Boredom as a crossing into the unknown

When boredom shows up it's a sign that the liminal goddess Venus awaits for us in the wings and we're about to embark on an adventure.

Repose (1895) by John White Alexander (1856)

(You’ll notice this post has an audio component. This is not a voice over of me reading this article. I’m no audiobook, and I’ll gladly leave that to the professionals. It’s the ‘behind the scenes’ of why I wrote this post, akin to the ‘peanut gallery’ commentary on it. No worries, reading the post is enough. But if you want something extra, then have a listen. Let me know what you think in the comments.)

I've been feeling bored.

Boredom isn't something I often feel, even as a pimple-faced teenager. So when it shows up, I feel impatient and at a loss. I just want it to go away, like a bad weather day. 

But contained in the word is the way through: bore down into it. According to vocabulary.com, "The word boredom comes from something called a "boring tool," a kind of drill that works slowly and repetitively; around 1768, bore, meaning "be tiresome," became a popular slang term, and boredom followed."

The way through is to drill into it because boredom is a guide at the threshold.

I'm realizing boredom is also the entry point into an unknown. How many fairy tales start with a princess or prince feeling bored within the castle walls and going to the garden only to be encountered by a magical figure? In trying to escape boredom, one takes a step towards the unknown. 

Being on the Wheel of Myth

The old adage that one teaches what one needs to learn is true. Since I started doing the monthly Wheel of Myth events, I've realized that each month, I get to dance with the story/theme of that month. I'm my own guinea pig in this experiment of going through a framework on how to approach the unknown. And since this month is all about pleasure, joy, and desire with Aphrodite/Venus, I see the hand of the goddess in my boredom. 

Venus is traveling through Taurus and will soon move into Gemini the day before my birthday. Hidden from view, transiting my 12th house, Venus has been activating my unconscious, and the dust stirred is this boredom. 

As a liminal guide, Venus can reveal herself in two ways: stirring our desires and showing us what's lacking. Boredom and ennui are ways for her to show us how we're not honoring her in our lives. 

More and more, I think of our birth chart as a health plan of cosmic supplements to help us live a well-balanced life.

By honoring each planetary archetype, we find our unique way of living a meaningful and well-rounded life. 

• Honor Saturn in your hard-focused work. 

• Let Mars get its physical activity, go into the ring, and fight for your values. 

• Give Jupiter room to expand by tapping into outreach opportunities that come knocking. 

• Crack the window open to let some fresh air into your life, for Uranus' sake. 

• Allow yourself time to reverie and dream with Neptune. 

• Routinely examine your depths and do shadow work with Pluto. 

• Tend to your bodily and emotional needs for your Moon's sake. 

• Do the things that challenge your Sun's self-expressive needs. 

• Watch your mental diet so that your Mercury isn't malnourished. 

• And when it comes to Venus, remember to do what you enjoy that gives you pleasure without worrying if it will be productive/effective or if some horrid new corporate-speak jargon has infiltrated our inner dialogue. 

Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889), The Birth of Venus (1863), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Out of the frothy foam comes the beauty of desire 

The fact that Venus was born out of the foam from the castaway testicles of her father, Ouranus' castration by his son Cronus, as instructed by his mother, Gaia, reveals that she's the offspring that comes to teach us about desire and pleasure. Ouranus' mating with Gaia felt compulsive and void of shared joy and pleasure. Daily, Ouranus came to Gaia, and daily, she birthed new offspring that he, in turn, detested and stuffed back into his wife's swollen belly. 

For me, their mating felt compulsive and mechanical, evoking images of factories that turn out relentless monstrosities of landfill-ready useless products. While born out of the foam, Aphrodite, whose very name means 'of foam born,' rises out of the sea, and from the moment she steps onto the shores of Cyprus, from which flowers spring with each step taken, our human history changed. We were no longer to be the offspring of compulsive mating but part of the grand experiment of what pleasure, beauty, joy, and desire can do for our evolution. 

Revered and feared, Aphrodite/Venus reminds us that life is not worth living without her. The empires built by Saturn's hard work, Jupiter's never-ending growth, Uranus's creative genius, Pluto's rich depths, and Neptune's mystic experiences would be all for naught without Venus. But here's the deal: it's not about the indolent, never-satisfied pursuit of our desires and pleasures like some spoiled Instagram influencer that Venus wants to relate to us. What the world is showing us is a very skewed relationship with desire, for it's ever more taking us back to Ouranus' compulsive mating, constantly churning out but taking no joyful pleasure, much less sharing it. We dishonor Venus at our peril. 

I see this every day with my coaching clients: a desire for connection, community, love, and pleasure in their lives, yet feeling often ever more isolated and unable to build juicy, moist, and soil-rich relationships with others, their work, or themselves. Lives are 'so busy' that there's no slack, no give or wiggle room to allow for things without haste or productive goals. No wonder grievances abound.

The fabric of our society is brittle and dry from the lack of Venus. 
And moisturizing starts with our own relationship to this liminal goddess.

My boredom is an early warning that I must tend to my relationship with Venus.

I need time to play by letting my creativity and curiosity have room to move and also have an infusion of new blood in my social connections. 

What about you?

How's your relationship with your Venus?

Are you feeling things a bit dry and brittle?

Like with any self-care beauty regime, we must remember to moisturize!

Venus is the rich, creamy moisturizer for our lives!

We don't want Venus to turn into Buffalo Bill on us and yell, 'It rubs the lotion on the skin.' Remember, no one messes with Venus. Best to maintain a good relationship with her by tending to your joys. 

How’s your relationship with your Venus?

Drop me a line in the comments. And if you need some ‘couple’s counseling’ to help you heal your relationship with your Venus, check out my consulting offer here.

---

Calling on my Portland, Oregon folks

If you're in Portland, Oregon, join us on Tuesday, May 28, for this month's installment of The Wheel of Myth & Sound Journeying.

Life’s sweetness and meaning are often delivered through our joys and pleasures.

The busyness of our ways of living dims our ability to recognize and connect to what makes our lives sweeter and worth living.

As the flowers bloom around us, it’s time to remember beauty’s joy and healing powers.

For this month’s theme, we will be guided by the beautifully capricious bringer of joy: Aphrodite/Venus.

For more information and to sign up, click here. 

---

Want to take this relationship beyond your inbox? Let’s work together, blending astrology and coaching to help you get unstuck and move forward.

---