A Girl is a Pearl

Cancer New Moon + July Cancer SZN Astrology

Images, our adore/abhor relationship to images. What mouthpiece speaks more to all than the visuals of the Media? The fantasy, the obtainment, the embodiment.

Re: feminine images, humanity’s obsession with Beauty has inevitably been capitalized upon. The social programming and production of feminine imagery liminalizes the inspiring / self-destructive. Eventually spiraling, a constant striving, so much that it drives away the present, distracts from our inner worlds. To be viewed as an asset, a romantic and/or sexual object, to never actually be seen is the crux. Women become articles of experience, to be experienced, no longer rich complex labyrinths, just a shell of oneself.

We are hard-wired for attractions and performing femininity (as camp, as warpaint, as pleasure) is something I personally enjoy. As a teen flipping through fashion mags, the glamour enchanted me, yet the social expectation of modification and starvation still burned thru the artistic amalgamations of Alexander McQueen and Thierry Mugler. The message was clear: to be beautiful is to be wanted, worthy. The ultimate brainwashing.

And while I’ll never argue against the right to do what we want with our bodies (especially as a friend to multiple people who’ve had plastic surgery, including countless trans femmes), I loathe the idea of a status quo. I loathe Beauty Queen competitions, dating scene comparsions, misogynoir, industries that prey on manufactured “flaws” and standards that exist even within even the most supposed progressive communities. Candidates are sought out for company, a prize, an easy limerence to behold… for a while. 

Having been told, by knaves abounding ship crews, that no matter how callous sexual talk about femmes becomes, there lurks a truly terrible envy under the animalism of attraction. This yearning to be with someone Beautiful because a vast portion of the population is wired by the gaze. They are never taught that they hold beauty, too, that we all do, so what’s the closest way to come in contact? To steal the pearl itself. To rob her. It is a general observation, a generalization surely, and I would love to believe gendered constructs are not to blame yet the patterns look me squarely in the face. Oh, role-playing, vanity, motives! Eventually annoyance that the object of affection has a heart and soul. Such salt in the wound.

To want to be girl with the most cake* is to have everyone want a piece of you, only to later be eaten alive. (*Cancer Courtney Love)

I too often wonder what life would be without this constant knowing of being perceived and/or judged, especially relevant in others’ attempts at possession or its opposite, rejection. In an assumed trustworthy space, betrayal trauma can absolutely shake us to the core, leaving our sense of self hanging by a thread, literally making a person sick. And when femme-identifying people are subjected to the “idealize, devalue, discard” process while also being crushed by the tradition that is attractiveness (both physical and personality), the realization that we were objectified all along is a shock.

In one mythology, Venus herself was born in the ocean, a full-fledged adult woman, made from the castrated remains of Uranus’ penis. Like Eve taken from Adam’s rib, forgetting Lilith existed at all and that Woman had already been blood and teeth and hair and heart on the Earth before… Venus was the ultimate idealized woman leading to erasure around her. The world leaned on the historical canon of this Love & Beauty Goddess™, high-lit in sea foam.

Though Venus is easily a paradox, despite Botticelli’s famed painting depicting her modestly in the half-shell (above), Venus was famous for unapologetic sensuality and having zero tolerance for degradation from others. Even when she is characterized as naturally charming, at ease in her meat suit, with an exhaustive swarm of men buzzing around trying to acquire attention from her, she was no bullshit and stood up for what she deserved.

The astro planetary aspect is similar. Venus beautifies, can delude, but is also sacred and will defend such. With July’s Saturn vs. Neptune Rx tug-of-war, both in Pisces, paired with the emo Cancer Season waters and Pluto Rx in Aquarius adding voltage, the triple threat Rx during an already pervasive period unravels the Past. Wants and needs limited by what’s available can be somewhat transfigured during these multiple Retrogrades when Venusian advocacy is applied. And all hail the Goddess-speed of confident Queen Leo moving into the Morning Star, we return to the mythic morale that…

Venus was above all resolute to not be in a situation where she was devalued. Respect or get out.

WHAT: Cancer New Moon

WHEN: Friday July 5th, 2024 6:57 PM EST

THEME: Priceless Protection, Divine Dignity

Exploring Pan and the nymphs during the Capricorn Full Moon, how curation becomes a chase and control thru coercion follows… we consider the hunted for the Cancer New Moon. The value placed on prettiness, politeness, subservience, etc has wrecked psyches for centuries. Though we’re often forced to confront and work thru this ick as early adults and eventually connect to communities that encourage disengagement, oppressive expectations pop-up in random places to badger. Often in work or relationships, this topic rears its ugly head once again, requiring resilience and internal knowing to reject it, but when safety and security are threatened, we can compromise (and undermine ourselves) out of fear.

The pop cult Cancer prototype is known to provide. She is maternal, soft, caretaker, considerate, the pillar who doles comfort, gives the most of herself to those she allows in her realm. The awful reality check to her all-encompassing gifts of Love is that she is easily run ragged til she has nothing left to give or when her gifts are no longer appreciated. And to be punished by the very people we were selective and protective about letting into our lives is devastating. How dare we have needs and feelings! We are complete and whole amalgamations of imperfection… that’s what being human is.

We still deserve love, warts and all.

Conservation for the Cancer New Moon: