Venus is so beautiful this week, moving up the sky through the starry region of Taurus, and joining the Pleiades, known as the seven sisters, especially on Tuesday night. There are so many things to say about this, about how the Pleiades are the most storied about group of stars around the world, always connected to deep mysteries of creation; of how Venus is always associated with love and with beauty ~ and all week, they’ll be on display, like a celestial call to the soul from the evening sky.
The first cultural image that comes to mind for me in relation to this position of Venus next to Pleiades comes from an ancient Egyptian house shrine depicting Ahkenaten and Nefertiti. As the “beautiful one who came” Nefertiti is depicted with a being at her shoulder, whose feet disappear into the queen’s heart while the left arm of the would-be child reaches out and behind; the right arm reaching up through Nefertiti’s larynx.
This seems like an unusual gesture, of the right hand reaching right up through the larynx, while the left hand reaches back, as though to sense its environment. It’s almost as if the being is calling forth in Nefertiti the sense for speech, not as just any random talking, but a true capacity for the Word. And in its position at the shoulder, this being occupies the same spot that Pleiades does in the constellation Taurus.
In the art form of eurythmy, this gesture of right hand offering and receiving in front of oneself with left hand sensing behind represents the human gesture of the planet Venus, so if I combine all these things, then this week’s star picture has very much to do with love, with beauty, and with how we speak this not only with our larynx, but from the heart.
