Charisma: What's Your Quota?
You'd think charisma is Solar. Or maybe Martian. Maybe even Neptunian. Nope: Charisma is purely Venusian.
IF YOU LOOK UP THE WORD CHARISMA in Google’s Ngram tracker, it doesn’t gain traction in the common nomenclature until the early 1940s. After that date, it spread steadily until it was co-opted by Madison Avenue and then dutifully degraded.
There’s a great interview over on the BBC’s podcast In Our Time where a panel discusses the social thinker Max Weber (1864-1920) and his development of the concept of charisma.
Weber associated charisma with leadership and authority. His definition focused on political and religious charisma—as a way to influence and guide large movements.
But in this private report, I’ll focus on our general associations with charisma. Taking inspiration from the word’s etymology, which is: A latinized form of the Greek kharisma “favor, divine gift,” from kharizesthai “to show favor to,” from kharis “grace, beauty, kindness.”
You can see some of the connections of charisma with the astrological Venus. This report will look at Venus in your birth chart and consider how you express charisma. To throw light on what makes you magnetic.
With nearly half of the solar system in the sign Pisces (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Neptune), it’s a perfect moment to consider your charisma quota.
Why? The imaginal touches us through our dreams, hopes, and search for inspiration. Hallmarks we associate with the sign Pisces. Before the sign Aries can achieve what we desire, an emersion in the Piscean realm (the sign that proceeds Aries)—the world of wishes—comes first.
(Should you not know where your Venus is located, you can visit AstroDienst and have your chart drawn up for free. Your Venus postion will be listed).
Understanding Venus’s Function
Venus and Mars, as a pair, have a specific function in nature that distills or finetunes eros. A life-preserving instinct that involves projection and attraction. The astrological Mars is a projector. Venus is an attractor.
Mars moves outward into the world with little regard for the external conditions it meets. If there is resistance, frustration follows. You can see why Mars is associated with war.
Mars desires and acquires. Venus refines and personalizes. Botticelli's famous 15th-century painting of Venus and Mars depicts the energetic exchange between the two.
Mars has gone out on a crusade, done his thing, and returned spent, allowing Venus—(despite appearing desolate in this painting)—to take over and begin her magic.
Defining Personal Taste
Another example: If you’re famished and need to find something to eat, the feeling of hunger is Martian. You move into the kitchen and stand in front of the refrigerator. But what you choose to eat and what you prefer to eat, and what you love to eat are related to Venus.
Mars is akin to digging through the earth, searching for raw materials that can be distilled. Venus is the refining process. Over time refinement develops into wisdom and sensitivity. This is a mysterious process that develops, over time, into a literal sensation of love.
We discover who we are by reflecting upon what we love and find lovely. This is the beginning of our relationship with beauty. And charisma: Our ability to attract.
Learning to refine one’s taste is a process that takes time, and as I’ve mentioned above, the frontrunner of taste relates to the Martian ability to proceed into the world of options.
Also, as astrologer Liz Greene reminds us, the goddess Venus is vain. This is one of her virtues. Vanity affirms—shows off—one’s affinity to what is admired and valued within oneself. One of life’s greatest pleasures is celebrating one’s preference for what one loves. And Venus does this unapologetically.
Greene advises that if you feel disconnected from Venus, you need to befriend her. She offers a simple example of walking into a shop and intuiting that something in the shop, “a garment, a piece of furniture, an ornament or whatever—is absolutely right for you.”
Learning to develop and express one’s taste takes time. Green says—using the same example of shopping—that if you wish to befriend Venus:
“You must be prepared to take three hours trying things on over and over again until you begin to get familiar with that mysterious feeling of what makes you attractive in your own eyes.”
You radiate charisma when comfortable with what you enjoy and love. It is a natural, unfettered outpouring—more unconscious than contrived or put on.
Here are key pointers to consider for each sign position of Venus in a natal chart: