_edited.png){kind=logo}
On this Chiron–Mercury-Venus conjunct day, I want to talk about my vagina. For many reasons, but also because it is a lovely day for communicating or writing (Mercury) about our wounds (Chiron) around sex or femininity (Venus).
Sex has often been painful for me the last few years and I was somewhat a lot loss. I thought something was very wrong with me…I was cold or wasn’t open enough. I was closed off from my sexuality or needed to be more receptive or relaxed. Ultimately, what I was afraid to admit to myself was that I simply didn't want to have sex with those men in that moment. I realized I was just overwhelmed and my body was setting a boundary for me. It felt as if all the times I said "yes," but meant "no" had finally caught up with me.
I kept trying to open to men who weren’t open to me or whose love I wasn’t able to feel. It’s as if my vaginal walls were a muscle testing for availability of heart and very few men were able to pass the test. It was a form of self-protection and I’m deeply moved by the beauty of my own body to know that when my head was telling me these men cared for me as much as I cared for them.
I have realized I am deeply and profoundly turned on by love, connection, and partnership. When someone treats me like an equal partner and when I can feel a man approach me with their "heart-on" (sorry, I couldn't resist) and availability of heart, I melt. When I can't feel that, my body clearly say no. No amounts of lube, deep breathing, or convincing myself to "loosen up and have fun" will open me.
As someone who follows the cycles of Venus closely, I wanted to link my healing astrologically to use whatever energies might be more available. Venus' synodic cycle was closely followed by many ancient cultures and in Sumeria this myth as Inanna, the Queen of Heaven and Earth. When Venus was not visible, she was said to be in the Underworld, though I consider this a time of revealing and a descent into herself.
So as Venus created an exterior conjunction with the Sun on January 8 as an initiation into the Underworld, I began pelvic floor physical therapy. I was touched on muscles inside of myself that had never been reached. My therapist mentioned it wasn't that my muscles were overly tight, it was that I needed to retrain my body to feel more in my own control. The exercises included "dilators" of various sizes to insert into my vagina and leave there for up to 15 minutes at a time. It wasn't difficult because I was the one in charge and could go at my own pace and allow the muscles to flutter and then rest.
So, I vowed thatI would not be penetrated by anyone (or anything else) while Venus was still in the "underworld." (The few men I have dated since then were not so into my idea and while I didn't say specifically what was going on, they disappeared on their own anyway.) I wanted to take several months and allow my body to be fully my own. It felt like a reclaiming of virginity (also during Virgo season, how perfect) while simultaneously a deepening into self that was my only way to get clarity about my own vagina. This process is still unfolding, I am not sure what sex will be like next time, or how my body has changed on the inside out, but I have been reminded more than ever that my vagina craves love even more than I do.