Star Struck Style

Here’s a photo of Botticelli’s “Pallas and the Centaur.” I went searching for an image of Venus and Chiron, and I stumbled across this painting. It might not depict the mythological characters I was looking for, but it’s close enough.

The reason I’ve got Venus and Chiron on my mind is that Venus just went retrograde a couple of hours ago, and Chiron goes direct later today. For that reason, today might be a good day for people who have issues with body dysmorphia or any other self-perception disorders to begin to address those problems. Both heavenly bodies are sort of stuck in the sky right now, and while they are stationary our thoughts might also be stuck in a cycle of self-loathing.

However, over the next couple of months, the stars will help us to extricate ourselves from this cycle. Venus retrograde in Capricorn can represent rock bottom: where we slide down the mountainside, finally landing in a place where the only way to go is up. Through surefooted progress, we eventually return to the apex as a new and improved version of ourselves.

Symbolically, that all makes sense, but not much about body dysmorphia makes sense, so instead of trying to rationalize this problem, now might be the time to figure out what is missing from your life emotionally-speaking that causes you to perceive yourself in such an unflattering light. Jupiter is about to enter Pisces again where our delusions can become both grand and debilitating. At the same time, though, Chiron’s return to direct motion in straightforward Aries can help us to find the most direct path toward healing our emotional wounds.

So think about putting yourself on that path over the next couple of months if you are the kind of person who deals with issues involving self-esteem and self-perception. Things may get worse in late winter if you don’t find a way to be kinder to yourself as winter begins. In the immortal words of another mythological character whose name escapes me at the moment, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”