Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays. I love it. I love the aesthetic. I love that it randomly comes in February when everything is otherwise miserable. I also love how out of sorts everyone gets because I hope it can open a portal for possible growth. I think there is a collective healing that can come from embracing what seems to be a universal desire for love. It gets all whacked out because it seems like people need permission to love the way that works for them and to be honest about what that is to their partner(s) or friends. Holidays are hard. They can create a weird funhouse mirror thing where it seems like everyone is yelling about how they do things or like things and it can make it very difficult to hear your own heart.
Growing up my mother treated Valentine's Day like a very special holiday for us. She put her heart and soul into turning it into a holiday that could be celebrated for fun, out of whimsy but most importantly she made certain to pay attention to us on Valentine's Day so that we would develop a relationship to love that was not dependent on a partner. She always made it a point to emphasize the importance of self-esteem and self love, and she tried her best to reflect to us her version of progressive feminist ideas about loving.
But the other side of that is that this choice was in response to the fact that she was deeply unhappy in her relationship. Her husband, my stepfather, was cruel and violent, and my mother had grown up with the deck stacked against her in many ways regarding her femininity, her sexuality and her ability to love and know herself. While I loved eating pink cupcakes and getting gifts more than anything (still do btw, Leo Venus) , the other 364 days of sensing how brokenhearted she was permanently tore my heart in two. Growing up seeing love as a sacrifice that benefits no one, a commodity that had to be earned or given as a transaction or something that had to be tirelessly generated from within had a huge impact on my own psyche. While on one hand I became tuned into the many other ways of cultivating love and how to work hard to make sure no one I knew felt missed or unloved, I also fully decided that I would never allow a man to determine my worth, to ruin my day, or to take me off my path.
And just like that, I became an avoidant codependent. A classic Capricorn Moon love story.
We all form our ideas about love based on what we see mirrored in childhood. We learn how to love as children because we require love to survive. Love and care is what motivates someone to take care of us, so as children love is not optional- it is the only thing that will keep us from dying. However, John Bowlby, attachment researcher, drew distinction between babies who just received adequate feeding versus the emotional well-being of children who received care, acknowledgment and regard from their caretakers. It is true that while children are limited in their ability to care for themselves -humans evolve into making sure that their baseline needs are met somehow.
We can figure out how to get food on our own, but accessing care and support is not as easy. Even a child who is given basic material necessities but is made to feel emotionally unsafe, abandoned, disregarded or rejected will have a decreased ability for survival. Care is a resource.
Yet we must also be resourced to provide care. In Mary Ainsworth’s Uganda Study, it was discovered that while a child may have been in physical proximity to their mother throughout the day -often being strapped to the mother while she worked- the emotional state of the caregiver impacted the psychological well-being of the child.
Stress, distraction, frustration are all interpreted by the child as a threat to their security as their caretaker may not be able to respond to their needs quickly enough. It is not enough to just be in proximity to them, in order for an infant to feel safe with their caregiver, that caregiver must be cared for themselves. To be able to be attentive and capable of loving, a person must be in safe relationship to their partner and community, as well as connected to themselves.
When I look at compatibility, I take into consideration the story that the relationship is telling, the lessons that are meant to be learned, and the journey that both clients are separately on. I explain how they can love each other best, what role each is meant to play in the others’ life, and point out tender spots that could be activated so that they can be handled with consciousness. I believe every partnership is meant to be- that we are drawn to people for a reason and that there are many soul people we will encounter through our lives. In fact, the more the better. More soul people, more soul growth.
If I see a relationship that is occurring during a Pluto transit, or has a strong Pluto influence, I will not warn against disaster so much as I will inquire about each party’s relationship to power dynamics, or I will try to engage in a dialogue about things they may have experienced in relationships in the past. I will urge them to understand that there is a deeper thing going on and that communication, self care and a strong foundation of healing or therapy is necessary for this relationship to fly above the Plutonian underworld. If there are Saturn aspects, we will talk about commitments and where someone may need to step up to make things work. We may talk about each partner’s moons and see if the other is comfortable with what those needs are- or what they will need to learn to do to provide emotional support.
For single people looking for love, we want to have a conversation about timing and what feels under resourced in their lives. What is preventing them from feeling safe, confident, open or what might blur their ability to truly see what they want. We go through cycles of life that are meant to be solitary, yet that need is not respected easily by the outer world and sometimes forcing ourselves out can draw experiences to us that make us want to retreat. We can look at the chart to see what the clients’ needs are on their own, as a way to clarify non negotiables and to start finding better matches. Timing is important when it comes to using astrology for relationships.
This week we start out feeling urgently aware of the fact that love can make life worth living. Rihanna is pregnant again! No one has made people want to get knocked up more than her! Put me in a red jumpsuit and call me MOTHER. Valentine’s Day has a Sagittarius moon which is messy fire. It is prime text an ex night- do or don’t! We have Venus conjunct Neptune the next day which are the two planets associated with love, transcendence and faith. And also drunken mistakes. We find ourselves tuning in or abruptly waking up to the value of romance and it can render us disoriented. On its own, it is a fun energy, but it’s also kind of like being on drugs. We suddenly suspend common sense and may pursue the feeling with abandon. If we aren’t conscious, it could be a problem. We will want love bad this week. But soon after that, on February 16th we have the Sun Saturn conjunction, the last in this sign until 2050. Saturn will come to the blazing Sun in Aquarius and try to put it in a box, or give us a reality check via boundaries or responsibilities. It wants to contain the shine a little, and to try and focus it towards illuminating one goal or idea so that it can be refined.
When we rush into love as a way to get validation or to get an immediate scratch for the itch of desire, we may find ourselves wounded or resentful once reality sets in. Remember that actions have consequences! If you want to take advantage of the romantic aspect of the week-make sure you’ve done as much of your own work as you can communicating your needs and expectations so that you don’t find yourself with a love hangover when it’s time to get to work at weeks’ end.