The Mirror of Venus: 5 Keys

The Mirror of Venus: The 5 Keys - 2023, DS.

"Moving now from the decad to its half - we meet one of the most brilliant personalities of the 'society of numbers;' the pentad and the characteristics of the number five. In arithmology or number mysticism the number five partially pertains to the essence and importance of the decad as being its half and its condensed image, but it is also the gamos, Aphrodite's number as goddess of the fruitful union, the generatrix of love, and the abstract archetype of reproduction."

- From the 1931 investigation of phi and the pentagram: The Golden Number: Pythagorean Rites and Rhythms in the Development of Western Civilization, written by Matila Ghyka, a book I've just read recently. The above quote is the first of five similar brief references to Aphrodite and the pentagram found throughout the book; three of which combine Aphrodite with the Egyptian goddess Hathor.*

But, while Ghyka acknowledges an ancient connection between Venus/Aphrodite and the pentagram, it seems to rest upon the idea of marriage, a "fruitful" union... conjugal bliss. He calls this incarnation of Aphrodite "Gamelia," that is, "of the wedding." But, Gamelia was a name given to many, if not all the Olympian gods; specifically Hera, wife of Zeus; it wasn't amongst Aphrodite's major titles, and, regarding the pentagram, is too literal a translation of the "love goddess" and is, ultimately, a red herring.

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Inset left, above: the contemplative Venus of Arles... (seemingly) holding an apple up to her broken-off, handheld mirror. Inset right,  is an actual bronze mirror (Greek, circa 460 BC) supported by the figure of Aphrodite who is holding a dove, while 2 winged erotes stretch their hands towards a point centered above her head. If you connect the point at the top of the goddess's head with the two doves perched above on the mirror, you'll have an inverted golden triangle. Below, inset left, is another similar bronze mirror from the same period, currently in the Met Museum. This one features dogs chasing hares; the hare is another Aphrodite symbol. Hint: we've seen the dogs and the hares before.**

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So, mythologically speaking, marriage was never known to be Aphrodite's strong point... although love, both carnal and celestial, was. The Venus of the pentagram, however, is significantly more complex, and we have to approach her from a higher ground, so to speak. From Theoi we have:

"According to the cosmogonic views of the nature of Aphrodite, she was the personification of the generative powers of nature, and the mother of all living beings. A trace of this notion seems to be contained in the tradition that in the contest of Typhon with the gods, Aphrodite metamorphosed herself into a fish, which animal was considered to possess the greatest generative powers." 

And, there is so much more. One might say, Ghyka was trivializing the Venus/Aphrodite connection. While he inserts the word gamos in his brief comment, he neglects the word heiros (sacred). Nor does he infer in any way that the "wedding" is, in essence, chymical. So, my strongest impression of the book is that the deliberate omissions Ghyka (amusingly) accused other writers of making - including Vitruvius - might've been tip-offs to those of his own. That being said, he probably connects more esoteric "dots" in the pentagram's long journey within the pages of this book than you'll find anywhere else. But, keep in mind, the author may be sticking to traditional "fraternal" codes of secrecy all the while... something also mentioned quite often in his book.

"The mirror also, in turn, symbolizes revelation and truth: the mirror often shows the face, and the eyes, as shown in the painting Venus At Her Mirror or Rokeby Venus or Venus-Aphrodite by Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez, in which the goddess gazes into the mirror with only her face revealed. The eyes, in turn, are the paths to truth: they are the “window to the soul”, or, ever-more interestingly, the “mirror of the soul.” Aphrodite, in gazing into the mirror, is therefore not merely enjoying the sight of her own beauty, but is acknowledging the truth of all that resides within her – for, as Aphrodite Ourania, she is that which keeps together the entire cosmos and continues the survival of all."

- A quote found here, introducing us to to the most important facet of Aphrodite: Aphrodite Ourania or Urania, the celestial Aphrodite, and the Venus/Aphrodite who will concern us most in upcoming posts. She shares some of the attributes of Urania, the Greek muse of astronomy and the stars, in some cases mistakenly,  but, in others, possibly an indication of the evolution of Pentagonal Venus and the golden meme.

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The diagram above, a sort of gateway into the Venus subset of the golden meme, is already somewhat obsolete regarding the pentagonal journey I unintentionally began taking around Thursday, April 4, 2019, after my vision of the rose pentacle. I wrote at the time that I anticipated something "larger." But, really, I had no idea of the many roads left to travel. Needless to say, Venus/Aphrodite had her foot in the door from Day 1.

I have since learned that the Venus pentagram, in its entirety, is not merely one arrangement of five symbols but, possibly, an arrangement of 10. Moreover, each of first five symbols composing the "mirror" represent metaphorical hallways with numerous doors. In other words, the Venus pentagram remains true to the pentagram's nature - it's a fractal - very possibly as colorfully layered as (what appears to be) a phi-based Julia set, inset right. Additionally, Venus/Aphrodite is not merely 2 goddesses in one... she's worn many hats over the course of her very long career and has several hybrid forms as well, so, it's a very tangled web, indeed. 

In spite of all of the above, the first five symbols I'd originally chosen for the diagram still stand, but, while I had hoped to address each of them briefly here, I've come to realize it isn't presently feasible. There is no "brief" in this discussion. 

As for now, I will include in this post some bits which have already been written regarding several symbols in the diagram.

(Note: I was originally going to conclude this post with one more bit of information via Prince Ghyka which might interest us, and it concerns Albrecht Dürer. This "bit of information" was eventually accompanied by other bits of information to necessitate adding a dedicated Part III to Albrecht Dürer and the Divine Ratio Parts 1 & II. As I said, there is no "brief" in this discussion. Stay tuned.)

(Continued after the jump...)

1. The Rose.

All roses belong to the Venus/Aphrodite mythos, but the one which is informed by the pentagram is the wild, five-petaled rose, or the 10-petaled double rose. For some, the pentagonal rose has been an important esoteric symbol for hundreds of years, although rarely openly discussed. The rose as a symbol of love, however, is an almost universal understanding among poets of every description, going back for thousands of years.

One of the earliest love parables - and a controversial, medieval bestseller - was the poem entitled Roman De la Rose (Romance of the Rose), written by French authors, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun in the 13th century. It is about a mythical Lover who falls in love with a (symbolic) rose in a walled garden. Oddly enough, or not so odd, the goddess Venus and her angelic son, Eros, play major roles in the saga, and eventually help the Lover, reach his love object. Inset right is an illumination from one of the many richly decorated manuscripts of the tale, featuring Venus in her dove-drawn chariot and Eros (with green wings).

But, to really assess the rose's symbolism we have to go farther afield than just the romantic aspect. There's a strong, alchemical aspect... and, also, a very strong Christian (Marion) aspect (see Rosary, or Rosarium), and this is likewise true regarding the next symbol presented on the diagram: Aphrodite's Dove.

Meanwhile, the alchemical diagram (of unknown origin), inset left, features both the white rose (rosa alba) and a downward dove in a flask flanked by dragons. I am unsure of its authenticity and/or it's significance, but, I liked it here. For a Rose-related alchemical text see various readings of the Rosarium Philosophorum, circa 1550. Some sources might claim that the Philosopher's Rosarium has nothing to do with roses or Venus... but don't be fooled; there is a profound connection.

Below is a detail of the Immaculate Conception, 1637, by the Baroque artist, Jusepe de Ribera. The arrangement of stars (not accurately pentagrams), is a strange configuration I found in several related dove images. This is very possibly a coincidence... or a "hidden" proportion embedded in pentagonal phi... possibly addressing the relationship between the microcosm represented by the Mary and the macrocosm represented by the dove.

Lastly, the rose plays an important part in the love between Aphrodite and Adonis. And it is the death of Adonis, and the story of his lovers, Aphrodite (his theoretical "widow") and Persephone, goddess of the underworld, that inspired a separate religious mystery for the women of the ancient world.

4. The Dove.

"By the time of Jesus’ arrival, the people were so rooted in the rituals and meanings of the dove’s symbolism that these elements easily incorporated into the emerging Christian art and theology.

The dove continued to gather more spiritual attributes making it a dynamic symbol used earlier than the cross in Christian tradition...

The dove symbol was employed in the earliest Christian times in catacombs and in mosaics. From Constantine onwards it was occasionally represented with the nimbus to distinguish this now divine symbol from pagan versions that were already well established.

- Via this intriguing article quoted recently in a previous post regarding Aphrodite and her doves. In that quote, we learned that it was from the pre-Christian worship of the goddess Aphrodite, that the early Christians developed their ideas combining doves with the human spirit and, eventually the appearance of the Holy Ghost (or Spirit). Moreover, traditionally, it was the dovecotes devoted to Aphrodite which served as catacombs.

Due to the records left by Roman and Greek artists and artisans, we are continuously reminded of Aphrodite's important relationship with doves. Inset right, above, is an Etruscan lekythos (circa 350 BC)  featuring a highly unusual portrait of a girl and a bird (sourced from this amazing page). The pentagonal golden spiral tells us, however, that the "girl" is most likely Aphrodite. While the bird may not be a dove, we know from this smaller Greek lekythos featuring a dove between 2 spirals that dove imagery was a key feature in Venus's Mirror.

I should emphasize, I've seen enough spiral forms from this place & period to convince me the spirals were not "coincidental," and appear specifically in Aphrodite and Eros-related imagery. In other words, the Golden Meme was born in conjunction with the Love Gods... from which it drew its primal, timeless and indelible strength. It was born in Greece, and, like Ghyka asserts, may have first been established by the Pythagoreans.

 

Interestingly, in Le Nombre d'Or..., Matila Ghyka seemed to have drawn a similar conclusion about love and phi. It is in the chapter From Incantation to Love that the Aphrodite/pentagram connection is reinforced again. Ghyka goes on to mention a copper love talisman - "copper being the metal of Aphrodite Kypria" - "reproduced" by the Swiss alchemist, Paracelsus, which features Venus with a large pentagram hovering above her head.

Later, he quotes a paragraph from Cornelius Agrippa's 1533 classic De occulta philosophia, in which Agrippa refers to the pentad as the "Seale of the Holy Ghost,." supporting a thought I had recently concerning the pentagrams found adorning medieval churches & cathedrals... specifically windows, but also found on other religious items. The pentagrams are often shown upright, but at other times, they are inverted. 

These pentagrams are generally said to represent the "5 wounds of Christ" but I was never particularly sold on that idea... especially as some of the pentagrams are deliberately inverted. It finally came to me that symbolically, the pentagram may have represented an ascending or descending bird...  for the architects, masons and artisan guilds and/or fraternities. That is, it represented the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, which was sometimes portrayed flying upward and sometimes portrayed flying downward in religious art. The downward dove is, in some cases, the dove of the Catholic Pentecost - the dove of John the Baptist and baptism - but, it is often the artist's dove of choice for portraying the Annunciation... and/or the immaculate conception.

On a personal note, I remember being intrigued by a little downward dove medal I had as a child. There was an inscription on the back which read: "Come Unto Me." Later in life, I translated this into a desire for a kind of divine possession.

The beautiful pentagram window shown inset right, above, graces the front facade of Exeter Cathedral in the UK.

Inset left, directly above, is a downward dove found as a detail on a window from Chartres Cathedral. Below is a dove from a bible cover shown in both upwards and downward positions represented by the white-outlined star. (for position only.) Below those, is a a detail of a diagram by Matilla Ghyka showing the relationship between the 2 golden triangles, which I have edited to include the inverse.

Detail from "The Triangle of the Pentagon" - Matilla Ghyka, 1931.

5. The Planet.

"The story behind Hesperus and Venus is quite interesting. The ancient Greeks once called the morning star “Phosphorous” in its personified form and the evening star “Hesperus” in its personified form. Once they learned about and accepted the Babylonian theory that both stars were the same, and were not stars but actually a planet, they renamed it “Aphrodite”. The Romans learned all of this through the Greeks, so once they heard about the change in name, they, too, renamed the planet, this time to “Venus” (Greek Mythology, 2018)."

- Sourced from this article.

"A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black dot moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually several hours (the transit of 2012 lasted 6 hours and 40 minutes). A transit is similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon. While the diameter of Venus is more than three times that of the Moon, Venus appears smaller, and travels more slowly across the face of the Sun, because it is much farther away from Earth.

Ancient Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian and Chinese observers knew of Venus and recorded the planet's motions. The early Greek astronomers called Venus by two names—Hesperus the evening star and Phosphorus the morning star. Pythagoras is credited with realizing they were the same planet. There is no evidence that any of these cultures knew of the transits. Venus was important to ancient American civilizations, in particular for the Maya, who called it Noh Ek, "the Great Star" or Xux Ek, "the Wasp Star"; they embodied Venus in the form of the god Kukulkán (also known as or related to Gukumatz and Quetzalcoatl in other parts of Mexico)."

- Via the Wiki entry for Transit of Venus. The last transit was in 2012... the next will be in 2125. The photograph of Venus and Jupiter - Jupiter is the smaller of the two) was sourced from the Wiki entry for Venus,

In reference to the video originally posted here: no, despite it's lyric involving "a little black spot on the sun today" the Police's hit King of Pain was not really written with the transit of Venus in mind - it hadn't happened yet -  but, it made for a great video.

The transit of Venus, may have inspired the 19th century painting by Edward Burne-Jones entitled The Passing of Venus - although admittedly interpreted a little weirdly. A detail is posted inset left. Venus has become a luminous E.T. perched atop a dove chariot which has been transformed into a kind of hover-vehicle/UFO decorated with emblematic wings. 

It seems Burne-Jones, a Pre-Raphaelite, should be candidate for the Pentagonal Phi Club, except there is no solid evidence he and the other members of his brotherhood utilized any of the phi artifacts. This, in spite of the fact that the triumvirate of Italian painters, Raphael,  Michelangelo, and Leonardo Da Vinci all utilized the Divine Proportion at some point in their careers. Perhaps, the Pre-Raphelites were utilizing phi in another way. And, I say this because regardless of the missing phi artifacts, Burne-Jones' Venus exemplifies the hidden agenda of the Golden Meme: evolution. Venus has not developed wings, but her vehicle no longer depends upon flying creatures; she has developed a new "magic" which might carry her even further.

"Transits of Venus and Mercury have inspired artistic creation of all kinds. After having been the first to witness a Venusian transit, in 1639, Jeremiah Horrocks expressed his feelings in poetry. Production has subsequently widened to include songs, short stories, novels, novellas, sermons, theatre, film, engravings, paintings, photography, medals, sculpture, stained glass, cartoons, stamps, music, opera, flower arrangements, and food and drink... It is found that transits of Mercury inspire much less creation than those of Venus, despite being much more frequent, and arguably of no less astronomical significance."

- Via the introduction to the article (.pdf): Transits of Venus and Mercury as Muses.

Emblem XXIII.

"When Pallas was born and Sol was in Conjunction with Venus it rained gold at Rhodes."

- The introductory line of Emblem #23 from the alchemical text: Atalanta fugiens - The Flying Atalanta or Philosophical Emblems of the Secrets of Nature, Michael Maiers, 1617. It is worth knowing the myth of Atalanta - in which Aphrodite plays a crucial role - in the understanding of Michael Maiers' alchemical agenda. From the Wiki entry for Atalanta, we find this: "... the transformation of Atalanta and her lover into lions occurred at a moment of emotional and sexual bliss, which can be interpreted as divine sympathy for a couple who defied traditional Greek gender roles, and thus turning them into lions enabled the lovers to hunt and mate together for all eternity outside of Greek society, which would not have accepted their relationship."

"Eight years is the amount of time it takes for Venus to complete one cycle, during which it appears to create a pentagram, or five-pointed star, around the Earth. So 2020 marked the first full pentagram of Venus after its rare Transit. There were several other celestial rhythms culminating in 2020, not the least of which was the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, also at Winter Solstice. The next cycle of Venus then began again on January 8, 2022, and while the last eight-year cycle was informed by Venus’ Transit of the Sun, this one is informed by the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. This current cycle will last from January 8, 2022 to January 6, 2030..."

- Regarding the Venus Cycle.

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The planet Venus was ruled by a number of goddesses, among them: Venus/ Aphrodite, Astarte, Inanna, Ishtar, and, one you may not have heard of, Turan. Ultimately, all of them eventually coalesced (or collapsed) into the one Roman goddess, Venus; or, so the archeological records seem to indicate.

The planet Venus has a few pentagonal features, most of them known to ancient astronomers, which I've discussed elsewhere on this blog. To refresh your memories, however, I will remind you of the cycle of Venus and/or the Venus Pentagram, sometimes referred to as a rose. Below is one animated representation; a nice gif can also be found on this Reddit page. An interesting article regarding it can be found here. 

And, that's pretty much it for this post. As mentioned there are many more symbols which identify the various figures and or flavors of Aphrodite, including Aphrodite Urania.

One pentagonal symbol, discovered on this blog in the past few years is The Egg. And, this lowly little egg is one of the most important of all the Venus/Aphrodite symbols... representing sheer existence. You might say, it signifies the first pentagonal phi spiral... or, in the eyes of Salvador Dali, the first embryo in our entire oceanic universe.

Inset right, (and below, with its phi spirals), is a detail of Brera Madonna, a painting which may have been instrumental in the inspiration of Dali's many tributes to Venus containing the form of an egg. Note the 5-petaled rose details on either side of the shell alcove.

The painter of this egg and scallop shell motif - an architectural detail - was the Italian Baroque artist, Piero dell Francesca, another possibly important name related to the Roman/Italian leg of our pentagonal journey (and a new one... I actually found him today!).

What Dali "saw;" the definition of a geometrically elegant design.
(Note the downward dove created by the triangles and egg.)

Although the full canvas is meant to be a tribute to the Christian Virgin, it has a very strange-looking cast of characters. The infant Christ appears somewhat hermaphroditic... and as for the females in the background... which "saints" are they?  The Wiki entry never says. 

Considering the spirals I've found in Dali's various tributes to the goddess, I'd say that the two books by Matila Ghyka which allegedly existed in his library were, likewise, influential to him. Ghyka, although he never mentions the pentagonal phi spiral in his own texts, had to have known about it, and it appears as if Ghyka knew Dali personally! Observe:

"A fruit of his (Dali's) investigations in this field was the oil painting Leda Atomica (1947-1949). The work called for a lot of mathematical elaboration, to which he devoted many hours of analysis and study, as well as having assistance from the Romanian mathematician Matila Ghyka. This is demonstrated by the preparatory drawings and letters exchanged between the mathematician and the painter kept in the archives of the Centre for Dalinian Studies of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí." - Discovered via this source.

Inset right is Dali's Leda Atomica featuring one of two pentagonal spirals I found. This one emerges from the hovering eggshell in the central foreground. Leda can be viewed as Aphrodite's more darkly erotic, mortal half... a topic which must wait till some future time!

Hopefully, I can fit in a post addressing Dali and Venus in the near future... but, first in line, is Part III of the Dürer saga... reflecting his relationship to the Venus/Aphrodite angle... and Matila Ghyka's interesting theory about Dürer and a possible alias he used.

Till next time!

The Mirror of Venus - Edward Burne-Jones, 1877.

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* In reference to Hathor-Aphrodite, there's an interesting artifact at the Met Museum that's worthy of a view. See: Foundation plaque for a temple dedicated to Hathor / Aphrodite at Cusae (222-204 BC).

** An image from alchemist, Basil Valentine, posted elsewhere on this blog but, here, in color. Note the 3-hares symbol.