What Is Love?
“Vladislav, baby, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more,” is a gallows-humor song which popped up in my mind while I was thinking about the special topic I will elaborate on. It is referencing Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia, more famous as the real Dracula, quite appropriate for this text.
Of course I can have no definite answer on the question as deep and complex as love or life itself. Just at the moment when I think I have understood or realized even a tiny aspect of it, the meaning I thought I mastered slips through my fingers and I wind up being as confused as before (yah, I mean the Gen Z limbo of “ghosting”, “benching”, “dtr”, “breadcrumbing”, “orbiting”, “roaching”, or whatever new trends these freaks will invent in the meantime). So, I certainly won’t go into the meaning of love, more specifically, romantic love.
The Hungry-for-Love People
What I really want to discuss is a specific category of people – those hungry for love. The category I talk here about isn’t completely related to the different attachment styles, probably known to everyone through popular psychology. In psychological terms, apart from the lucky secure type people (who find other similar people to be with), all the rest seem to be suffering. Yes, even the avoidant, “self-sufficient” ones, they just prefer not to talk about it, shining under their armour of being cool.
I won’t go into talk about “soul contracts”, “twin flames”, “divine awakening”, or “soul mates”, either, or the artistic representations of all kinds of love and all kinds of experiences as seen through the lens of art, as these are just glimpses, not the final truth and reality.
I’ll try to dig between all of the aforementioned, but from the perspective of actual experience, both mine and of so many people, all of whom as different and unique not as fingerprints, but as the curious osmium’s surface. Human experience is far richer than any scientific mind can comprehend, systematize, and analyze.
Why Do Smart, Mature People Still Lose Themselves in Love?
So, from that standpoint, it is hard to comprehend why mature, smart, experienced people who have gone through so many disappointments, disillusionments, traumas, abuse, that is – who should have known better so far, still lose their head and allow themselves to be ridiculed, hurt, abused, and most importantly – to lose their dignity when it comes to love. Time and time again.
Dignity, that’s my core message here. Not inflated egos, illusions, mind-traps, and trauma bonding and entanglement, but simply sheer human decency. The one that comes from recognizing what you have been through, what you need, what is your potential (or actual) partner’s offer and your (or their) intention in accepting it.
I know it’s easy to talk about it when it’s not happening to you, when you don’t have that person who takes your breath (and dignity) away, but still. I want to reach that point, which has to be there, when you are still crazy in love, but you also have a brain which does its work, at least a little bit.
Such people often acquiesce to even abusive behaviour of others, they accede their own power all too easily. Now, we’ve got to the core of the problem – giving away your power.
Venus: The Archetype of Love and Self-Worth
Venus, primarily the planet of love, is a very special planet for its symbolism and mythology, and probably the most important archetype in the Age of Aquarius that we currently live in. Venus does not only symbolize romantic love, but the one that is more important – self-love, which is tightly connected to the self-worth.
To understand its happiest position, the sign of her exaltation, try to understand Pisces, the closing of the circle of consciousness, or, entering the divine realm, but also bear in mind that she is, after all, the daughter of sky, or Uranus (or Zeus, if you prefer Greek) – the king of eccentricity, freedom, and the present moment. She cannot feel good in mercurial Virgo, with its nitpicking tendencies. We can also never feel good about ourselves when we are constantly criticizing or demeaning ourselves, that is, allowing others to determine our value.
She needs transcendence, freedom, and authenticity, which is her (and yours) birth right, not something she has to fight for or beg to get. She feels best in the sign of compassion, acceptance, faith, dreams, spirituality, universal love, backed by authenticity and power of her celestial origin. She charms, but does not chase.
The other side of the medal of Neptune, the ruler of Pisces, is illusion, escapism, fantasy, sacrifice. That’s why love feels magical and we exclude rational thinking in the process. Her sacrificial nature is why we are drawn to giving our power away.
Self-Knowledge = Empowered Love
Not everyone has their Venus in its own sign or exalted, but learning about your own shadow side can help you integrate it back to wholeness, which will result in your empowerment, and thus, in your love relations improvement. Only when you feel secure in who you are and what you want, and don’t want, you will act from the place of power and things that you need will come to you.
Another thing we should bear in mind is that not every love is destined to last. Love connections that are truly deep and soul bonding are scarce. If you’re lucky, there will be 1 or 2, or 3 grand loves in your life. All the rest has got its expiry date. It’s a taste of life, if you wish. Shiny bubbles that burst into a memory of them.
The Numbers & Patterns of Venus
Speaking of numbers, number 6 is not the only number connected to Venus. Numbers 5 and 8 are also significant. These numbers are also consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence, equalling to the golden ratio of 1.6.
The cycle of Venus around the Sun is 225 day, and the cycle of Earth around the Sun is 365 days. When compared, they form a golden ratio:
225 : 365 = 1.62.
Furthermore, the cycle of Venus around the Sun is 584 days, and compared to the cycle of Earth around the Sun, we again get the golden ratio –
365 : 584 = 1.6.
Every 8 years, Venus goes her retrograde way 5 times. We also have 5 senses – taste, smell, sight, sound, and touch, and senses are ruled by Venus. The pattern of Venus’s motion in retrograde is a 5-petalled rose.
13 Venusian orbits are pretty close to 8 Earth years, which means we have many opportunities to practice love, until we master it.
„Where plants have five-fold patterns, a consideration of their souls is in place.”
— Johannes Kepler
Number 5 has got a regenerative energy that pulsates throgh all living forms. It is also the number of change, in numerological terms, which means that we do need to experience change (5) in order to reach 8, the infinity, and the stability of Saturn, its ruler, we so desperately strive for. Stability is also found in Taurus, or Libra and its balancing qualities, the two signs ruled by Venus.
In the end, Neptune, the ruling planet of Venus’s exaltation sign – Pisces, is the 8th planet, but as I said in the beginning – I will not go into the meaning of love. I’m only following the Neptunian depths of inspiration to be there for those struggling with butterflies in their tummies.