Venus is Full of Herself

Madonna is the one that got me dancing around my room as a teen, to extended versions of Holiday and Into the Groove. Before I hit a heavy goth period that took the cheer out of my music tastes, SuperLeo (Sun, Venus, Uranus) Madonna activated my own Venus and Jupiter in Leo, and I still feel like busting a move when I hear those songs. She made it okay to Celebrate being a girl in a big way. I've always been glad she's about a decade ahead of me. She's like an older sister showing that you don't have to lose your color, passion, dignity, willingness to take creative risks at 40, 50, 60, and on. And she does it from the inside-out, as well as with outer glam, with yoga, a Moon in Virgo rooting her in some hard-core discipline to keep it together.

Her role in the culture has been to embody a freedom of sexual expression done artfully and with over-the-top pageantry. Her birth chart shows Uranus in Leo near her Sun-Venus. The sparking nature of Uranus means that her own creative risks, can inspire others to express themselves, too. "Express yourself!" she sings. I see her as one face of the re-emerging Goddess in society at large, the one that revels in herself with no apologies. Holding the Self in high regard, allows the artist in Leo to take what they do seriously. Of course, that can always get out of control. In a spiritual smackdown, her brother Christopher Ciccone writes, "I hope that it is Kabbalah's lesson that she is not the center of the universe." It's in a book out this week called, Life with My Sister Madonna, a title which the New York Observer slyly observes, makes him again a satellite to his sister, the Star. Like a lot of Leos, I'm sure she's not always easy to live with. She's the one in the spotlight.

With Venus in Leo through August 6th, the stories told around the campfire have a little more je ne se quoi and are possibly acted out. Fire signs (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) get lit up, and romance that starts now has a breathless, epic feel. When the particulars of the Self have a charge, you're more in the mood to express your story through art, music, writing and drama. Leo is a sign of childhood play, laughing out loud, activities done just for the fun of it, and creating memorable moments that you look back on and smile.