Rewriting Your Beauty Myth
The beauty myth was created to keep women in a state of perpetual inadequacy, always one purchase, one diet, one injection away from being enough.
Naomi Wolf named it in 1990. It has only deepened since.
Rewriting your beauty myth goes deeper than surface cosmetics. It is the work of recovering what was imprinted without your consent, and replacing it with something that actually belongs to you. Your own sense of what is beautiful. Your own experience of desire. Your own definition of worth that does not require external validation to exist.
This is the Venus work. The recovery of eros. The return to a self that knows what it wants, what it finds beautiful, what it is devoted to, from the inside out.
This is where we arrive.
Eris is paving the way through Her discordia.
Eris is Her name, in the language of the sky.
Goddess of discord.
The world is in discord.
The systems are in discord.
And something in you, something old, something that sees and knows,
is in discord too.
Eris is the one who was excluded from the table, throwing a golden apple into the center of the deceit and exclusion.
There is a part of you that was never invited to the table.
She is the thing you were told was too much, the anger that got called difficult, the truth you swallowed to keep the peace, the desire you learned to be ashamed of before you even understood what it was.
Discordia is your guide through the necessary unraveling.
She knows how to move through chaos.
She is the part of you that also always knew,
and was taught,
very early, to suppress, fawn or play nice.
Discordia is the fierce force calling you back to Self.
Her house shows you the domain where your voice, your body, your sovereignty were suppressed. This shaped itself into your nervous system.
Her transits show you every season the buried goddess tried to erupt,
and every moment of discord that was actually an initiation
in disguise.
These depth sessions are about remembering that the disruption was always yours, always truth, never to be dismissed as pathology or hysteria.
That whatever went underground in you
gets to erupt
into visibility here.
Venus is the planet of beauty, worth, desire and love. But the Venus most of us carry is not our own.
She was written for us — by industries, by cultures, by families, by men who needed us manageable. She told us our beauty had an expiration date. That our worth was relational. That desire was dangerous unless it served someone else. That love required the erasure of self.
That is not Venus. That is the Venus myth installed without our consent.
Your Venus — by house and aspect in your natal chart — has nothing to do with being chosen. She is your desire, undiluted by the male gaze. What your body moves toward when it is not managing anyone else's comfort or approval. She is your eros. Not eros as seduction — eros as life force. The raw current of what calls you, moves you, makes you feel genuinely alive.
Most of us have never met her. We confused being desired with knowing our own desire.
By the end of this container you will:
Sherene Vismaya, M.A. is a Jungian psychoanalyst, astrologer, and author who specializes in the intersection of depth psychology and astrology. She is the founder of Project 40, an online community devoted to Jungian Alchemy and the Path of Individuation, and the author of several books, including Speculation Now; Transpersonal Astrology: Explorations at the Frontier, & Surviving Saturn's Return (McGraw-Hill), Dog Stars (Penguin) and Fate of your Date (Chronicle Books). She holds a Master's Degree from New York University in Clinical Psychology, a Master's in Developmental Psychology from Pace University, and has completed post-graduate work in psychoanalytic studies at The New School and ISAP in Zurich. She was the Resident astrologer for Elle UK from 2005 to 2020.
Her work explores how astrology can be used as a tool for growth, self-discovery, and healing. She specializes in depression, addiction, creative blocks, and anxiety. She draws upon the principles of Jungian psychology, somatic healing, and Eastern spirituality to help individuals connect with their authentic selves to achieve a greater sense of wholeness. She has been a psychoanalyst and practitioner of astrology for twenty-five years, lecturing and teaching at conferences and institutes worldwide. Her work has been featured in various publications, including The Mountain Astrologer, Elle UK, Bust, Time Out New York, Psychology Today, Vera List at the New School, and Teen Vogue. She is widely regarded as one of the leading experts on Jungian astrology.
Sherene has been in private practice in New York City and San Francisco for the past 27 years, consulting, writing, and teaching. She currently resides in India, where she is deepening her studies in Vedic astrology and Eastern spirituality.
Sherene's knowledge of the stars and the human heart always astounds me. As a teacher of the divine arts, she conveys the kind of wisdom that can't be found in books.
BILLY CORGAN Chicago
This has been some of the most profound work, if not *the* most profound work I have done and will continue to do in this lifetime.
Thank you, Sherene!
MICHELLE MARLENE YORK New York City
I've been a part of several of Sherene's programs for a period of over ten years and found them to consistently be transformative. Most recently, the work I did unlocked my core issue and with that insight I've been able to grow as a person and enjoy better personal relationships, take my painting and writing to higher levels of meaning, and find a missing internal peace. I can't thank Sherene enough for the gift of personal understanding in a supportive space with inspiring energy and vision. I'm a better person for having participated.
Working with Sherene has completely changed my life. She’s an astrologer in the truest, most skillful sense of the word, but she also has a way of holding space that feels grounding and transformative.
Her guidance helped me get sober.
She supported me through deep work around trauma and my relationship with my mom that shifted everything for me. And through her Lilith sessions, I met the love of my life...something I never expected astrology to open for me.
I truly can’t recommend her enough.
Her work stays with you and continues to change you long after each session ends. She is incredibly caring, but she also has a way of helping you step into a deeper confidence within yourself.
The P40 Podcast is devoted to furthering the conversation on Jungian psychology, astrology, art and alchemy.
New and Full Moon forecasts plus other significant astrological updates and Jungian Psychology themed discussions.
