Venus

On Venus the Sun rises in the West and sets in the East due to it’s counter-orbital rotation. It takes about 117 Earth Days for the Sun to reach the same point in the Venusian sky—called the Solar Day Length.

Venus and Earth are very similar in Size, Density, Composition and Orbital Circularity, and they are consecutive in order from the Sun. This is a common feature in the solar system—bodies alike are also adjacent or near each other in the orbital order—Neptune/ Uranus, Saturn/ Jupiter, Pluto/ Eris.

“The atmosphere of Venus consists mainly of carbon dioxide, and, at the planet’s surface, is the densest and hottest of the atmospheres of the four terrestrial planets. With an atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface of about 92 times the sea level pressure of Earth and a mean temperature of 737 K (464 °C; 867 °F), the carbon dioxide gas at Venus's surface is in the supercritical phase of matter. Venus is shrouded by an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, making it the planet with the highest albedo in the Solar System.” (from wiki)

“The orbit of Venus around the Sun is the closest to Earth's orbit, bringing them closer than any other pair of planets. This occurs during inferior conjunction with a synodic period of 1.6 years. However, Mercury is more frequently the closest to each.” (wiki)

“About 80% of the Venusian surface is covered by smooth, volcanic plains, consisting of 70% plains with wrinkle ridges and 10% smooth or lobate plains. Two highland "continents" make up the rest of its surface area, one lying in the planet's northern hemisphere and the other just south of the equator. The northern continent is called Ishtar Terra after Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love, and is about the size of Australia. Maxwell Montes, the highest mountain on Venus, lies on Ishtar Terra. Its peak is 11 km (7 mi) above the Venusian average surface elevation. The southern continent is called Aphrodite Terra, after the Greek goddess of love, and is the larger of the two highland regions at roughly the size of South America. A network of fractures and faults covers much of this area.” (wiki)

Venus has a very slow Solar Day Length, roughly 116.7 days, and a year length of 224.7 days.

Solar Day/Year = 224.65 days / 116.75 days = 1.92419. This is very close to 2^(17/18) or 1.92445. So a perpetual pattern exists in this particular musical system of 18 notes in an octave length of 2 with Venus.

Energetically the most relevant questions regard temperature—of which she is the hottest of the 4 terrestrial planets (Merc, Ven, Earth, Mars).

Since her orbit is nearly a perfect circle and the most circular of all the major planets, she is also a body that determines the orbital octave harmonics for the solar system (all the others have to come round to her perfect circle of harmony if all the planets are to harmonize together in unity).

The other 2 planets who compare to Venus (1.01) in orbital circularity are Neptune (1.02) and Earth (1.03). But Neptune and Earth only ever exist as an oppositional harmonic (tritones or the devil’s tone) to Venus because of their mutually narrow path around the Sun.

Venus is traditionally matched to the Hermetic Sphere of Netzach (NTzCh), which is tied to the concepts of Perseverance, Proliferation, Growth in diverse forms, and the Quareia System calls this sphere the Grindstone.

If the properties of Venus would be the guide to its nature within a cultural mode, then the emotional nature could be linked to the high Temperature of Venus. Just as the tendency for Venus to birth chemical forms in diversity links this planet to the abundant forms of the imagination which are not manifest in Earthly reality—which is sort of the essence of the Grindstone—to gradually manifest something into Earthly form takes a long bout of honing that thing into a form that persists on Earth and in Earthly culture (which is similar but opposed to Venus’ nature in some ways).

So, though there is a strong correlation to beauty, perfection and balance in Venus’ circular orbit, there is also the concept of a balance too perfect being inhospitable to a diverse range of life. To put it in another way: what fairs well in one diverse culture, dies quickly in another. What is toxic to one, is appetizing to another.

In Hermetic Lore, the Sun is correlated to Harmony, Beauty and Balance. Yet it could be said as well that the Sun sets the anchor to which all others must harmonize to as a group. So in this context Venus would be a particular concept of Harmony within a stellar orbit (highly circular orbits are very common in the Universe as far as we can tell).

It is also good to remember that solar systems take hundreds of thousands of years to form into a stable pattern of matter and energy. And since they come from a common pool of matter they all actually slowly form together rather than being birthed by a star or any other body. The power of creating life is really a complex set of conditions formed by the whole and in regions of the system where both matter and energy are right for life to flourish (not too hot, not too cold).

Niche

Glamour

Diversity of the Imagination

Cultural and Counter-Cultural

Grindstone