Venus

What this is

Venus is the bright star of morning and evening, the lesser benefic, the planet of love and beauty and the pull of one thing toward another. She is the principle of attraction itself — desire, harmony, pleasure, the union of things that long to be joined. Of all the wanderers she is the most beautiful to the naked eye, and on the Tree she is Netzach, the seat of art and desire, eternity felt as emotion.

What it governs

She rules Friday — Freya's day, the love-goddess of the North set in Venus's place — and the planetary hours that sound her note through the week. Her sphere is Netzach, Victory; her signs are Taurus and Libra; her element is earth leaning to water. In a life she governs love and friendship, beauty and the arts, pleasure and sensuality, money in its sweetness, fertility, peace-making, and everything that draws and binds by delight.

Its properties

Her colour is emerald green and rose, her metal copper — which Cyprus gave its name and Venus her birthplace — her stones emerald, rose quartz, and malachite; her number is seven, from the kamea whose magic constant is 175. The incense is rose, sandalwood, and benzoin, the plants rose, myrtle, elderflower, apple, and verbena. Upright she is love, grace, the gift of making peace and making beauty, the warmth that draws people together and the pleasure that is clean. Her shadow is Kedemel, desire turned weapon — vanity, lust, jealousy, beauty used to manipulate, the appetite that consumes what it claims to cherish.

Where else it appears

Aphrodite rises from the sea-foam for the Greeks; Egypt gives Hathor, lady of love, music, and joy; the North gives Freya her falcon-cloak and her tears of gold, goddess of love and of the slain alike; the Celts feel her in Brigid of the forge, the song, and the healing well. On the Tree she is Netzach, where Hanael, Glory-of-God, presides over the heart and the creative work. Lay a rose before an image of love, sing to draw a thing near, make peace between two who are parted: lover after lover has worked the one binding, and its hermetic key is Gender — the two principles at work in everything.

Where you meet it on the Oracle

Venus holds her place on the spine through The Day surface, ruling Friday and turning the whole day toward love, beauty, pleasure, and reconciliation. She recurs as a planetary hour across the week, and her hour marks a window for courtship and friendship, for art and adornment, for making peace and for any work that succeeds by being attractive rather than forceful. When Venus comes up for you, read it as a day to mend a rift, to make or enjoy something beautiful, to draw near the one you love, to treat yourself and others gently, keeping the pleasure generous rather than grasping.

Why it matters

She is so because the universe is held together as much by attraction as by force; things seek their like, and Venus is the figure of that seeking. She matters because a life without beauty and love is merely a life endured, and the work of joining — person to person, hand to art, self to delight — is real work and worthy. What she asks is that you love and make beautifully, and let attraction enrich rather than enslave.

Correspondences

planet

Venus

element

Earth, Water

zodiac

Taurus, Libra

number

7

sephirah

Netzach (Victory)

day

Friday

colour

Emerald Green, Rose

metal

Copper

stone

Emerald, Rose Quartz, Malachite

tarot

III — The Empress