Calling in Love of All Kinds
Venus Enters Pisces on Thursday 1/26/23
Not long ago, I was out for the day with a new friend, and she was telling me about how, as she fell in love with her new partner, that relationship had caused a rift in an older close friendship – a friendship that was very much a romance – even if there was no sex involved.
While spending time with this new friend, I noticed a frisson of chemistry between us. I remembered how, when we first met, I could feel the attraction and knew that we WOULD be in each other’s lives. And as we spent the day together, we shared a sense of joy as we peeked in the window of one another’s inner worlds.
Neither of us had any intention of “taking it into the bedroom”… But it was still romantic, important.
All of which got me thinking about relationships, and how we have them, and what they mean to us.
Why are romantic relationships prioritized above friendships? What is the best way to stay connected to love? Do we have to get everything we need from our sexual partners alone? All of which are the perfect questions to ask Venus as she makes her ingress into Pisces on Thursday – where she will remain for the next three weeks, until February 20th.
Pisces is the sign of Universal Love, and Venus is exalted there. Pisces is a place where Venus goes to expand her ideas of what love can be, and where to get it.
One of the most pernicious ways colonialism harms us is in our intimate relationships. The nuclear family (and its power dynamics), the idea of an only-one-in-the-world once-in-a-lifetime soul-mate, marriage, the primacy of conjugal love over every other kind of love, including friendship. All of these tropes limit our idea of what love can be. Even when love shows us blatantly what else it can be for us.
On the surface, many of the tropes mentioned above seem great. In fact, most of us long for them in some form or another. But because in my work I am privileged to see the intimate inner workings of many people’s love lives, I know that our idea of what love is and “SHOULD” be often blinds us to the possibility of creating a greater abundance of love in our lives.
Examples of how our “Love Imagination” becomes stifled:
Our ideas about what partnership is and should be are dictated to us by the State, the family, and (for many) church doctrine. We are so indoctrinated into ideas of what love “should” look like that we don’t notice, nor cultivate, any other forms of love that might be more authentic to our nature.
For instance, many people come to see me because their marriages have grown stale, they’ve been together for 10 or 15 years, and no longer feel the thrill of romance, or they are no longer the same people they were when they entered the marriage and no longer want the same things. But our culture makes us feel guilty and ashamed if we say the relationship is no longer working for us. AND it doesn’t allow for us to explore any other ways of having the relationship. Either we’re in or we’re out. And what it means to be in or out is created for us by romantic comedy scripts, romance novels, and credits on our tax forms.
Or, if we’re single we can feel like we’re missing out on love, and are alone, when really our lives are full of loving and passionate friendships, which we’re somehow forbidden from seeing the romance in. And so we might feel unfulfilled or like there is something wrong with us for not being able to find “the One.”
And then if we DO find “The One” - we feel so elated but then at the first sign of trouble we question if the one is REALLY the one because we’ve been conditioned to believe that someone who was REALLY the one would meet every single last need we have (and all the needs we didn’t even know that we had), and it would never feel stressful, or disappointing, or confusing.
Personally, I feel like I’m in a deep, mind-blowingly hot relationship with the land I live on, but that’s treated as if it doesn’t and couldn’t possibly exist.
The list of conditions our culture puts on love goes on and on.
I’ll be speaking more about this in future newsletters but in the meantime, I wanted to bring this up because…
a) Venus is moving into Pisces and it’s a good time to dissolve the borders around what are acceptable forms of love (especially since it’s coming in Aquarius season, which asks us to become visionaries and break out of our preconceived ideas). So…
…pay attention to your longings for the next few weeks, because they’re telling you about possibilities you may not have ever allowed yourself to imagine.
…and b) I wanted to remind you that Witchcraft is, at its core, about relationship. When we practice magic, we strengthen the bonds of love and exchange between humans and each other, and humans and the more than human world.
Every time you practice witchcraft, you increase your capacity to create and enjoy love in ALL it’s forms. Magic is MAKING love with the world.
Yours in love and witchcraft,
Amanda
P.S. Reminder for subscribers that our Full Moon in Leo ritual for love and creative fire is coming up on January 5th at 6pm PST, so don’t forget to mark that date in your calendar.
Love Rebellion Inspiration
“Relationship Anarchy: Occupy Intimacy,” a book by Juan-Carlos Perez-Cortes.
I’m still out to lunch on open relationships. As a Scorpio, they’re not my natural habitat. However, this book makes a good case for completely abandoning all the “rules” we’ve previously applied to intimacy. It’s an academic and challenging read, but what I love about it is its thesis that changing our relationships can change the power structures that control the world. And it roots its analysis in critical theories of liberation from anarchism to feminism. What’s not to love?
“The List” an Audible book by Jade Chang.
This is such a juicy and fun listen (it’s the length of a long magazine article and is only $2!). It’s about the magical technique of creating “the list” of qualities to call in your true love.This essay makes you think about what you want out of love, and reminds us that the search for love in itself is magical. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a character in the story! Though I love that I am. (Jade is not only a great writer but truly one of the great friend-loves of my life). Those of you who listen to Between the Worlds podcast will recognize Jade from our episode on the 3 of Cups (the Friendship card).
Are you reading anything that’s changing the way you think about or experience relationships? Let us know in the comments! Share the love!
Venus in Pisces - Love Candle Blessing Service for Founder’s Level Subscribers
I’m going to be doing a candle blessing service for my Founder’s Level Subscribers during the Waxing Moon with Venus in Pisces! During this ceremony I will be creating spell candles for each of you, infusing them with blessings, and petitioning Venus for your care and abundant love.
IMPORTANT:
If you’re a Founder’s Level subscriber and would like to be included in the blessing, just respond to this email with your petition. It should be short (around 40 words) and focused on how you’d like to shift or develop the love energy in your life (whatever that means to you).
It’s a personal spell just for you, drenched in all my magic. I’ll be sending out the results of the ceremony once it’s completed. I’m so delighted an honored to be able provide this offering for you. I want you to feel the love I have for all of you moving through your lives like a gentle wind.
I’m constantly falling in love, it’s the definition of being alive. I fall in love with the landscape with a dog, with my colleagues with random strangers. But to make deep connections takes commitment so sometimes my loves are shuffled, like a deck of cards. I can only be deeply in love with a select few at a time 😉
So exciting! This is so wonderful & generous of you! ::spent too much time in academia:: When is it due?😊