beauty

Saturn in Libra and musings on Mad Men and beauty

Libra is ruled by Venus, and Venus is the goddess of love and beauty.  Venus bestows the power of attraction, and this includes physical attractiveness as well as personal magnetism.  With Saturn in Libra, our ideas of beauty and our ability to relate to others are tested, and those of us with Saturn in Libra are tested in our individual lives.

I was disturbed by the Mad Men finale the other night in which Don Draper threw aside his carefully crafted veneer of intelligent pragmatism and fell hook line and sinker for what Jungians call a projection, an experience of “limerence” in which one meets a person in whom they see their idealized fantasy rather than a real person.   Megan, Draper’s secretary, is not only a stunningly beautiful woman – she’s smart, loving, great with his children, and most of all, seems to have no needs of her own.  The perfect fantasy woman.

Peggy Olsen, on the other hand, is smart, perky and cute.  She has had a crush on Draper since the beginning, but he is completely out of his league.  And when Draper tells Peggy of his engagement to his fantasy woman, he has the nerve to say to her: “She reminds me ofyou.”   But even though Draper admires Peggy, she lacks the fantasy component that inspires his projection of illusion and anima.

The concept of beauty carries a huge emotional charge.   My latest issue of More Magazine carried an article about Beauty Anger.  Women in particular are susceptible to resentment of other women that they perceive as having more beauty because superficial beauty is prized in our culture over other more […]

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By |2010-10-20T20:41:18-04:00October 20th, 2010|Life|Comments Off on Saturn in Libra and musings on Mad Men and beauty

Saturn in Libra: Addicted to Plastic Surgery

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Heidi Montag, star of MTV’s The Hills but best known for an apparent starvation for attention, has confessed that she is addicted to plastic surgery. This is bad enough when we’re talking about aging starlets, but Heidi was a beautiful girl of 21 when she had her first surgeries, abreast augmentation to a C cup and rhinoplasty. Her recent surgeries, at the age of 23, included liposuction and buttocks augmentation, an “upgrade” for her “boob job,” a chin reduction, pinning back her ears. And yet she says, “I’m just starting,” she says. “Let’s just say there’s a lot of maintenance. Nobody ages perfectly, so I plan to keep using surgery to make me as perfect as I can be. Because, for me, the surgery is always so rewarding.”

I have been saying that Saturn in Libra will test our standards of beauty, but I couldn’t have anticipated this. In a society where teens are given cosmetic surgeries for graduation gifts, reality shows portray ordinary people receiving extreme makeovers, and an MTV show called “I Want a Famous Face” turns unique individuals into clones of their favorite movie star – Saturn arrives in Libra not a moment too soon.

But the question is, will teens look at Heidi’s makeover from beautiful girl to plastic sex toy and be horrified, or will they want to emulate her? In any case, the discussion over how far is too far has certainly begun.

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By |2018-06-11T10:09:45-04:00January 16th, 2010|People|0 Comments

Beauty and value in the second house

Last week I heard a show on NPR that highlighted a woman who had always been unattractive because of her big nose until she had an accident and the doctor suggested that while she was having surgery that she have her nose fixed. After the surgery, according to her own account she was “a babe.” As a result, she had a unique perspective on what it’s like to be pretty vs. “ugly.”

The second house is most commonly associated with money and wealth, but it also houses our personal resources, our self-esteem, what we value and how well we value ourselves. I’ve written earlier on the relationship between self-esteem and wealth, and there is a strong connection between them. In the second house we develop a relationship with our environment and learn what belongs to us and where we fit into the world. The strength of this sense of belonging to the world and having a secure place is what helps to determine our financial success and our ability to accumulate wealth and prosperity.

Studies have shown, cruelly, that beauty is tied to success. But these studies do not prove that it’s perfection that is tied to success – merely a perception of attraction. If cosmetic surgery enhances one’s confidence in one’s value, then it can have benefits to that individual. But if surgery becomes the tool in the pursuit of perfection, the point is missed and the inner lack of self-worth remains.

Life can also be difficult for the beautiful as they age. We have seen this with moviestars who go into […]

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By |2008-06-12T14:00:00-04:00June 12th, 2008|Life|Comments Off on Beauty and value in the second house