I find Venus such an interesting planet, and goddess, and archetype; and it’s no wonder she’s been on my mind a lot. She often does that during periods when the planet is retrograde.
I love that as a planet she shifts from being an evening star to morning star approximately every two hundred sixty three days. It feels like such a magical blessing to me to know this regular star cycle transformation takes place.
And I love as a goddess/archetype Venus is about love and beauty. We tend to think about these things in terms of physical appearance, and that’s certainly an aspect; but I’d caution that Venus is not all outward fluff. The real deep encouragement is to take a look at what you value, and holding yourself sovereign, celebrate that. In yourself and others. When you are true to who you authentically are, broadcasting that beautiful soul energy signature that is yours and yours alone, you are totally aligned to beauty. Your own 100%-you version.
Venus encourages you to know yourself as worthy and treat yourself as such.
Yesterday I played in workshop hosted by Marcela Liliana Veron called Visioning with Venus. What fun! I’m in love with the vision board I created (which no doubt pleases Venus – she wants us to be in love with what we create.)
But aside from that, I’m thinking 2014 is the year to really ramp up the energy of love. Sometimes I entertain myself by imagining how different things might be if we all acted from love (and totally gave the boot to fear). What if it really were possible as I previously posited that we lived in a world where our currency was love letters? How wonderful would that be?
You know how delicious it is to be in love with your life; to look at a sunrise and be in love with the magnificence of it all; to watch the tenderness of two people holding each others hearts with care; to love waking up and know today could be filled with charming adventures and unexpected surprises of the most delightful variety.
But what if we took it even further? And really really really loved ourselves? In all our imperfections AND in all our glorious soul shining wonderfulness and expansive gloriousness? What if we knew we were whole and perfect, even if it sometimes seemed like we were flawed and foolish? How would that change the game? Doesn’t that feel like a wonderful experiment? Just how much can we love ourselves? All the way out to our edges, and then push that edge out even further. Now that sounds like something I want to play with and explore in 2014 (and hopefully in all the future years to come). Want to join me? Let’s be Venus Devotees, or better yet, Venus Votarients. I’m pretty sure we’ll need beautiful costumes and adornments.
Love ourselves all the way to the edges and then push that edge out even further… this is so freeing and gives me a feeling of expansiveness and peace. Thanks for your post!!!
You know, that’s really a good point Jean. When we love ourselves fully, we keep expanding ourselves to include into that wholeness all our parts, not just those we deem acceptable/perfect/loveable. So we are in fact freeing ourselves from holding ourself in limitation, and in doing so we can choose what’s really ours and what’s not. And that is expansive. I’m so glad you stopped by – thanks!
Hello Goddess of Love
Jean stole my favorite quote from your message but I love her despite that.
I am inspired by your question “Just how much can we love ourselves?” All too often I find self-love conditional. My journey work in the past year or so has been Extreme Self Care and Acceptance, and it does move me toward a less conditional self-love, step by step. I’ve had to question “What is healthy self-care?” It certainly isn’t what consumer culture wants me to think it is. It’s not what I was raised to believe, either. Just asking what healthy self-care means to me moves me forward and makes me aware.
It’s been said a million ways, “you can’t love anyone else until you love yourself.” Yes, every attempt I make to love another is half-hearted, until i can love myself wholeheartedly.
Love and Peace, terry lee
That’s so perfect Terry Lee – “extreme self-care and acceptance.” Now that should be an early and continued educational requirement for us all.
And I do believe it is totally key to love yourself first and fully, because in all the parts we’re not, we’ve abandoned our true self and said you can’t see that. I can only trust you to love the parts I choose to let you see, so let me live my life as though that big chunk of me isn’t there. I won’t acknowledge it and you can pretend it’s not there either. You can love the 45% of me, which isn’t really who I am.
Deborah,
Love definitely is the game changer…. Love the post ! Love Venus! Love to you !! <3
Love love love all the love!
I think it is Venus that is in the photo I have had framed in my bathroom for perhaps 20 years now. She looks ethereal. Peaceful. Like her inner peace radiates outward. It’s a reminder to me about that inner beauty you speak of.
I hope you’ll share your vision board with us!
Oh that’s perfect Naomi. Yes, that inner light radiating outward is such a delight to be witness to, isn’t it?
Well, if you’ve read my blog of late you will know that loving myself 100% is my resolution for 2014. One of the points I tried to get across in my recent post is we can’t love our neighbor in the way we need to, unless we can love ourselves first. We can only love fully when we come from a place within of wholeness. Big Love…Deborah!
What a beautiful intention for yourself for 2014 Belinda! How powerful, and I delight in thinking how much fun you can have with it.
Love that you’ve approached Venus in her complexity. She deserves to be honored for the fullness of herSelf. I’m going to show this post to my husband – he doesn’t quite believe me that Venus is both a morning and an evening star. lol
LOL – be sure to tell your husband Venus doesn’t like not being appreciated in all her full beauty – hence the morning and evening.
Loving yourself is one of the kindest things you can do for yourself. What a great resolution for the new year. The idea that you can’t love anyone else until you love yourself is so true…so more love to you ( and me ) !
Sonia
I think my goal is to be filled with so much love I burst. 😉 Love, love, love to you as well Sonia.