, fears were named, and mental blocks began to dissolve. With their encouragement, I was able to move through something difficult, clear my energy, and step into the next chapter of my life with greater courage.
I encourage women to watch this series through the lens of archetypal wisdom and to notice how these goddess energies live within all of us. I also encourage women to gather often—in circles, reunions, retreats, and sacred conversations—because many women are longing for support. Some live alone. Some do not have a partner. Some have few close friends or family members who truly understand them. And even when we do have support, one person can only hold so much. When women come together in circle, we nourish one another, remember ourselves, and create a powerful container for healing, change, and transformation.
I am currently offering a weekly series on Goddess Archetypes for women who want to understand these energies more deeply and come into sisterhood with others on the path of self-discovery, empowerment, and transformation.
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