Loving Ourselves by Embracing Venus
The planet/archetype Venus in our birth chart symbolically describes our relationships — the desire to connect, to relate, to express and receive love and affection. It is also going to show what we find beautiful, what we value and what gives us pleasure. No two of us are exactly alike so a big part of being true to ourselves is to be able to love and value who we really are. Our values are not just what we find in the outer world in aesthetics, nature and pleasurable objects, but also what we can find in our inner world, what motivates us to become who we came here to be.
The planet Venus also acts as an ambassador for the Sun (the solar urge in us) which describes our desire is to affirm our identity and creatively express ourselves as a unique and separate individual. The sign our Venus is in, the placement by house and aspects to other planets will show what those needs are inherent from birth. When we express our desires of what pleases us and define our own values, we are expressing our individuality. As I said last month, our birth chart is who we are as well as who we are becoming which can take a lifetime to develop.
We may say to ourselves, “I value who I am,” but there are times in everyone’s lives that we do not. Suppressing or denying our Venus function is indicative of placing too much emphasis on society’s approval and conformity at our expense. Some can be afraid to be alone or in any way separate so refuse to say what they need and feel which eventually can have some very severe consequences. Those severe consequences may not show up right away, but our discomfort and unease will grind away at us internally every time we keep silent to get along. This can eventually take the form of dis-ease as our unconscious has had no other way to get us to be real and true to who we really are.
We can also be afraid to appear selfish, rock the boat or take a stand that would risk disapproval, so it is much easier to be what everyone else wants from us or expects us to be.
Probably the biggest hurdle we will ever get past in this life is to finally grow up and cut the umbilical cord from our parental imagos. We may be physically separate from them; they can even have already left the planet and yet we can still be allowing their influence through our partners since most of us marry aspects of our parents although none of us would willingly admit this to ourselves. We can even unconsciously reenact their marriage in an attempt to heal the mother and father complexes still driving us from below the threshold of our conscious awareness.
When we are afraid of loss, we stop being authentic and honest with our “beloved.” We begin to act. Then, we are surprised when we lose the initial desire and intimate connection to them we once felt because a conscious or what Carl Jung would call an individual relationship can exist only between two equals, two adults who are individuals.
In the infatuation stage, we will try to become who they wanted us to be and our partners can become the living embodiment of our unconscious dependency on our parents’ for care and approval. In accepting and contributing to this shadow dance, we become our own worst enemy.
Brugh Joy in the book, Avalanche, Heretical Reflections of the Dark and the Light says,
“My informal impression at this time is that in most, if not all, first marriages, both partners, at unconscious levels, have transferred the necessary incestuous bondings between the infant/child and the counter-gender parent to the marital partner. There may be other reasons for a relationship between two particular individuals, but if the initial aspects of the relationship included anything closely resembling falling in love,” the incestuous parent/child aspects are surely present.”
I’ve looked at many birth charts of couples and can see how their parents’ energy is present in their partners as the same energy is also present in themselves. Like does attract like and opposites attract as we all know. Most however do not know that the opposite resides in their unconscious. Without a withdrawal of this projective identification with our partners, the same story and primal wound in our history will repeat.
In Ego and Archetype, Ed Edinger said that “Jesus recognized the danger of psychic infection with parents and family” by his contrary statements about not bringing peace but a sword to divide and he admonished us about leaving our mother and father.
Edinger says, “Such identifications must be dissolved because an awareness of radical separateness is a prerequisite for individuation.” The danish philosopher Kierkegaard who had the Sun conjunct Venus in Taurus said, “the most common form of despair is not being who we are but what’s worse is trying to be someone we are not.” He expressed that to be an individual, we had to have choice. Knowing ourselves, valuing what we choose to become gives us our own experience of God not replaceable by any particular doctrine, creed or partner. We cannot make Gods and Goddesses out of human beings.
The Venus part of us also says we have an inherent need for balance, cooperation and compromise. Are we willing to take turns with our partners? Do we meet each other halfway? Can we communicate with each other even when it is painful to do so? Or do we place them in the position of being the judge and authority over who we are being in the world? Are they our substitute parents that we are still tied up in knots about? To grow up we must be willing to meet each other as two adults. Astrologer and psychologist, Glenn Perry once said, “Fair means beauty but it also means equal.” This kind of balanced relationship is the inherent wisdom of embracing our Venus and the goal of knowing and sharing our 7th house archetypal energies in our relationships.
The Age of Pisces which was a time of sacrificing and suffering is over. In the Age of Aquarius, we are developing a new paradigm by learning to be each other’s best friend. Best friends tell each other the truth. Best friends can argue and fight and kiss and make up. They can accept each others differences and give each other the freedom to be without denigrating the others values or preferences. In this way their Venus function is a healthy expression of who each person is and offers the opportunity to both partners to form their own relationship with the divine within. This is the sacred task of our lifetime.
