Female Rivalry

The Cinderella story focusing in on envy

I got thinking more deeply on the Cinderella fairytale and what the deeper psychological portrayal of the story is all about. I feel some of the themes of envy and suppression which are portrayed in Cinderella strike a deep chord within me. Most people know the fairytale of Cinderella and the rag’s to riches story, but do we always look at the symbols and meaning embedded in these very familiar tales we were told as children.

It is said that within every fairytale lies a hidden lesson in psychology, there have been many books now written on the meaning behind the fairy tales and each of them taking a look at what is really being shown to us in these tales. Fairy tales are dramatic and the stories are often about magic and godmother’s transformation, real evil villians and they seem far removed from our own daily reality and experience of life, but it is the essential meaning inherent in the story which keeps being told in a variety of ways is were we can gain our wisdom and knowledge through these timeless tales. In the tale of Cinderella she lost her mother at a young age, and her father now  a widower meets another woman who is also widowed and has two daughter’s of her own. The new wife hates Cinderella for she is graceful, kind, beautiful and speaks eloquently, and this makes her other two daughters look even more ugly in comparison, for they display ill manners, spitefulness, manipulative behavior just like their mother. The mother’s approach to her own daughter’ s is very manipulative she pushes them into attaining her status and power, she doesn’t ask what the daughter’s want for their own lives, all she is concerned is with how she appears in society, she only wants her daughter’s to get with a prince because he his wealthy and powerful and to her he an object who will enhance her own power and status in the village.

The father in the story dies and so Cinderella has an absent male figure in her life and has to live with her step mother and stepsister’s. The step mother in this tale particularly dominates the whole story. There is a lot of envy and rivalry in the main part of the story, (in astrology Venus relates to rivalry read part two). The step mother and sister’s envy and of being threatened by Cinderella do everything in their power to disempower her, to damage and degrade her. Cinderella is their servant, she has to do all the household duties, clean the floor, cook, sew the clothes, work outside. Yet through it all Cinderella doesn’t complain she cheerfully goes about her duties, and still appears beautiful even though she is poverty stricken and has to wear shabby clothes. This acceptance of her work with no anger directed towards her  step mother and sister’s seems to make her step family even more bitter towards Cinderella. Throughout the whole of the story is a very unconscious devouring female energy directed towards Cinderella. Cinderella lives with her step family accustomed to living as a servant being surpressed all the time right into womanhood, she works hard and never complains.

In the village the son of the king decides to throw a ball, and the stepmother and sister’s in the household are invited. Cinderella spends all day working hard to get everyone ready for the ball, the sister’s mercilessly teasing Cinderella throughout laughing at her clothes and how she is not good enough to attend the ball and meet the prince. When all the family set off for the ball, Cinderella is left alone in the house she sits beside the cinders and begins to cry. When she lifts her head up from crying she’s amazed to see in front of her a fairy godmother, who knows exactly what she is wishing for and makes plans to help Cinderella go to the ball. The beautiful dress the carriage and glass slippers were given to her on one condition that at the stroke of midnight the spell would be broken and she would return to wearing her old clothes again.

 When Cinderella arrived at the ball everyone was captivated by her but especially the prince who kept dancing with her all night. Time soon caught up and the bells began to chime at the midnight hour, Cinderella had to rush off an leave, as she was running the prince tried to follow her but could not catch up with her all he could find was a glass slipper that she left behind.

The Prince had fallen in love with Cinderella and announced the next day that he would marry the woman who’s foot fitted the glass slipper. The prince sent his men around the village to find the owner of the shoe. Many women tried to squeeze into the glass slipper but it did not fit. Perhaps psychologically the shoe represented the perfect fit for the prince his ideal mate, and many women tried to fit into this role by squeezing themselves painfully into a shoe that was not going to fit in the hope that they would attain prince charming, the shoe was only Cinderella’s individual fit. On some level this may represent our own individuality and to recognize urselves as unique and not try to force ourselves into someone else’s shoes.

Finally the Prince’s men reached Cinderella’s home and the ugly sister’s tried on the shoe in vain. The men asked if any other women lived in the house, they said only their servant Cinderella who’s foot would definitely not fit the glass slipper, how could it. But Cinderella was ordered to try on the shoe as all women in the village were. Cinderella came in sat down and easily slipped her foot into the shoe, the sister’s looked on in disbelief, and Cinderella brought the other shoe out of her pocket. The prince was called and everyone realized she was the beautiful princess. And despite of all the cruelty that her step mother and stepsisters had inflicted on her. Cinderella showed no malice ad she would forgive them all. The end of the tale is where she marries the prince her (male) powerful authoritative side and the conjunction was made of her male and female side uniting (Sun and Moon in astrology). In some tales of the story her step family where brought to the palace to live and they were very grateful and let go of their malice towards Cinderella and their hearts became good and even their faces became more beautiful.

And they all lived happily ever after……..ding dong, ding dong, ding dong.

The end.

I wonder what Cinderella’s chart would look like, quite possibly her Moon and Venus would be aspecting Pluto perhaps. Moon in aspect to Venus has often been stated as an aspect of rivalry between mother and daughter. As the mother loses her looks extreme jealousy of the daughter’s youth and beauty can cause the mother to bring the daughter down. This is an extreme case but it does happen, look at the fairytale of snow white which was even more extreme as Snow whites stepmother wanted her dead so she could be the fairest of them all.

 Mirror mirror on the wall…..

Part 2

The Astrology

Venus in mythology was sometimes referred to as the “dark one” because of the the tragedies which resulted from her passions. Aphrodite in myth would create terrible punshments when she was not the revered one, or acclaimed as the most beautiful. In society today female rivalry exists and the Cinderella story is one tale of it. Remember the rivalry which went on between Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks, Naomi feeling threatened and jealous that another black model had entered onto the scene, and she turned into a super bitch, her female envy turned up to the extreme. Although admittedly she is like this to a LOT of people. Reportedly she made Tyra banks modelling life hell, many times the model has been left in tears by what Naomi Campbell was doing to ward off her “female rival”. If we peer psycologically into Naomi Campbell’s horoscope map, we see she has Venus in Gemini conjunct Mars and both square to Pluto. Mars square Pluto can be extremely competitive, and ruthless in it’s attempts to win both these planets are associated with Scorpio and Mars with competitive Aries. Individuals withthis aspect may use their power constructively or destructively, add in Venus and in comes the competiveness linked into her female energy, how she feels as a woman, Naomi with Mars in Gemini can be extremely fierce and argumentative as Gemini is an air sign she can be very abusive verbally, there is a lot of rage contained in Mars square to Pluto. Gemini is the sign of the twins and it is strange to see this battle between opposities fight it out. Similar to the myth connected to Gemini with the twins castor and pollux one of whom is divine and the other mortal, in the crossing of the hero’s thresh hold in myth there is the confrontation with the dark twin. The issue of rivalry seems to appear in Gemini’s life whether through a sibling or a friendship, again astrology’s myths find a way of appearing in the reality of our lives just like fairytales. Naomi made sure her female rival was not going to defeat her. Although career wise the underdog didn’t fare badly, Tyra Banks having her own shows, like America’s Next Top Model, yet if you watch an episode of America’s next top model you will see the jealousy, fighting, and competiveness. The bitching behind eachother’s backs. Naomi Campbell even today still gets in the news for her abusive antics.

A look at what Venus represents in the natal chart:

The glyph for Venus is a circle with a tiny cross under it, and some say this symbol looks like a mirror. Venus is the symbol for female, it connotes spirit, over matter. Venus symbolizes the need in which to share with another. Venus is the urge to be desired. Venus allows us to recognize we are in relationship with others, and by comparisons seeks to discover the similarities.

Venus represents the core essence of the feminine nature. As the embodiment of grace and harmony, Venus cultivates beauty through the arts and social graces. She endows a natural elegance and refined aesthetic taste. The degree to which we love something determines their worth to us. The greater the value something holds for us, the more we are prepared to give.

Venus also confers the gift of being able to see differences and similarities, and the capacity to view one thing in relation to another. Venus symbolizes our urge to co-operate and share with others, our desire to give and harmonize, to love and be loved. How easy or painful it is to give of ourselves to another person is shown by Venus in the birth chart.

Planets contacting Venus will describe what supports or gets in the way of our being able to achieve this co-operation and harmony. If we project Venus onto other people it shows we have no capacity for self love and cannot feel worthwhile unless loved by another. How we seek and attract others and the way in which we value ourselves, in turn has a strong bearing on appearance, how we dress, do our hair and generally try to make ourselves look as attractive as possible.

Venus indicates our capacity to find a sense of joy in our lives. The extent to which we feel ourselves to be worthwhile, and to which we think we are capable of giving pleasure and enjoyment, are indicated by this planet. People who are not positively connected to Venus tend to feel ugly and worthless, unlovable and undeserving of happiness. They do not appreciate their own bodies or have a sense of being loved and contented.

According to Sue Tompkins ” The experience of passionate feelings for another represents the antithesis of feeling safe and secure. When ‘in love’ feelings of jealousy and insecurity can so easily be aroused, and feelings of safety and security fly out the window. The degree to which we may or may not feel threatened when the object of our desire so much as talks or looks at another person is largely based on the extent to which we do or do not feel OK about ourselves. The equation roughly goes: insecurity plus desire equals jealousy.

The psychology to be associated with Venus can result in either war or peace. On the one hand the astrological Venus describes our urge for harmony and peace and our ability or not to achieve this. In Venus mode we find points of agreement and similarity, here we are prepared to give in. Here we want to equalize and balance and are willing to yield. The principle of co-operation is key to the planet and also to the success of all relationships.

To be continued…. Aspects to Venus.