Saturn in Libra and Beauty at Every Age - AKA Society (Libra) Makes Me Tired (Saturn)

The transit of Saturn (aging) through Libra (beauty) has drawn my attention again and again to how revolting and screwed up mainstream versions of beauty are. This is a subject that is certainly not new, but the particular Saturnine issue here that has my rancour up is the assigning of beauty strictly to the young.

As Mercury in Aries - the most youth-oriented sign in the zodiac - moves into opposition to Saturn in Libra (May 5), the theme is strong, particularly in media.

I find this, along with all the attempts to maintain youth - surgically, hormonally, or otherwise - horrifying, not to mention enraging. I can't get over how eroding it is. How false it is. And I also can't get over the acceptance of this as "the way things are" by people who, I feel, should be rebelling against it.

I'm tired (Saturn) of hearing people, especially women, talk about the "aging = losing your beauty" paradigm as if it's a real thing. "Betty, you just turned 50? Well, I guess it's time to hand over the hot." Looks shift and change with age. Health problems crop up that can make people feel less attractive. There's no doubt about it. But that doesn't mean people automatically lose their beauty and appeal as they move through the seasons of their physical lives. Quite the opposite in many cases.

This is a version of youth-obsessed physical beauty created, programmed, and reinforced almost entirely by monied mainstream media in order to keep people grasping and buying.

Real beauty doesn't make you feel jealous or 'less than' when you behold it - that's socially-engineered glamour and the energy of beauty as some sort of false hierarchy. It's "who's the fairest of them all" stuff, created mostly by males for the male gaze, and it keeps women insecure, competing, and divided - in this case, along younger versus older lines.

It's a false version of beauty I do my best to steer clear of, but I can't help but see it seeping into the psyches of some wonderful people I know, and I can't help but want to bust that shit up in a major way.

I've never been enamoured of youth. Even when I was in my teens and twenties, I wasn't that into it. I don't look back on my younger years as the good old days or as the point where I hit my peak in any way, shape, or form. I've also always found people of all ages attractive - both men and women - and still do, so I just don't buy this idea of the aging woman or man as some sort of fading flower, past its prime.

Photo: Willow

But man, that is one insidious idea to purge once it has gotten hold. It's amazing how many people believe this on one level or another and how it's continually reinforced culturally. And once this idea has gotten hold, it really does start to suck the radiance and vitality out of people as they internalize it. In my mind, this is what's chipping away at people's attractiveness - this poisonous and faulty idea of age, not the actual aging process.

Now, you have to understand, this is coming from a person with Venus in Scorpio in the natal chart. This might sound eyeroll-worthy, but Venus in Scorpio really is about the beauty of the soul, primarily, radiating through the physicality. It's like an old leather jacket perfectly worn in. A pair of cowboy boots that have walked a couple hundred miles. The beauty of wisdom through experience, of an authentic life honestly lived, scars and all. That wary, weary, wise look in the eyes that says, "I've seen your kind before. Don't even start with your bullshit."

The lit and make-upped, fake boobs, fake teeth, fake lips, fake hair, fake tan, Photoshopped version of beauty does nothing for Venus in Scorpio. It isn't interested in pretty, empty vessels. What it's looking for won't be found on the pages of Maxim or Vogue or People magazines, and it won't be found in the Hollywood blockbuster. It wants the battle of life worn through flesh and bone. It's one placement that finds the changes and processes people go through throughout life - including the difficult stuff - fascinating and attractive. The beauty (Venus) of metamorphosis (Scorpio).

One of the reasons I bring Venus in Scorpio up is that the energetic flavour is similar to what we are about to experience with Saturn's movement from late Libra into early Scorpio. As Saturn completes its transit of Libra, the issues around age and beauty are up front and centre. And as Saturn begins its transit of Scorpio in October of this year, the issues deepen.

One of the truly beneficial aspects of Pluto's transit through Capricorn is the opportunity (should we take it) to completely change the ways in which we view aging and older people. This is going to require a breaking down and re-structuring of programmed ideas about aging, as well as the institutional ways of relating to older people, and it's going to require people resisting, rejecting, and proving wrong the current ideas and ideals.

Things hit extreme catalytic/metamorphic potency on this front with Pluto in Capricorn in mutual reception with Saturn in Scorpio (October 2012 into September 2015) when we have two heavy-hitter planets double-teaming issues around aging - Pluto over the longer term and Saturn over the shorter term.

This will bring the opportunity to face deep, collectively-ingrained fears related to aging and death, shifting the orietation to those things dramatically and sloughing off current ideas about what those things even are.

Throughout the Saturn in Scorpio transit, we'll have the opportunity, personally and collectively, to shrug off once and for all the phoniness and fakery we're told is beauty and to appreciate the depth and gorgeousness of our own souls and the depth and gorgeousness of those around us - at every age.

A strong alternative to the current paradigm can be solidified and strengthened during this transit - one that appreciates the mystery and magic of life on this planet, the deep beauty of its continual metamorphosis, and the processes of aging and time passage as the modus operandi of that metamorphosis.

This is one of the best case scenarios for the Saturn in Scorpio transit: people honouring their beauty and attractiveness, simply refusing to accept a version of reality where a person loses appeal past a certain age marker. People of all ages, of all shapes and sizes, working it, confident that they're hot tamales, no matter what the current paradigms are telling them.

Pluto in Leos, you lead the way.