Venus - The quintessence of life
Venus is usually associated with love, beauty and values.
I suggest we revisit this usual view of the shepherd star by starting with a quote borrowed from Dane Rudhyar: “Venus represents a process of refinement, of extracting the subtle from the gross, the spiritual from the material, in its myriad aspects and modes of operation, at all levels, from the lowest to the most divine.”. I will also refer to my personal experience to illustrate some points.
Venus is the ruler of Taurus and Libra. In Taurus, Venus represents the value we give to ourselves. It is interesting to see that after the impulse triggered in Aries, we realize in Taurus if we are able to maintain the spark that has been lit. Do we give ourselves enough value to keep the nascent flame inside us, by providing it with the necessary fuel? In Libra, we turn our attention to others, we can realize that the other is different from us but we are able to appreciate him as he is.
The Moon is exalted in Taurus and Saturn is exalted in Libra. The Moon and Saturn being associated with form, their exaltation reminds us of the deep function of Venus which is to sublimate external or internal forms by extracting the quintessence that resides in their heart.
In Greek mythology, it is Kronos who castrates his father Uranus and throws his genitals into the sea. The blood and sperm caused an accumulation of foam that floated on the sea as far as the island of Cyprus. From this foam, Venus-Aphrodite emerged in the middle of the ocean when Uranus was separated from Gaia and became the sky. We could say that Venus represents the divinity accessible to human beings through beauty. With Venus, we can recognize the divine origin of Creation, perfection in imperfection. Venus invites us to see beauty in all things and to value the world as it is.
The glyph of Venus is a circle above a cross. The circle representing perfection and the cross the incarnation, we can therefore see in this symbol the image of perfection on earth. Everything that exists on earth has a divine origin, waiting to be revealed through its beauty, hidden or not. This gaze leads us to accept the world as it is, however imperfect it may seem.
Accepting reality as it is, isn’t that a definition of love? And love begins with loving ourselves in Taurus. In Libra, we become able to see others as they are and love them.
So why is love often so complicated? Because it has been hurt. Most of the time, we have not been seen for who we are and we have developed strategies to feel loved, even if the price to pay was to develop a false self.
In my birth chart (Born in Carhaix, France, June 19, 1958 at 4:30 am), Venus is in the 12th house in Taurus square Chiron in the 10th house in Aquarius. This aspect literally speaks of wounded love. Chiron in Aquarius symbolizes the suffering linked to incarnation, which implies the loss of the perfection of the celestial domain from which we come. With Venus in Taurus we can perceive the divinity in matter, nature and the body, in their raw or refined forms. The square expresses the tension between the pure world of ideas and the apparent roughness of natural and human forms. The key with Venus in the 12th house is to detach oneself from external forms and to feel the beauty, the divinity behind the veil of appearances. As Allen Ginsberg wrote in his book Howl: “Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!”
Chiron in the 10th house in my birth chart indicates that the best contribution I can give to the world is to embrace the world and love it as it is, which means loving myself as I am instead of seeking refuge in an idealized space (Crystal Palace) as we did in Elias' group (the leader of the spiritual group I was part of).
But what does it mean to love ourselves? I have often been intrigued by this injunction to love ourselves, which is common in spiritual teachings. For me, it means loving the totality of yourself, that is to say every aspect of yourself. But it means that we need to know ourselves in order to love ourselves. How can we love a part of ourselves that we do not know, that we repress in the lower unconscious or even in the higher unconscious?
In Elias' group, we were sometimes pushed to rebel against what oppressed us. But I noticed that often, we did not succeed. I realized that this difficulty was linked to our sense of value which corresponds to the love we give to ourselves. When we suffer a situation, it is often because we consider it normal, we believe that it is what we deserve. But if we do not reestablish our sense of value, we will not be able to transform what we suffer.
In Psychosynthesis, the connection of the I to the Higher Self is the key to the transformation process. This connection shows us the way to actualize our potential. But it is important to feel that we deserve to become what we are, that we love ourselves enough to dare to take the path of the hero. The solarized mind must be connected to the inner heart in order to find the courage to overcome the barriers that appear on the path and to keep this light alive in us.
Venus is square Pluto in the 4th house in Virgo in my birth chart. This position indicates a need for introspection in order to explore my dark side and see clearly my emotional dependencies, which implies that I am aware of my psychological compulsions that determine my behavior. I could say that Venus invites me to accept what is most difficult to accept. I have often noticed that it is the imperfections of the other that make me love them more. I suppose it is difficult to love someone who is perfect. I can apply this to myself and feel that my weaknesses and flaws are what make me more human and therefore more lovable.
But to be able to embrace those parts of ourselves that we often push into the shadows, it is necessary to have the courage to face the hidden facets of our psyche. Without descending into the underworld, we can remain in a false paradise, holding onto our wound forever rather than going to meet it at its core. Donald Kalsched describes how people who have been traumatized prefer to keep their pain inside, because they know it and can manage it, rather than going back to its origin. The protector and the persecutor contribute to maintaining a situation in which the slow agony that is experienced can last forever, but this is often perceived preferable to feeling the intensity of the wound. After being wounded by Heracles' arrow, Chiron remained alone in his cave, screaming in pain. Being able to enter Chiron's cave is extremely difficult and is often only possible after a long process of inner work.
The last time I was in India with Elias’ group in 2020, I felt how my masculine energy had been crushed in the relationship I had with my mother and I felt the unbearable pain associated with this crushing. It was at that moment, during our last dinner in Pune, that Elias said to us, pointing to the luxurious restaurant of the five-star hotel we were in: “I have heard some of us talking about suffering, but is there suffering here?”. In saying this, he was dismissing my experience, but I now realize that I had probably visited Chiron’s cave at that time and that it was a key experience in releasing Elias’ hold on me.
When I left Elias' group on July 4, 2022 at 10:10 AM (Paris, France), the North Node of the Moon was transiting Venus in my birth chart. I had, by that time, gained enough confidence in my self-worth to stand up for what I feel and believe in. As in my birth chart the North node is in Libra, whose ruler is Venus, the evolutionary impulse symbolized by the North Node opened the way to a new life. With transiting Pluto forming a T-square to the Moon's nodes at birth, the process of liberation had become inevitable.
When Venus-Aphrodite emerged from the foam of the sea, the myth says that she wore a pearl necklace around her neck. These pearls symbolize the search for quintessence from the raw material of which the earth is made, through beauty, love and the recognition of the divine value present in all things. This search involves recognizing our own value, which allows us to perceive the value of everything around us, in a reflection of our common essence and the divinity present at the very heart of life.
Pierre Mevel
