Venus in Leo, unless Venus in between 6-11º, is a peregrine Venus. When a planet is peregrine, that planet is awkward. It’s a plant whose means of self expression seems to miss the point behind that planet. When planets are peregrine, they show us how to do things that we never thought we would need to or know how to do.

If Venus in Leo is a peregrine Venus and an awkward Leo, then it is also a Venus that tries to watch itself almost as if it were privy to some outside imagination of themselves. This may shock you. Venus in Leo seems to be a Venus that gets up on stage and belts its lungs out, doing its very best, but that Venus is aware of your looking and is also aware of their awareness of your looking.

Venus in Leo is a Venus that remembers the turmoil of growing into your own skin, of teenage self consciousness, and knows that the only way to get over the fear of doing new things is to just do them. It’s a brave Venus that is constantly doing new things that the body isn’t versed in and, so, has to learn how to laugh at itself.

The most telling trait about Venus in Leo, the thing that reveals someone as a Venus in Leo, is not that it performs itself. It’s that Venus in Leo knows how to watch other people.

Venus in Leo knows this because it is so well practiced at watching itself.

This is the photographer’s Venus, the filmmaker’s Venus, the psychoanalyst's Venus—this is the Venus of the person behind the camera or sitting by the sidewalk with a pencil and a paper drawing all of the faces it sees.

Venus in Leo looks at someone and, instantly, sees the biggest and brightest thing about that person. You see, Venus in Leo looks at you and sees talent raw and emerging. It sees you as a simply wondrous being. What is it like to love someone who sees your talent? Someone who is ready to play in it and wants to flatter it until it believes in itself? That’s what it’s like to love a Venus in Leo.

Venus in Leo almost never has the biggest hair or the rosiest cheeks in the room. In fact, it’s due to the peregrine condition of this placement that there’s a sense of staccato to how it stylizes itself. Venus in Leo, like other fixed Venuses, tend to wear similar cuts and silhouettes over and over again but it doesn’t aim for the biggest and the reddest. Venus in Leo dresses either like they’re from another time period or as though they are remembering something. They don’t always need to stand out. They don’t need the clothes to do the talking for them. They can very well hold a conversation for themselves.

The charm of Venus in Leo isn’t an aesthetic. It’s not stable. It’s animated, it’s talking, and it’s engaging. Venus in Leo tries to draw you in and they know that a dramatic whisper works much better than a loud yell.

Venus in Leo isn’t interested in aesthetic—it’s interested in character.

It’s sometimes said that Venus in Leo is a sign that doesn’t handle negative feedback well. Who does? But Venus in Leo is a sign that sometimes flinches with pleasure when faced with any kind of feedback, whether positive or negative. Yes—this Venus that showers you and everyone they met with compliments within minutes? They, too, cower away from admiration?

You see, Venus in Leo sees the Sun with all of its godliness when it falls in love. It learns how to see the godliness in itself. This is the Venus that wants to bring people closer towards itself like a fireplace in a desert snowscape. It provides all kinds of things to roast and it brings the most interesting mix of people in the same reach. And then it trusts that you will feed the fire.

Venus in Leo doesn’t simply ask to be fed. They leave it up to you. They understand that they’ll be fed by people who want to feed them.

Loving Venus in Leo is like giving birth. You never know what you’re gonna get. Venus in Leo doesn’t treat the existence of love as a script that they have to follow. There’s no such thing as a standard date and there’s no such thing as a suitable trajectory. Venus in Leo treats love as an act of creation. When you love as Venus in Leo, you join them in that act of creation.

Loving Venus in Leo, sometimes, is a challenge. It’s a challenge to be more of yourself, a challenge in receiving big attention, and a challenge in stepping up to collaborate on creating love. When you create love, you lose all rights to control what it looks like and how it behaves. Creating love is playing god. It’s playing treason to all of the social scripts of what love must look like. It’s saying “let’s try it another way” and knowing that there will always be a new way to try it.