Phone Lust

Ever since Verizon launched the LG Chocolate yesterday, I have been obsessing about getting a new cell phone. I don't need one ... the current one works just fine. Am I a poor victim of a consumerist society? Could it be that riding the NYC subways -- where virtually everyone listens to an iPod, in addition to checking their email on their Blackberries and playing games on their cell phones -- I think it's normal to be carrying three gadgets on my person?

I do happen to have transiting Pluto squaring my natal Venus. Venus rules shopping, style and the "form factor." Certainly this phone is more Venusian than others. For God's sake, it's called Chocolate! What could be more Venusian than chocolate? I want to eat it!

Transiting Pluto adds an element of obsession and compulsion to Venusian things in my life (I'm keeping sex out of this blog!). Additionally, my Venus rules my 3rd house of communications, so a ravenous desire for a chocolate phone is not a bad intepretation of this transit.

However, this lust brings me to the topic of "value." Venus rules Taurus, which is naturally associated with the 2nd house of material possessions and values. What's important to me, what makes me feel good about myself? What do I want to spend my money on? Do I value having an mp3 player in my phone so that I don't have to carry my iPod? Do I value carrying around something pretty?

There's nothing wrong with spending money. As Dana Gerhardt wrote in a recent article in The Mountain Astrologer, we ought to enjoy our Venus. But one can go overboard, too. (Lindsay Lohan shops compulsively, according to the blogosphere. Her Venus in extravagant Leo is currently being opposed by transiting Neptune, the planet of "no boundaries" and addiction.) The key to a healthy Venus comes from doing a thorough inventory of 2nd house issues* so that one can make purchases based on an understanding of one's authentic values, not from a desperate need to conform to everyone else's spending habits.

*One could look at the 7th house in terms of the commodification of love and using one's partner to bolster one's "value," but that is beyond the scope of this blog entry.

Tags: lg chocolate venus astrology