Venus-Chiron in the Eighth, or naked on love's threshing floor

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh,

but not all of your laughter,

and weep, but not all of your tears.

~ From The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

The position of Venus in the natal chart, together with the aspects it makes to other celestial bodies, offer a snapshot of the native's relationship patterns, as well as insight into their self-love and self-worth.

Or lack thereof.

As Saturn prepares to move into Libra again later this month, relationships and how we tackle them are once more to be highlighted.

If we have been less than able to maintain healthy one-on-one boundaries in the past, or placed unrealistic expectations on significant others, if our personal ties have been power struggles, breeding grounds for resentment or generally a vale of tears, this transit of Saturn, which will last till October 2012, is a window of opportunity to revisit, shed or refine such patterns.

No less for myself, as I continue to be single, and weigh up the cost of ever being partnered again.

With my natal Sun in the Seventh House of partnerships, ties to a significant other are always of major importance. But I must confess that, a year on from my last break-up, there are definite benefits to being solo.

For one thing, there's a welcome lack of having to compromise on important personal interests and activities which the other may have little time (or respect) for. A blissful ease in not having to expend effort and take on the stress of defending positions - intellectual, spiritual or ideological - which clash with the 'beloved's' own.

Plus you never have to worry about your future in-laws, or feel bad that your sleeping patterns are a less-than-perfect match to your partner's. Or that they earn more/less than you do.

However.

As someone whose natal Venus is conjunct Chiron in the Eighth House, despite the pain (Chiron) associated with relationships, and the feeling always of having to earn, or be 'good enough' for love (Venus square Saturn) or the constant anxiety of being annihilated by the beloved's possible rejection (Venus-Chiron opposite Pluto), there is a certain raw quality of longing, that I wouldn't exchange for any amount of suffering.

Yes, in my case, there is an exaggerated romanticism involved (read about the mixed blessing of Venus trine Neptune here), but the transforming depths (Eighth House) of the longing to merge with the beloved, that passionate yearning for total union, the unrelenting need for love, albeit one that brings with it profound wounding (Chiron) - which ultimately brings the cool relief of wisdom - well... it's a dynamic that is ultimately very precious to me.

No one can pine for that union of souls or nurture a divine discontent like a Pisces Sun. Especially one whose Venus-Chiron lie in the mysterious Eighth.




A modified version of the image above was originally taken from this site.

Valediction Forbidding Mourning

"Fare you well, people of Orphalese. This day has ended. It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow. What was given us here we shall keep, and if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands out to the giver. Forget not that I shall come back to you. A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me. Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you will sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.

"So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward. And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose into the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting. Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist. And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying: 'A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.'"

From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran