“Cupid and Psyche” by Sir Edward Burne-Jones

For reasons lost to history, February 14th, the feast of St. Valentine, came to be associated with courtly love sometime in 15th century England. No disrespect to St. Valentine, but a Christian martyr is an ill-fitting figure for a day devoted to romantic earthly love. This is unquestionably Venus’s domain. Hearts, chocolates, doves, flowers and pleasures of the flesh—these are all her symbols. And Cupid, who was known to the Greeks as Eros, was her son. The iconic cheeky cherub that we think of when we hear the name nowadays, is a far cry from his original mythological form, as we will soon see. 

With that said, let’s take a look at the astroweather for the day, shall we? Here’s what I’m seeing: Venus is in Aries, the sign of her detriment, but this placement also has correspondence to the Four of Wands in the tarot, which brings to mind weddings and festivities, balancing out the negative a bit. Venus is also forming a T-square to the lunar nodes in Cancer and Capricorn. Meanwhile, the moon is in Scorpio, making a grand trine in the water signs to Mercury and the North Node/Rahu. Mercury is in its retrograde shadow in Pisces. And lastly, asteroid Eros is exactly conjunct the Sun in Aquarius. There’s plenty of potential for sex, romance and partnership here, but it doesn’t feel especially fun and carefree does it? The way I read it, on this Friday–Venus’s day–the planetary alignments are telling one of her very own stories: the story of Cupid and Psyche. 

A king has three daughters, one of whom is named Psyche. Psyche’s beauty is reputedly so great that it threatens to surpass even Venus’s, and so the jealous goddess sends her son Cupid to shoot her with one of his arrows and make her fall in love with someone hideous. He accidentally pricks himself instead, and falls immediately, but secretly, in love with Psyche. Psyche, meanwhile, remains inexplicably unmarried, so her father, believing she is cursed, prepares to sacrifice her on top of a cliff. At the last minute, Cupid sends the wind to whisk her away to a sacred grove, where she falls asleep. 

She awakens in a magnificent house in an unknown location. There she lives comfortably until at night she begins to be visited by Cupid, who anonymously sleeps with her under cover of darkness. Eventually she decides to trick him into revealing himself, so she waits with a candle and dagger for him to appear. But when she shines the light on his face, she stumbles and pricks herself with one of his arrows, and then falls hopelessly in love with him. Cupid then flees, and she goes off wandering in search of him. 

Along her way, she is tortured and abused by Venus, and subjected to a series of dangerous and impossible tasks (one of which is a trip to the Underworld) which she must accomplish in order to appease the goddess. In each instance she receives friendly or divine intervention. She repeatedly attempts to take her own life and each time is thwarted by a benevolent force. At the nadir of her journey, near to death once more, the story does an about-face. Cupid swoops down to the rescue, takes her up to Mount Olympus, smoothes things over with Venus, and makes her his wife. Psyche, having drunk the ambrosia of immortality, is now divine, and all of the gods and goddesses revel and feast together at the wedding banquet, living happily ever after. The story Cupid and Psyche reads like part classic mythical narrative and part fairy tale. It has its problematic and disturbing elements, to be sure, but in the end, Psyche does not end up a tragic heroine. She is loved and accepted into the family. 

Now back to the astrology. Some of the darker or harder aspects of both love and family relationships we can see in the Scorpio moon, the Aries Venus and the Capricorn South Node. The feelings and emotions, the sensitivity, the connection, the unconscious aspects of love are all floating on the current of that Grand Water Trine. And the blunders and missteps and mixed messages of love are the familiar territory of a Mercury retrograde. The Sun and Eros in an air sign are thankfully helping to provide some distance from all that emotion, and to keep things from getting too heavy. The North Node in Cancer seems to be the key to the happy ending here. We are meant to trust our instincts, our guts. We are meant to nourish ourselves with love. We are meant to feel a whole spectrum of emotions, not to avoid feeling. We deserve to feel safe with our partners and with our families, and in our homes. When we are safe, we can then learn trust and vulnerability, and from there explore our creative potential. We can grow, and we can heal. 

May you have a happy heart this Valentine’s Day,

Laura