Struck by Love: Using Relationship Astrology to Understand Cupid and his Mother Venus
ART CREDIT: Thank you to Alice Mason Fine Art.
Many of us are familiar with Cupid, the diety of love, always depicted with his bow and arrow.
If we look deeper into our relationship astrology, we can start to see how his magic works in each of us. The story begins with love— because that’s what comes to mind when we see Cupid. However, the truth of the matter is that Cupid’s symbolism is more of the desiring type. When we really start to go deeper into who Cupid really is, the elements of passion, desire and attraction come to the forefront. He’s the force that can ignite anyone out of a slumber— but close encounters can entrap us as well. When Cupid comes around and hits us with one of his arrows we can fall hard. Crazy in love comes to mind.
While many can attest to being “struck” by Cupid’s arrow at some point or another, few are aware of his deeper meaning.
This is all because of how our lover boy operates. Cupid is the symbol of desire, lust and more specifically sexual attraction. We can easily become blinded when under his influence because quite bluntly – other things are taking over. The honest truth is that Cupid isn’t about deep long lasting love. He’s the catalyst that wakes the libido up. His force brings out eroticism and sexual energy. Love and libido are two totally different things.
Being an astrologer, I’ve always been very connected to mythology because of the captivating stories. Much of the deeper meaning behind the planets, asteroids and stars in astrology are actually tied into the myths. Every planet works with a God or Goddess in some way or another. Even though Cupid is not a planet, he too falls into this category I promise to get to the love part but before I do, I want to share more of the details behind Cupid and his passion filled arrows.
Understanding Cupid, as well as his familial relations, can help us come to a greater awareness of the deeper meaning of love.
The story of Cupid stems all the way back to the ancients. He was known as the God of Desire by the Romans. The Greeks, on the other hand, referred to him as Eros. No matter what we decide to call him (Cupid vs. Eros), his essence is totally erotic (a word that stems from Eros).
From an astrological standpoint, when we want to look at our intense desire component we can look at the asteroid Eros. He represents where our passion, desire and sexual energy all live. We can explore these things in our own outlook by looking at where he falls in our personal astrology. However, that’s not my aim in this article.
My mission here is a lot deeper. Passion and desire are not love. They can lead into it but the leap there is a pretty big one for some. Yes, of course, we need the heat of Eros to help move us to connect and feel alive. But passion and desire won’t give us the long-lasting relationships we really want. Those things can blind us into not being able to truly see real love. It actually prevents true intimate connection—which is the thing that brings pure love alive.
In order to get to the love part, in regards to our own personal astrology, we have to look at Eros’ mother, Venus (known as Aprodite by the Greeks). Mother knows best after all ? On a side note: I also want to mention that Mars tends to show up in the stories as Eros’ father, but I’ll get to him later because he’s also important. We can’t forget about Dad!
Now, this mother (Venus) and son (Eros) were very connected. The stories told through the years have been the basis of many love poems. They tell the tale of a mother and son that end up encountering quite a few issues. The most legendary is the story of Eros falling in love with Psyche (the beautiful maiden Venus despised). This story proves that things can get rough if your mother-in-law doesn’t like you.
Venus had attempted to curse Psyche forever by making her fall in love with the ugliest of creatures. However, her plan backfired with a capital “B”. Her beloved son, Eros, ended up falling in love with her instead. YIKES. Psyche certainly had some major mother-in-law issues to contend to after that. However, to make a long story short, love did prevail in the end as it always does in these kinds of romantic tales. The reuniting of Eros and Psyche was a happily ever after – after all the drama was said and done.
However, real life doesn’t always work out like the stories, legends and myths … or does it?
Astrologically, Venus is a planet while Eros and Psyche are asteroids. Eros is sexual energy while Psyche is known as the purest form of love. Keep in mind that a planet will always get a lot more weight than an asteroid and don’t just take my word on it. Size alone proves this from a scientific standpoint. We’re going to feel to a much bigger bang if we’re hit by a planet vs. an asteroid. Of course there is a ton of validity in looking at asteroids from an astrological standpoint and I personally do it all the time in my work.
However, in this case, I want to give the planets precedence. When it comes to really understanding pure love we have to cut through the adjectives (because that’s what asteroids in astrology can be). Moving beyond the superficial and looking at the more profound components will give us the answers we’re really looking for. No matter what, the planets always take reign in our personal astrology especially when it comes to love matters. I’m an astrologer that believes the story the planets tell is what matters most.
Love is complicated, we all know that.
There are so many different facets to it. The English language, in my opinion, doesn’t give enough detail to describe what it really is.
She loves him. He loves her. But what kind of love is it that these people are really referring?
The Greeks, on the other hand, do a fabulous job at divvying up the differences in their language. Other languages may do it as well but I can’t say for sure because I haven’t been around them. I’m probably a little biased given that I am Greek —but let me explain first. Then it’ll be up to each of us to judge for ourselves.
In the Greek language there are four different words for love.
That’s right four and they build up level by level to the purest of forms.
The first word is eros.
It equates to the feelings that come from passion, attraction and desire. It’s that red hot feeling that comes over us when we feel attracted to someone. Everything depicted by the God of Desire Eros (or Cupid) is what represent the word eros in the Greek language. It is the first stage of love and it runs hot just like passion does.
The second word is storge.
This is the word used to describe the love between parent and child or families. It’s the kind of love that comes from being tied by blood and very different than attraction. To be honest the Greek that was spoken around me growing up didn’t mention this word all that often because agapé was used instead. However, it still counts and needs to be mentioned.
The third word is philia which is the love felt between friends.
It’s a totally non-sexual platonic type love. This, of course, is a very important facet of love because friendship is a special component in most of our relationships.
The final and most important word that describes love in the Greek language is agapé.
This is the kind of love that most of us crave and the one that keeps relationships strong. Agapé is what makes us put our own personal desires aside and do for someone else. It pushes us to a selfless love state where the sexual part gets removed from the equation. Saying something like “I love him/her so much that I’d die for them” is what agapé is.
Agapé is the kind of love that Eros and Psyche had. Its love is in its purest form. It’s saying I love you to the moon and back — forever and ever — no matter what the cost. If anyone out there has ever had to fight or hurt for love – than you’ve experienced agapé .
In our personal astrology we can find out more about our agapé by looking at how Eros’ mother, Venus operates our charts. This planetary mama represents who we want to love, what we like and how we approach getting it. Romance is what she’s all about. Her operation also reveals how our affectionate side works including how we give and receive love.
However, we can’t forget about creating some necessary sparks in order to help bring love alive. Eros’ father, Mars, shows how we act and do things. In relationships, he reveals how we express what we want from other people. He relates to sexual energy as well but not the lustful kind that his son Eros equates to.
If we really want to see how our love component works on a complete level, we have to look at both Venus and Mars in our personal astrology to gain clues.
An easy way to get started in the exploration process is to take a look at how they are operating in our personal astrology. For starters, looking at the elements that both fall into can help us see things more closely. The elements in Astrology categorize each sign by either Fire, Earth, Air or Water. Keep in mind that some of us may have both Venus and Mars in the same sign but most of us likely won’t.
In order to do this, we first need to generate our personal astrology charts. I’ve included a link to a free calculator below. Having your exact birth time makes your chart more accurate but to be honest it’s not necessary for this exploration. Just your birthday and location of birth will do.
Once your chart is generated, you can hover over each glyph (planetary symbol) to find out the sign of both your Venus (pink) and Mars (red). Once you know the signs, look to see what category they fall into (Water, Earth, Air or Fire).
Here are the elements and their signs:
Water: Cancer, Scorpio & Pisces
Earth: Taurus, Virgo & Capricorn
Air: Gemini, Libra & Aquarius
Fire: Aries, Leo & Sagittarius)
If you’re Venus and Mars fall into 2 different element categories, you’ll have to blend the two different descriptions to come up with your special mix. Remember we’re all complicated beings and our personal astrology reveals that.
Here are the descriptions of both Mars & Venus in the Elements:
Reminders as you read along: Venus is our romance gal. She shows our affectionate side, what we like and how we approach intimacy. She’s how we find our agape. Mars is our planet that takes action and goes after what we want. He’s going to be the catalyst to us getting it.
Water (Cancer, Scorpio & Pisces):
This is the type of person that wants the other person to initiate things. They want someone else to be the “doer.” Intimacy is connected to the emotions and security. They feel things on an intense level. This is the element that is also very sensitive to other people’s feelings (given their high level of intuition) and can literally feel another’s energy. This includes their partner’s emotional needs. They can also feel a calming release of tension in intimate situations.
Earth (Taurus, Virgo & Capricorn):
These types have a “down to earth” kind of attitude about love and intimate matters. They can be very duty bound. Emotions don’t really play a big part in their operation – it’s all about efficiency. They can be instinctually in touch with other people’s physical needs, however. The ability to be sensual is there but a key to this element is their control. They are always grounded to the fullest just like their element of earth is.
Air (Gemini, Libra & Aquarius):
Forget touchy and feely when it comes to the air signs. They aren’t looking for physical closeness or dramatic displays of affection. What these types crave is talking and communication. In order to truly connect with the air signs on a deeply intimate level you have to be able to talk! Energy runs through them in that way and communication invigorates them and makes them feel alive. If you aren’t communicating with these signs—you’re killing their ability to get intimate slowly.
Fire (Aries, Leo & Sagittarius):
Fire likes to get things hot in a physical way and they can be very direct about what they want. They also like to keep things entertaining. An important facet to these signs, however, is that they aren’t looking to get too emotionally close. There’s a bit of the impersonal that burns through with the fire signs. Laughter is another key element that can get these signs going. They simply love to laugh.
Special Notes:
NO matter what the sign, if Venus and Mars fall in the same sign or come very close to each other, there is a high level of attraction to the other sex. This is a very dynamic person in regards to relating to people. Others will also be very attracted to people with this combination. It’s a very alluring mix of planetary energy.
Love, of course, can be taken to many different levels because as I said earlier it’s complicated. Another important component to explore in regards to how we love is the placement of the Moon in our personal astrology. She’s the biggest mama when it comes to our emotional satisfaction and more details on her can be found by looking up your Moon Sign.
Exploring how two people love together is another facet of astrology. That is called synastry which compares and looks at how two people’s planets interact with one another. There is also the study of composites which takes two people’s charts and meshes them together to form an entirely new chart. What many people don’t realize is that relationships have a life of their own – just like we do. We can use composite charts to study the inner happenings of a specific relationship at a very deep level.
On a final note, I want to close out with a quote by Andy Warhol, one of my favorite artists.
“People should fall in love with their eyes closed.”
In a very simplistic way, these words encapsulate the true essence of love or agapé. It reminds us what we need to be blind to. For at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is what’s inside the soul. None of us can see the other facets clearly anyway. The love that we all want is the kind that entails someone telling us “I love you—no matter what.”
Crystal B's
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