Intimately untouchable: Venus as the mirror
Venus with a Mirror by Titian. Source.
The more I try to explain her, the further she slips away. Her glyph is well known as an icon for women ♀. Of all the planets, most people would guess what she represents: beauty, women, love, the arts, jewelry, fashion among others.
But what does her symbol literally represent? The origin of the planetary glyphs comes from the 2nd century. In it, Venus is depicted as wearing a necklace and holding a shining mirror. ♀ is a hand held mirror.
In a world of mirrors, it can feel powerful to have folks watching you, wanting you. But many women and femmes know this is a trap. We’re constantly told how to look and perform. We’re supposed to somehow stay youthful despite time slipping past us. With our images constantly under review, the mirror can become a glass cage. We are seen, but we don’t hold the mirror. Someone else is always reviewing, always judging the image.
These impossible tasks are why Venus struggles so much in Virgo. It’s all about this constant need for refinement, tweaking, and becoming something better. Virgo is the virgin or maiden after all. Both Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner have Venus in Virgo. They’re known for the endless work on optimizing themselves with BBLs, lip filler, or botox. Here, Venus chases youth, an impossible task.
A scene from one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes. ‘Eye of the Beholder’.
But there’s another kind of mirror, one that’s critical to our relationships. Mirroring in psychology is when we unconsciously imitate others in social interactions. It can be as simple as copying someone’s gesture or suddenly picking up an accent in a new place.
More importantly. it’s a critical part of early childhood development. The act of mimicking It’s about feeling seen and recognized in another, especially our primary caretaker. Without it Mary Ayers argues that,
[The] consequence for those who miss out on being mirrored adequately is a primary sense of shame. This sense of shame becomes conflated and incorporated into the developing sense of self... It is not normally available to conscious thought, but remains as a felt sense of being unloveable or somehow defective.
I can see some of these moments in my own mind. Sitting on my bed, trying to share how scared and lost I was only for a loved one to tell me how much worse it had been for them. Or the time I was trying to explain my struggle with body image and was only told “but you’re so beautiful.” In these moments, I couldn’t help but wonder— am I an alien, unable to fully translate and connect? Are parts of me just not worth understanding?
When we mirror others, we speak Venus’s language. I understand you. I feel you. This is not the language of Mercury and the mind. It is Venus’s and speaks straight to our hearts.
It’s interesting that Venus is exalted in the sign opposite of Virgo, Pisces. In Pisces, we see merging and connection as keys. This water sign is often described as rivers becoming oceans, of individual become the universal, primordial ocean. Mirroring is powerful a tool for building empathy, blurring boundaries. The ideal of a mirror is a perfect reflection, showing no distortion or difference.
Meow Wolf, Santa Fe.
If Venus in Virgo says to be seen is to be deemed good enough. Venus in Pisces says to be seen is to connect. The mirror isn’t a gateway to judgment but an opening to be one. It yearns to dissolve differences not reinforce them.
Pisces love of union isn’t always a good thing. We can’t live in the idealized boundless ocean. Just as much as we need connection we also require space to be individuals. While infants need mirroring, two year olds begin to see themselves as separate distinct beings. As people we need both social connection but also our own identities.
The venusian mirror has limits. Mirroring requires something to work with. It creates through repetition, through angles. It shows us a version of what is or could be but only based on the light and refraction. Whether we yearn to connect or judge, there will always be a gap, never quite touching.
Were we ever meant to catch Venus? The closer I get, the more I feel like my cat with a laser pointer. He runs towards the light, paw out, but the beam vanishes when he arrives.
Want to know Venus shows up in your life?
In a birth chart reading, we can dive into the unique ways you think about connection and how Venus transits impact you.
