When people think of the inner planet Venus, they think of love. In a more fundamental sense, Venus symbolizes the principle of relating. While love is very much Venus’s domain, relating also extends to friendships, and in fact, to any connection that arises out of the human need to give and receive love and affection.
Traditionally, this capacity to give and receive love has been tied to women and femininity, and as far as gender roles and cultural mores go, this is very much true in modern times as well.
However, Venus figures in men’s horoscopes also! Which means the feminine principle resides in the male psyche as well. Typically, a man would express this principle in friendships, in how he relates with other men or women in a non-romantic capacity.
In matters of romance, the Venus or feminine principle in a man often finds expression in the kind of woman he sees as the ideal mate.
The feminine aspect of relating that is more specifically lived out by women extends to beauty, glamor, and eroticism. So Venus is associated with cosmetics, beauty products, erotica, and more generally the pursuit of all manner of enhancements that make women feel desirable.
The other aspect of beauty is found in aesthetics in any form, and particularly in the performance or appreciation of the arts such as design, photography, sculpting, painting, music, dancing. Art is the medium through which the artist gets in touch with their own heart, and touches others’ hearts as well, which is the very essence of relating.
The pursuit of pleasure is also very much a Venus activity. It is about treating yourself, which really is about feeling good. As with art, it is about relating to yourself, about reaching in to your own heart with love. It’s hedonism in the positive sense.
And lastly, Venus is about value: what we value in ourselves, what we value in others, even what we value in things. When we talk about something being valuable, we are expressing a Venus sentiment–we are saying that it has a place in our heart.
Keywords: Love, Relationship, Friendship, Affection, Femininity, Romance, Beauty, Glamor, Fashion, Eroticism, Cosmetics, Beauty Products, Desirability, Aesthetics, Arts, Music, Painting, Dancing, Pleasure, Hedonism, Value
