Venus – “Only planet named after a female deity” and The Empress card

It has been interesting to see that I had mentioned ‘The Empress’ card nearly two years ago within my Venus blog which I am updating now and I am going to republish soon. It is true that in two years time, I did study both Astrology and Tarot much more so that it is interesting to go back and see what I wrote and what I can actually improve more.

This is the point that we all pretend that this is a brand new blog:)))

Today, I will be writing about Venus, which is considered the natural ruler of the two signs, Taurus and Libra, in astrology. As the title offers, it is also associated with the Major Arcana card ‘The Empress’.

As I always do with planets, I will cover Venus in terms of astronomy, mythology, and astrology.

What can we say about Venus when it comes to astronomy?

“It’s a cloud-swaddled planet named for a love goddess, often called Earth’s twin. But pull up a bit closer, and Venus turns hellish…In some ways it is more an opposite of Earth than a twin: Venus spins backward, has a day longer than its year, and lacks any semblance of seasons…Venus, the third brightest object after the Sun and Moon, was named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. It’s the only planet named after a female deity.” https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/venus/in-depth/

Normally, I would be tempted to put a photo of goddess Venus. However, after seeing this image, I wanted to put an image that has my favourite colour.

There is one interesting thing about the 8-year cycle of Venus which is explained in a very nice way as follows: “8 year-cycle of Venus stems from the fact that 13 Venusian orbits (8 x 224.8 days) very nearly equals eight Earth years. The cycle was known to, and of great interest to, ancient peoples such as the Maya. Today, many know it as the pentagram of Venus”.

The word pentagram – or five-sided figure – is used because, over the eight years, each phenomenon – each relative position of Earth, Venus, and the sun – occurs five times. Then, over the next eight years, they repeat five times almost identically.”  https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/five-petals-of-venus/

Coming to mythology, as an Italian deity, Venus “associated with cultivated fields and gardens” didn’t have any myths associated with her. However, after being associated with Aphrodite, the myths of latter turned out to be the ones of Venus as well. The goddess of beauty, love, harmony, fertility…And it was more referred as the Roman counterpart of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Having said that, throughout history, she has been identified with other deities from other cultures such as Ishtar from Babylonia. [More information about Ishtar may be found in the following link: https://www.worldhistory.org/ishtar/]

In addition to this, throughout the history, many different festivals and temples were attributed to Venus. Also, in the Roman Empire, there was competition for her favour in politics. And, obviously in art, she had been an important figure for the artists from earlier ages into the 20^th century.

What about Venus in astrology?

All the planets we see in a natal chart, or any chart interpretation have their own archetypal qualities. However, we must keep in mind that these planets may express themselves in a different way in different signs and in different houses (areas of life). In this regard, it might be better to think thoroughly about all those qualities and choose wisely what to attribute in certain cases.

After making a short comment on planets and their expressions, let’s investigate Venus in terms of astrology. In general, Venus is associated with beauty (in every sense), love, harmony, peace, values, aesthetics and during interpretations, ‘relating’ ‘relationship’ may be fundamental with regards to Venus. (Although if you ask me, to focus on Venus mostly with its love or relationship symbolisms, we might be really missing some details for sure. I will be elaborating on this more just now:))

However, we have to take into account that there is jealousy, self-indulgence, indecisiveness as negative attributes too. In this regard, I personally think that even though using a few qualities may form unity in the interpretations, it also narrows our perspective. I generally feel very much entrapped while trying to use ‘universal keywords’ especially in case of Venus while lots of versions of expressions are waiting outside for their turns which rarely come…(I personally love the idea of ‘values’ when I think about Venus…How we value ourselves, how we value others, what carries value in our lives and so on…For the relationships, love, harmony or even the art that we are performing, these type of values carry a lot of importance, right? For me the concept of value seems to be the essence…)

So, what about the Empress card and Venus connection?

First connection is directly on the heart shape in the depiction, with the glyph of Venus.

In addition to this, the pomegranates on the dress and also the dress itself (resembles the type of loose dresses worn during maternity) are signs of abundance and fertility respectively. We might think of the Mother Nature as well. That’s why the Empress might give the meaning of abundance, nurturing, motherhood and harvest in the general terms. And with Venus connection, love, harmony and beauty may also appear as an interpretation.

At this point, I would like to make a quote from ‘The Tarot History, Symbolism, and Divination’ book by Robert M.Place which is as follows: “…She holds a scepter and wears a crown with twelve stars. This is the crown of the woman clothed in the sun, which was replaced by the crown of Isis on the last trump. It shows her connection to the High Priestess. She is the mother aspect of the virgin depicted on the last trump…”

In this regard, with all the symbols it contains, the Empress card matches Venus’s mythological and astrological meanings.

If any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to drop an e-mail to tpastrotarot@gmail.com and please visit my FB https://www.facebook.com/amethystastrotarot and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/amethystastrotarot/ pages.

All the best,

Teri