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| Venus Rising (The Star) 1890 by Jean-Leon Gerome |
What do you think of when you see a five-pointed star?Hollywood stars? The flag of the United States? Wicca, paganism, or witchcraft? The Virgin Mary? Gawain and the Green Knight? The military? Journeys to the underworld? The end of the Mayan calendar in 2012?
At times, I think of all of these things, but mostly, I think of the planet Venus, beauty, and the golden ratio. Here’s why:
“It does WHAT?”
That was exactly my reaction, the first time I heard this. Many of you reading The Oxford Astrologer may already know it, but let me explain for those who don’t.
That was exactly my reaction, the first time I heard this. Many of you reading The Oxford Astrologer may already know it, but let me explain for those who don’t.
Every ten months, Venus conjuncts the Sun. This alternates between conjunctions when Venus is retrograde ("inferior conjunction") and when it is direct ("superior conjunction"). Each conjunction is then repeated (within 2 degrees or so) eight years later.If you draw lines between each consecutive inferior conjunction OR each consecutive superior conjunction that takes place over this eight-year period, you will draw a five-pointed star, just like this one.
This also works for Venus’ station points, before and after a retrograde.
The five-pointed star can be drawn without ever lifting your pen from the paper, and its starting point is also its ending point. For this reason, it is sometimes called “the endless knot.”
If you draw such a star with the points equidistant, they will be 72 degrees apart, which is a quintile in astrology. Quintile aspects indicate natural talents and gifts in a natal chart.
Like much of the rest of nature, Venus’ pentagram has the golden section (and by extension the Fibonacci sequence) embedded within it. When you draw that star on the paper, its lines are divided into segments, where they cross.
Every segment in every line of that star is in golden proportion to the next longest segment: 1 to 1.618. This proportion is considered by artists, architects and others throughout history to denote beauty. So Venus, the goddess of beauty, demands a sense of proportion.
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| The golden section or ratio. |
Every segment in every line of that star is in golden proportion to the next longest segment: 1 to 1.618. This proportion is considered by artists, architects and others throughout history to denote beauty. So Venus, the goddess of beauty, demands a sense of proportion.
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| The Parthenon, designed by Aphrodite's acolytes. |
But the pentagram is just one facet of the cycle of Venus. Every ten months Venus conjuncts the Sun, but it’s rare for Venus to also parallel the Sun, passing directly in front of the Sun from the point of view of the Earth. This is called an occultation, and it happens only about every 120 years. When occultations do happen, they happen in pairs, eight years apart.
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| The star at the heart of an apple |
The year 2012 has been getting a lot of buzz, due to the end of the Mayan Calendar’s Long Count in that year, by some calculations. Calculations regarding the Mayan Calendar are complex and controversial, and there are many conflicting theories. I am not a scholar on the subject, so I will leave those debates to the experts.
One thing that is clear, however, is that the Mayans regarded Venus as important, and her cycle was used in many of their calculations. In their mythology Venus makes a journey to the underworld. A tale has intriguing echoes for any student of western or near eastern mythology. I will discuss Venusian journeys to the underworld in my next guest column.You can find more about the Venus Pentagram and associated mythology in my mini book, 5: The Venus Pentagram, available on Smashwords.
With a packed 9th house ruled by Pisces, Laura Perkins is part questing knight and part siren, with a Jupiter in Gemini element of trickster.
She's a recovering techie geek, and an emerging writer and artist. Visit her website at http://www.laurajp.com.
