Tending to your affinities

A short reflection on honoring Venus as a way to manage my heat-melted brain as the thermometer rises.

Heat is my undoing, my Achilles heel.

Although I was born in the tropics, I've always felt I was born on the wrong side of the hemisphere because heat and sun are not my friends. While all around me, folks were excited about the coming hot days forecast for this past weekend, inside, I had to bite my tongue and repress my inner Grinch.

During Summer, you'll likely meet my inner Mr. Hyde, not Dr. Jekyll. I flourish in the drizzly wintery climates, not the sunny tropics.

So, this past weekend's spike in temperature, I came undone: I plummeted in mood and energy. This got me thinking about the place of affinity and pleasure in our ability to see our lives with a more expansive and optimistic view. Several years ago, I learned the force of focus through pain when I had a herniated disc that kept me sleeping on the floor for months.

But as the thermometer rises, my mind turns to the oft-missed power and place of affinity in our lives. Lack of something in our lives can also narrow our ability to see our lives with more wiggle room.

Affinity is under Venus' domain.

She's been on my mind lately because I'll be speaking of her powers and gifts in this month's Wheel of Myth event. While we more readily associate her with desire and pleasure, the less glamorous affinity is her glue in our lives.

According to the dictionary, affinity is a spontaneous or natural liking, a being drawn towards someone or something, especially because of shared characteristics.'

The word's origins are Old French from the 1300s, where affinity meant 'kinship, neighborhood, and vicinity, or relationship by marriage' but also 'bordering on, as in border or boundary.'

As a liminal goddess, Venus, much like Mercury, helps us navigate boundaries, as I wrote in this last post. To see how the word affinity is linked to border underlines how we're under her tutelage when we take stock of our affinities.

I don't have an affinity for heat and the blasting Sun. I don't tan; I burn. I'm too pale for the standard stereotype for someone from the tropics, thus making me a 'fake Brazilian,' as I tell my friends. (Plus, to add insult to injury, I'm not a fan of soccer or Carnaval and am too introverted to fit the gregarious, party-loving image many have of Brazilians.)

Special Plumage

A good conversation with an old friend helped me get off the ledge at least a few inches. I've Venus in Gemini; talking is my language of love. Feeling my mind muddled due to the heat, I asked my friend to remind me of some elements of my 'special plumage.' 'Special plumage' is what Venus gifts each one of us. It's all the things we're good at and feel good doing. She mentioned I'm a 'joy pusher.'

If I know what brings you joy, I'll be as determined as a drug hustler, making sure you get to do what you enjoy. I love to see folks do what they enjoy, especially if it's something they've been 'too busy' to do and have dismissed as something they 'used to do' long ago.

In my coaching, I work with people daily to remind them and honor what they like and enjoy. I especially love bringing their attention to the power of their affinities.

Living in a country where the "pursuit of happiness" is enshrined has messed up people's minds. There is too much pressure to achieve this oft-elusive, not long-lasting happiness.

Want happiness? Start with your affinities.

Happiness is just one of the many in what I call a 'multitude of joys,' not the one and only. Going for happiness may be going for the jugular.

We need to circle the issue of what's lacking in our lives by honoring our affinities, taking stock of our special plumage, and bringing our taste in beauty to our environments. These are all ways we build a relationship with Venus in our lives because a lack of Venus leads to frigidity in all our relationships, including ourselves.

As for my lack of affinity for heat, in the coming months, I'll be challenged to tend to my other affinities and joys. In this case, I'll have to focus on bringing more of the element that my Venus is placed in my chart: air.

One of the things I've noticed more and more in the last several years is how claustrophobic I feel during the Summer months. Heat and stagnant air are my kryptonite. My Venus in Gemini abhors stagnant air, not just physically but also mentally.

Stagnant ideas, stagnant minds.

Lack of wiggle room in our ability to think and communicate turns our minds into a seedy cesspool. So I'll be sure to tend to my mind and not let it be filled with mental farts but fresh air. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

How shall you honor affinities?

Enjoy & Thrive!
Vanessa Couto