Awakened by Desire
I’ve been returning to the story of Eros and Psyche throughout this Venus retrograde. This week, as Venus enters the heart of the Sun, we arrive at a pivotal moment in the story: Psyche finally sees the face of the one she loves.
When the Soul Encounters Love
Every night, Eros visited Psyche, showering her with love, comfort, and pleasure. But all of this came with one condition: She could never look upon him. Never see his face. Never know his form.
The oracle had foretold that Psyche would marry a monster. Her sisters warned her that her mysterious husband might indeed be a monstrous serpent, who would devour her and her unborn child. Frightened for herself and her baby, Psyche finally resolved to discover the truth.
One night, as Eros slept, she crept toward him with a lamp in one hand and a sharpened razor in the other, ready to kill the monster she feared.
And what she discovered stunned her. There lay sleeping, not a hideous monster, but a magnificent god. Resplendent, breathtaking.
She gazed at him in wonder. Entranced, she examined his bow and arrows, accidentally pricking herself with one. And Psyche fell in love with Love himself, truly, for the first time. She had loved him in the dark. Now she could see who she loved.
When Desire Comes to Light
This Friday, October 23, the Sun enters Scorpio at 5:38 AM Eastern, inviting us into the territory of what has been hidden, suppressed, or considered taboo.
That night, at 11:43 PM, Venus enters cazimi, into the heart of the Sun. Symbolically, what we love and what we desire may come into sharper focus.
Like Psyche lifting her lamp, we may discover something beautiful where we had feared to look.
That’s where the story pivots.
As Psyche beholds Eros, a drop of hot oil spills from her lamp onto his shoulder. He awakens in pain, feeling hurt and betrayed, and flies away. Ahead lie separation, seemingly impossible tasks, a descent into the underworld, and eventually, reunion—even immortality. But she knows none of that yet.
Linger in the moment before the drop scalds Eros, before he flies away, before everything that follows—when Psyche finally sees the one she loves and discovers something she could never have imagined.
A Rare and High Culmination
In Motivation and Personality, Abraham Maslow wrote that knowing what one really wants is “a rare and high culmination.”
Consider that.
How many of our desires have we set aside because someone—or even we ourselves—decided they were foolish, selfish, inappropriate, or impossible? How many have we buried so deeply that we no longer recognize them as our own?
Psyche, meaning soul, discovers something she didn’t know before. What she had loved in darkness is more beautiful than she could have imagined.
That discovery enlivens her. Awakens her. Gives her something to move toward. Love has the power to do that. So does desire. Both can call us more fully into life, toward something that matters to us.
And we don’t have to know what to do with it immediately.
An Invitation to Look Again
Just hours after the Venus cazimi, on Saturday, October 24, at 3:12 AM Eastern, Mercury stations retrograde in Scorpio, inviting us to revisit what we think we know and look beneath the surface.
What have you loved or wanted but never allowed yourself to acknowledge? What desires have you dismissed because they didn’t fit the person you believed you were supposed to be?
Friday isn’t a deadline. We can look at our desires at any time. But the sky is offering conducive weather: the Sun illuminating the dark, Venus in the heart of the Sun, Mercury turning us back toward what lies beneath. It behooves us to use a moment that makes the looking easier.
This week, see if you can make a little room for your desires—the silly, the exuberant, the tender ones we barely whisper, and the downright scary. Sit with them. Even the ones that feel uncomfortable or transgressive. You don’t have to justify them, act on them, or tell anyone.
Begin by allowing yourself to know.
Eros & Psyche: What Happens When Love Becomes Real?
Psyche walked into the dark with a lamp and a sharpened razor. What would you carry into the moment you finally look?
Where are you loving in the dark? What are you afraid to see? What happens when love, or desire, asks more of you than you expected?
I’m creating a small-group experiential journey through Eros and Psyche. We won’t discuss the myth from a distance. We’ll enter its world, take on its roles, stand at its thresholds, and find out what its choices stir in us about love, longing, doubt, and desire.
It’s for anyone who wants the kind of love that wants all of you.
I’d hoped to begin near the Star Point. That has shifted: the group will start later, with dates most likely announced after the retrograde.
Reply “Eros and Psyche” to be the first to know when it launches. If you’ve already replied, you’re counted.
If you missed my earlier explorations of Eros and Psyche, here are two previous articles:
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