Doing these videos has been a real education for me, mostly because I have never seen so much of myself in my life. And with Venus square Neptune I have little idea what I look like, what size I am or anything else.
Long time readers know my ex, the AMF had to tell me that none of my clothes fit and in fact the boots I used to run around in were 2 sizes too big for my feet. Nothing new there.
When I was 30 or so, my sister broke it to me, I’d been wearing my lipstick crooked all my life and she wanted me to stop. (Has swearing below)
I had another boyfriend who would pluck my eyebrows for me and I could go on and on with the stories of people trying to clue me in as to my appearance when it should be obvious from the above, left to my own devices I am pretty much oblivious. I got this from Henry, I think.
Henry didn’t like his appearance. It bothered him so much he covered the one mirror in the house with a towel, only taking it down only to shave. He explained that seeing himself put him in a bad mood and I have a similar quirk. I don’t weigh myself.
I don’t weigh myself because I got sick and tired of my day being affected by a number on a scale. It just made no sense to jack myself up over a number so now I weigh once a year when I go to the doc for a pap smear. But anyway, here’s my point:
When I was a kid, I used to play cards. I used to play the hell out of cards that is, and at a table with adult men. And I won almost always, because I am lucky for one and freakishly competitive for another, I was sober, but most of all, my “poker face” was renowned.
Now I was 8 and 9 and 10 years old and though I knew I had a poker face, I didn’t know what a poker face was. Well, I knew but I didn’t. I knew you weren’t supposed to tip your hand so I assumed a poker face was a blank stare and I assumed this for about 30 years until I met Stevie. Have a look at this website top10pokerwebsites.net to learn about different types of poker pace and how to play poker online through online poker sites.
Stevie was the first person to describe my poker face to me and boy what a shock in both directions. I met Stevie online but then I went to her house to meet her in person. And she’d heard about my poker face. She’d read about it, rather so she was curious to observe it, and this was all unbeknownst to me.
So I met (Double Scorpio) Stevie and I wrote about what she shared with me here, The Astrology of a Person’s Energy in a Room. You can read that bit if you want. It’s from 2006 and was my most commented blog of all time back then so there is some interesting stuff there, but here’s the edited version:
I asked her what it was like when I came into a room…
“You?” she said gaily. She was in a mood. “You’re the wind,” she said, waving her arms around. “When you come in, all these musical notes swirl around…”
She was waving her arms like crazy and I just stared. Did she mean chaos?
But then I realized she was describing Venus Neptune. Music! And as I began processing that, she switched gears.
“But the main thing is your poker face,” she said.
“What? My poker face?”
“Oh yeah. Hell, yeah! Your poker face is a motherfucker. You have the best poker face in the world.”
“I don’t get it Stevie. What do you mean?”
“It’s your smile! You’ve always got that smile! No matter what, you smile and who knows what you’re thinking? There’s no telling. What is she thinking behind that smile? You could be thinking anything, there is just no way to tell…”
I snickered. “I see. Oh yeah. I can see that. Because if I hated someone I would still smile at them. Jupiter rising, see. It doesn’t matter how I feel. All I have is this grin,” I said. “No off button.”
~~
So since I have been doing these videos I have come face to face with my own face and boy what a shock it is. Because I know what I am thinking, see? When I take pause in the videos and smile, I know the things on my mind that I could say or might say but don’t say or forget to say which I think is one of the reasons I smile so much.
It’s because I am so entertained. I’m amused by what comes out my mouth (.000001%) as compared to what does not and at how I say things I do not intend to say and don’t say things I absolutely intend to say and ultimately I just have to leave it as is because I live in this hall of mirrors and there is just no cure.
And I’ve been watching these for awhile now trying to get my mind to understand that this is exactly what I was like when I was a kid. All those card games, one skinny dark-haired girl sitting there grinning, mind whirling in the background and rakin’ in the dough, for reasons unbeknownst to her. This is my Moon Pluto transit talkin’ too, I guess. Some roots I’ve got. You wouldn’t believe what I was thinking about those guys.
Do you have an incurable thing? What is the thing you do and do and do and just can’t stop doing no matter what?
You smile, I scowl. It’s because I’m always deep in concentration (daydreaming) but people always, ALWAYS think I’m mad. A scowl is my “neutral” face setting 😉
Feeling..that’s mys incurable thing
ugh it sounds so stupid, but it’s true. I relate everything to myself and I guess that’s a 1st house moon thing. I need to learn to be more impersonal.
assume that nobody actually notices me because they don’t talk to me.
uh… i’ve been catching up on years of that, in dribs and drabs, lately. from one person or another. as i get more sociable. it’s really surreal.
I have this “million dollar smile”, that I got from my father. Its just the way the facial features arrange when the smile comes out. If I knew how to use it I’d be a frickin’ millionaire. But I can’t “use” it. If I don’t feel it, I can’t do it. I have Venus and Mercury in Capricorn close to the midheaven, so I have this very serious look most of the time.
Thanks for a wonderful story. I never bet but have a similar story about beating the old men playing cribbage in our small town as a child. I always won at cards and other games. If I like the game and think to myself that I’ll win I win. Period. Even now as an adult. If I don’t like the game, I don’t ever win. I hate monopoly, for example.
Who knows about my “poker face” everyone I know says that I have a ton of emotions on my face. I think that what my face expresses is somewhat disconnected from what I’m actually feeling – like it reads 10 or 20 min. behind where my emotions are.. or the other way around.. so people get confused. My timing is off or something…
But thanks for the wonderful story!!
mudlike – thanks for telling me that was a wonderful story because by God, I didn’t know! Moon opposite Neptune and reality, “slip slidin’ away”.
yes, i noticed all the smiling on your first video too! you smile at the beginning of a point, in the middle, and at the end a point, lol 🙂 even about things that bug you, lol. you also make eye contact with the bottom of the screen, not eye level…perhaps this is the camera level? but i love your videos…keep’em coming!
i tend to reflect whatever i’m surrounded by. no matter who it is, strangers, friends, work, whatever, i get totally absorbed in what they are doing/saying/feeling … and then start to do the same! i can immitate people’s nervous ticks, favorite words/choice of words/writing style, mannerisms, sense of humor, moods, patterns…all in the spirit of fun of course 🙂 but put me with an angry or depressed person and i become a downer too… I can’t concentrate in messy or ugly surroundings either, or with funny smells. i just can’t keep stuff out. sometimes i can’t even tell if what i’m feeling is coming from inside me or from something or someone else. it’s like being constantly lost!
Cripes, there’s that Monopoly again! I just found a board, I guess you won’t come over and play, Mudlike? LOL!
Geez, I have no idea. Somebody needs to tell me. Venus conjunct Neptune on Ascendent in Scorpio. Go figure…
I can relate to Ana; I’m not as bad, but I do tend to absorb a lot of my environment like a big sponge. If the energy is good, I am good (I’m excellent!). If the energy is bad, I am depressed and want to leave (or, I try and fix it).
Pisces moon, Leo sun trine Neptune. Sometimes I am aware of my effect on people and other times I have no clue whatsoever.
You do smile a lot – it appears as though you’re always in a good mood at first, but then we realize that you smile through the bad things too, even through some tears. But that’s you, it’s nice to see a happy face.
I’m just thinking how unfair this is, we’re all here hiding behind our screens when you give us your smiley face that we can analyze to the detail, even though we may never know what you’re thinking…
I like that Venus-Neptune thing, in some ways it’s the opposite of self-consciousness and I have that a lot, maybe it’s my Venus-Saturn, but that’s the main thing I can’t stop doing – feeling conscious of my every move, every twitch of an eye, every hair in my body…that and the shyness!
I have Venus quincunx Neptune, and I don’t know if it’s the cause, but how I see myself in the mirror is never the same as how I appear in photographs. When I look at photographs, I often feel like I’m seeing someone else. Until now, it never occurred to me to ask if anyone else felt the same way.
As for your videos, they’re great. Whatever you’re thinking as you do them, what comes out is really sound, coherent and very helpful!
hitchiker72 – thank you very much and I can tell you for sure what you describe is a Venus Neptune phenomena. I am frequently taken aback by my own appearance… it is very easy for me to forget I exist in the first place so when hit with the evidence I am sometimes overwhelmed. I don’t always recognize myself either and I look different shapes and sizes to myself on a routine basis and it’s crazy making.
At this point I have pretty much decided to decide (LIbra) that I probably never look as good or as bad as I think I do and beyond that, I leave it to others to puzzle over because this is unsolvable for me.
I’ll tell you something else. I have a habit of wanting to stand next to people and look in the mirror. Do the the same in shop windows because I can see things clearly that way. I do this allll the time. Did it with the AMF, I do it with the soldier, who told me I did it when I was a kid too.
I am pretty sure I am verifying my existence in relationship to the other person who I know is real.
I might add, I have Venus sq Neptune but I also have saturn/neptune exchange pronounced so this would increase these effects I am sure.
and I had another thought. I was almost 30 when my sister told me I looked, Italian. I had no idea. I was completely dumbfounded.
Matter of fact there was a tag team on that. My sister and another gal telling me the same thing at the same time. “Are you guys sure?” I asked stupidly. “Are you sure about this? You’re not just making it up?”
::shakes head::
🙂 cool stories. But isn’t this all normal? Maybe most people feel this way. We don’t always know how we look, because we change. Plus, other people have different perspectives about how we look. None of this is very stable.
this happens to me all the time. Especially now after loosing over 100 pounds in less then 2 years,after a life time of being overweight, my image of me is sooo confused. I’m dealing with this every day, in mirrors, in people’s opinions of how I look, in people talking about fat people and I think their including me, and then realizing I’m totally wrong. It’s mind boggling.
Also when I’m in a group of people I listen to them talking and I totally forget I exist, I forget I should intervene and be social. I don’t have venus neptune. venus saturn. and pisces sun with moon conj neptune.
But i wouldn’t be surprised if most people felt this to some degree. maybe not as extreme as Elsa’s 🙂 you look totally italian.
another thought, being pisces and neptunian enough, I atract people with venus-neptune contacts and their perspective of me is often idealized, and it contrasts with my saturn-venus opinion of how I look.
For example,I was watching “all in the familly”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066626/ with my cousin, and telling her I think I must be related to archie (the old man in the sitcom) cause he’s the spitting image of me, my face looks totally like his, and she didn’t beleive I beleive this! neither did anyone else. But it’s true!
I wish I saw myself like most people see me. But I might never be able to, thanks to my saturnized venus.
My niece has Venus conjunct Saturn in her 12th inconjunct Neptune. I attempted to explain to her how others saw her and what she could do to look less vulnerable but all it did was frustrate her. From what people are saying here I’m beginning to understand what she is up against . . .
I am pretty clear on how I appear to others (Venus in 1st trine Saturn), Neptune messes with me in other ways. 🙂
Elsa: Actually, I have Saturn opposite Neptune as well… Huh, interesting! You’ve given me something to think about.
I have a Piscean friend who says he looks different in every photo because he’s Piscean, and it’s true.
And, btw, I thought you looked Italian when you first started posting the videos….. *contrite* 😛
how i see myself largely depends on how i feel about myself or the situation i find myself in, so this perspective changes frequently, even a few times during the day.
for example i met up with a good friend yesterday. the talk turned to relationships and attractions. i consider myself plain looking in the public sphere. however, when i am in my own home and alone i really enjoy how i look (i have only two mirrors: one in the bathroom and a small hand held one. maybe this is why i mainly feel good here at home ~no reflections).
Elsa i find your confirming your existence by gazing into a mirror when standing next to a friend if he happens to be in front of a mirror fascinating. it sounds like it would make for a good science fiction. 🙂
saturn square neptune
yep, i agree with violet. your state of mind really does affect your appearance. when i’m happy, nothing in the world could make me more radiant and i walk down the street feeling and looking like a million bucks. when i’m sad, nothing will lift me up and i feel and look absolutely terrible. i can actually see a huge difference in photos taken at those times – i literally look like two different people. i definitely look best around those who make me feel good.
Real post =)