Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Many Faces of Venus - the Dance of the 7 Veils


Consciousness is neither masculine nor feminine.  However, in a dualistic reality such as the one that humans have been creating on Earth for thousands of years there is a masculine form of consciousness (Mars) and a feminine form of consciousness (Venus).  I placed the planets that coincide with the consciousness in parenthesis.  This is not to be confused with the terms male and female as this applies to gender and anatomy.  
The planetary aspects of consciousness is a huge subject so I will summarize.  We can focus on the Feminine principle as that of receptivity with the attributes of: fluid, grace, creative, the vessel of creation, maternal, feelings, beauty, aesthetics, pleasure of the senses, nourishing, nurturing, spiritual, personal and romantic love, physical desire, emotions.  
Venus as a Goddess shows up in many civilizations throughout our written history.  In Roman times, she was known as Aphrodite, the goddess of grace and love.  She gave her name to the second planet in our solar system, the planet of both dawn and dusk.  Her sister goddesses are Inanna from Sumerian times and Ishtar from Babylonian times.  Both of these goddesses have been labelled as members of the Dark Feminine.  The usage of the term dark refers to the shadow aspects of the feminine.  The shadow represents that which is hidden from view, banished from existence, unconscious, not understood by the masses and fear is imprinted.  Most people in the western culture do not embrace their shadow side until confronted by the crisis between their own masculine and feminine.   
The journey or Many Faces of Venus is one of a planet changing position in the sky.  Venus appears in the morning sky and disappears in the evening sky.  At some point, she vanishes beneath the horizon and enters a period in the Underworld.  The mythology of this unpacks the psychological approach to spiritual death and disintegration so that a rebirth can happen.  However, in our modern western culture death conjures fear, not celebration for the right of passage that it represents.
The Feminine divided into the Light and Dark aspects depicts the polarized relationship between the creator/destroyer roles.  This theme is happening as I am writing this blog; culminating as we reach the Full Moon in Cancer on January 15, 2014 with a Mars Venus square. The questions to pose are:

  • Are you willing to admit and embrace your own capability to embody either role? 
  • Do you habitually project one of those roles onto other people based on being afraid to own both your light and your dark?  
  • Are you threatened by your own power or the sense of being powerless?
Power asks us to be responsible and for many of us can be perceived as terrifying.  The power to create, calls us to explore the unknown before we feel ‘ready’ as though this exists. The power to destroy, forces us to see our own darkness within rather than transpose it to someone or something outside ourselves.  Our relationship with power or mastering both the light and the dark requires us to discover the innate inner map of our Being.  By exploring and embodying our own journey into the Underworld we can dissolve the illusion of separation.  We can begin by examining the mythological figures of Inanna and Ishtar.
                                         (image by Susan Seddon Boulet)
Inanna is the ancient Sumarian "mother goddess".  Known as the Queen of Heaven for she dances with both the Earth and Sky.  Her qualities are powerful, self-sufficient, passionate, multi-faceted, fertility and the source of Earth's wells, springs and rivers.  Every year Inanna descends into the Underworld to resurrect her consort (sacred lover), Dumuzi.  At each of the seven gates of the Underworld she leaves one of her garments behind until naked.  She then meets her sister, Erishkigal, Queen of the Underworld. Erishkigal kills Inanna and hangs her on a hook until Innana herself is resurrected and returns to life.  
(image by Susan Seddon Boulet)
Ishtar is the multi-layered Babylonian "Creator goddess".  She represents the source of all life and the embodiment of nature's power.  She is a lawgiver, a judge, a giver of plenty, a goddess of time, goddess of love and war.  Her name means "giver of light" and she is also called the Queen of Heaven.  She is the planet Venus as both the morning and evening star and whose girdle is the belt of the zodiac.  Based on Babylonian's focus on agriculture and nature, the story is the same but is viewed from a different lens.  Ishtar descends into the Underworld in order to restore the vegetation god, Tammuz, to life and restore fertility to the Earth.  As she descends, she removes a veil at each gate.  While she remains underground all life on Earth is depressed and nothing comes to life.  She is the creative feminine who is both active and strong. I perceive Ishtar as the multi-faceted powerful consciousness of an energetic being who is unafraid to venture into the depths of their own psyche, their shadow, the Underworld and return changed.
Suffice it to say that this journey into the Underworld is not a one time thing for humans who are choosing to generate greater consciousness through well-being, generosity, love, spiritual development, joy, technological advances (and the list can go on).  What if humans were able to embrace the capacity to let go, to die to what is not true and emerge anew?
©Renee S LeBeau - January 14, 2014
 
 



1 comment:

  1. I think there are some people you can let go and move on knowing something anew will come. I believe those people are the people who are secure with their faith and their understanding of their faith. Thou, you do not come across many people like that. Many people could learn from them!

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