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Alchemy


Yelekiah

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The Mystic Rose is a star of Venus that maps onto the shape of a rose. In the center is the symbol for the sun . The planet Venus incidentally appears to move in the shape of a five-pointed star. It's a 40-year cycle. The five-petalled rose is the symbol of resurrection and the Virgin birth. Interestingly enough, the rose is linked to the Rosa Canina, which doesn't need a mate to reproduce. This rose represents the androgyne.

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From this link:

"In the science of magic the pentalpha is called the holy and Mysterious pentagram. ...the pentagram in the star of Magians; ...by virtue of the number five, it has great command over evil spirits because of its five double triangles and its five acute angles within and its five obtuse angles without, so that this interior pentangle contains in it many great mysteries." (Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, pp.762-763.)

The pentagram or pentacle. It has five points and the number "5" has always been regarded as mystical and magical, yet essentially "human".

We have five fingers/toes on each limb extremity.

We commonly note five senses - sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste.

We perceive five stages or initiations in our lives - eg. birth, adolescence, coitus, parenthood and death.

In Christianity, five were the wounds of Christ on the cross.

There are five pillars of the Muslim faith and five daily times of prayer.

Five were the virtues of the medieval knight - generosity, courtesy, chastity, chivalry and piety as symbolised in the pentagram device of Sir Gawain.

The Wiccan Kiss is Fivefold - feet, knees, womb, breasts, lips - Blessed be.

A circle around a pentagram contains and protects.

The circle symbolises eternity and infinity, the cycles of life and nature.

The circled pentagram is the passive form implying spiritual containment of the magic circle, in keeping with the traditional secrecy of witchcraft, and the personal, individual nature of the pagan religious path, of its non-proselytising character.

The pentagram has long been believed to be a potent protection against evil, a symbol of conflict that shields the wearer and the home.

The pentagram has five spiked wards and a womb shaped defensive, protective pentagon at the centre.

There are five elements, four of matter (earth, air, fire and water) and THE quintessential - spirit. These may be arrayed around the pentagrams points.

The word "quintessential" derives from this fifth element - the spirit.

Tracing a path around the pentagram, the elements are placed in order of density - spirit (or aether). fire, air, water, earth. Earth and fire are basal, fixed; air and water are free, flowing.

Single point upwards signifies the spirit ruling matter (mind ruling limbs); is a symbol of rightness. With two points up and one (spirit) downwards, subservient, the emphasis is on the carnal nature of Man.

A pentagram without a surrounding circle is the active form symbolising an outgoing of oneself, prepared for conflict, aware, active."

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The Tetragrammaton in this drawing as a Pentagram, represents the five elements in nature. Earth, air, fire, water and at the top, ether (or spirit). They are essentially elements of god and nature. Within this Pentagram, are the seven planets.

The Moon (Silver), The Sun (Gold), Jupiter (Tin), Saturn (Lead), Mars (Iron), Venus (Copper) and Mercury (Mercury or Quicksilver). And the 'eyes of god' in the center. Together it is a graphical representation of nature, god, the Occult, etc.

The Tetragrammaton is the ancient name of God, believed to be used in the creation (the Latin IHVH). They are also the pentacle because the pentacle represents every element (including ether or spirit).

I=fire

H=water

V=air

H=earth

Venus is IH, Jupiter VH, etc. But Mercury is the only one with all of the elements. (Mercury IHV)

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Mercury, called quicksilver by the ancients, is a liquid metal that could be found weeping through cracks in certain rocks or accumulating in small puddles in mountain grottos. It was also obtained by roasting cinnabar (mercury sulfide). The shiny metal would seep from the rocks and drip down into the ashes, from which it was later collected. The early alchemists made red mercuric oxide by heating quicksilver in a solution of nitric acid. The acid, which later alchemists called "aqua fortis," was made by pouring sulfuric acid over saltpeter. The reaction of quicksilver in nitric acid is impressive. A thick red vapor hovers over the surface and bright red crystals precipitate to the bottom. This striking chemical reaction demonstrated the simultaneous separation of mercury into the Above and the Below. Mercury's all-encompassing properties were exhibited in other compounds too. If mercury was heated in a long-necked flask, it oxidized into a highly poisonous white powder (white mercuric oxide) and therapeutic red crystals (red mercuric oxide). Calomel (mercury chloride) was a powerful medicine, unless it was directly exposed to light, in which case it became a deadly poison. When mixed with other metals, liquid mercury tended to unite with them and form hardened amalgams. These and other properties convinced alchemists that mercury transcended both the solid and liquid states, both earth and heaven, both life and death. It symbolized Hermes himself, the guide to the Above and Below.

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Cernunnos, or the "The Horned One" is a Celtic god of fertilityand underworld. The Horned God is born at the winter solstice, marries the Goddess at Beltane, and dies at the summer solstice. He alternates with the Goddess of the moon in ruling over life and death, continuing the cycle of death, rebirth and reincarnation.

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Mercury's symbol is thought to have been inspired by the Egyptian ankh, but with a crescent moon at the top. The Ankh was used by Egyptian alchemists. Union of the spirit (circle, female, womb) and the male (cross, male, phallus).

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The Goddess Hathor symbolizes rebirth.

She is a sky goddess, sometimes represented as a woman with cow's horns between which hangs a solar disc, sometimes portrayed as a cow. Hathor concerns herself with beauty, love and marriage, and watches over women giving birth. Mother and wife of Ra. Hathor is also a goddess of death and offers comfort to the newly dead as they pass into the after-world. She is also shown with a head-dress resembling a pair of horns with the moon-disk between them.

In early Egyptian mythology she was the mother of the sky god Horus, but was later replaced in this capacity by Isis. Hathor then became a protectress of Horus.

She was the goddess of love, fertility, joy, and the patron of women and marriage.

As Lady of Malachite, Lady of Turquoise, [Heart Chakra color] - Hathor was also connected to metal. Holding spiritual dominion over the Sinai Peninsula, she was responsible for the success and well being of the mines in that area. Malachite, mined in Hathor's province of Sinai, was ground into eye make up.

Apparently Hathor was as intensely worshipped by male miners and soldiers, as she was by women in childbirth or young girls desirous of husbands. Both genders were able to recognize the sacred divine within her seductively vibrant joyous beauty.

The Greeks identified Hathor with Aphrodite who was Venus (as in Hathors from Venus).

Eventually, Isis would borrow much of Hathor's iconography and her functions, eventually even wearing her headdress. However, the two deities are not the same nor are they interchangeable. Isis is a being of tremendous complexity: there is tragedy inherent in her myth. Ultimately, Isis is the bereaved widow, the self-less, devoted single mother.

For all Isis' fame as the Mistress of Magic, she cannot avoid pain, grief and desolation. Her legend embodies both the noblest and the most hopeless aspects of human nature. Hathor, on the other hand, is the embodiment of success. She lacks the ambivalence Isis sometimes possesses. Instead Hathor has an absolute, laser-like focus.

Hathor took on an uncharacteristically destructive aspect in the legend of the Eye of Ra. According to this legend, Ra sent the Eye of Ra in the form of Hathor to destroy humanity, believing that they were plotting aganist him. However, Re changed his mind and flooded the fields with beer, dyed red to look like blood. Hathor stopped to drink the beer, and, having become intoxicated, never carried out her deadly mission. Therefore as a fertility goddess and a goddess of moisture, Hathor was associated with the inundation of the Nile. In this aspect she was associated with the Dog-star Sothis - Sirius - whose rising above the horizon heralded the annual flooding of the Nile.

In the legend of Ra and Hathor she is called the "Eye of Ra."

The sun disc reresents the creational light - the word Re - Ra - meaning ray of light.

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Isis is a being of tremendous complexity: there is tragedy inherent in her myth.

I agree with this. Osiris was her consort, who was killed by his brother Set, the god of Chaos. Set cut up Osiris' body into several pieces and tossed him into the Nile River.

Isis was able to get every other piece, except one...erm (use your imagination kids), which was eaten by a crocodile or fish (maybe a crab) I believe. However, it was substituted with wood or clay, and she eventually resurrected Osiris. Much like a phoenix resurrects itself from the ashes. The Phoenix ties in with Scorpio in the Zodiac, and the Death Card in the Tarot.

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The Lotus was the flower of Isis. In this picture, there is a bull's horn (or cresent moon) above her head and the sun in her headdress.

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The Phoenix was also an Egyptian motif, seen when the moon eclipsed the sun, and the rays of sunlight flared like wings. It had a greenish tinge, explaining why the Egyptians wore green eyeliner. It was called the Eye of God. It was also associated with the Ouroubos or the Serpents biting each tail.

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"Isis was a winged goddess who represented all that was visible, birth, growth, development and vigour. Having wings, she was a wind goddess. The kite was sacred to her, and she could transform herself into this bird at will. "

Edited by Rainbow Rowan
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The Queen symbolizes woman, lunar consciousness, and Mercury. The King, however, represents man, solar consciousness, Sulfur. Their unity symbolizes Conjunction.

The crown symbolizes the completion of any given alchemical operation It also represents "chemical" royalty or the perfection of a metal. Gold is a metal that cannot rust. In that sense it is perfect.

user posted image

Note the wings and the crown.

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Trees symbolize the processes of transformation. A tree of moons signifies the Lesser or Lunar Work; a tree of suns signifies the Greater or Solar Work.

The actual creation energy of God, or lightning, is also represented by a serpent or dragon. Cupid sent an arrow of lightning into the phoenix and made it burn leaving one egg. To create life inside a human embryo, energy must be used. It is energy which sparks cells to divide too. Eros/Cupid's arrow also represents love. The birds were created by Eros and green is the colour of the language of birds. From Greek mythology:

Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in deep Tartarus with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth birds, which was the first to see the light… Thus the origin of birds is very much older than that of the dwellers in Olympus. They are the offspring of Eros; there are a thousand proofs to show it. They have wings and we lend assistance to lovers.

The Eye of Ra was seen when the moon eclipsed the sun and a phoenix was seen. The moon and sun spheres represent female and male. The outline of light of the sun behind the moon would have looked similar to the Ourobouros, with a greenish tinge; or green dragon. The main aim of the alchemist was to create gold (in the lab and in the spirit), and the outline of the sun would have also looked like a golden wings of the phoenix behind the moon. This is the Lesser Work.

[attachmentid=21722][attachmentid=21723]

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The actual creation energy of God, or lightning, is also represented by a serpent or dragon.

The apperence of the Sephiroth in the Kabbalah is a bolt of lightning, which has all the names of God withing it.

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To me, serpents and dragons represent spiritual significance for every major civilization. They guard sacred trees and places. I think that's why there are gargoyles on buildings-they were originally dragons perhaps. Serpents in mythology protect all the magical trees. Hercules had to pick three golden apples from this tree, but it was protected by a serpent. And there are Sumerian legends etc, and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Hercules also had to slay a Hydra (dragon) with multiple heads.

Notice the dragons and serpents near the tree in this manuscript

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There is a very long list of dragons and serpents in mythology.

Phoenix Poem by Hans Christian Anderson (1850)

In the Garden of Paradise, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, bloomed a rose bush. Here, in the first rose, a Bird was born. His flight was like the flashing of light, his plumage was beauteous, and his song ravishing. But when Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, when she and Adam were driven from Paradise, there fell from the flaming sword of the cherub a spark into the nest of the Bird, which blazed up forthwith. The Bird perished in the flames; but from the red egg in the nest there fluttered aloft a new one the one solitary Phoenix Bird. The fable tells that he dwells in Arabia, and that every hundred years, he burns himself to death in his nest; but each time a new Phoenix, the only one in the world, rises up from the red egg.

The Bird flutters round us, swift as light, beauteous in color, charming in song. When a mother sits by her infant's cradle, he stands on the pillow, and, with his wings, forms a glory around the infant's head. He flies through the chamber of content, and brings sunshine into it, and the violets on the humble table smell doubly sweet.

But the Phoenix is not the Bird of Arabia alone. He wings his way in the glimmer of the Northern Lights over the plains of Lapland, and hops among the yellow flowers in the short Greenland summer. Beneath the copper mountains of Fablun, and England's coal mines, he flies, in the shape of a dusty moth, over the hymnbook that rests on the knees of the pious miner. On a lotus leaf he floats down the sacred waters of the Ganges, and the eye of the Hindoo maid gleams bright when she beholds him.

The Phoenix Bird, dost thou not know him? The Bird of Paradise, the holy swan of song! On the car of Thespis he sat in the guise of a chattering raven, and flapped his black wings, smeared with the lees of wine; over the sounding harp of Iceland swept the swan's red beak; on Shakspeare's shoulder he sat in the guise of Odin's raven, and whispered in the poet's ear "Immortality!" and at the minstrels' feast he fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg.

The Phoenix Bird, dost thou not know him? He sang to thee the Marseillaise, and thou kissedst the pen that fell from his wing; he came in the radiance of Paradise, and perchance thou didst turn away from him towards the sparrow who sat with tinsel on his wings.

The Bird of Paradise renewed each century born in flame, ending in flame! Thy picture, in a golden frame, hangs in the halls of the rich, but thou thyself often fliest around, lonely and disregarded, a myth "The Phoenix of Arabia."

In Paradise, when thou wert born in the first rose, beneath the Tree of Knowledge, thou receivedst a kiss, and thy right name was given thee thy name, Poetry.

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Here is a relief of a phoenix on stone, and one on a manuscript

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Before they knew about the "five elements", around 400 BC, the Greeks believed there were four. And they were called "humours" which also correlated to the four seasons. The humours were sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholy (fire, water, earth, air).

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One of the important elements, water, represents the female goddess, emotions, the cycles of the moon and the tides.

The moon is a feminine symbol and the crescent moon is also symbolised as the cup (tarot) and the grail. The zodiac water signs are scorpio (phoenix, scorpion, eagle); cancer (crab); and pisces (fishes).

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The Pisces is also the vesica and the sign of cancer was shown earlier.

Here are some alchemical animals. You'll notice the peacock (another bird on the ladder of alchemical birds, the phoenix, snake, griffin, etc.)

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The griffin is a half-lion and half-eagle creature that symbolizes the Conjunction of the fixed and volatile principles. An allusion to the Vessel of Hermes.

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Also, in the second to last picture posted, you'll notice 43 degrees. It is the difference between a triangle and a square. In my opinion, the four-sided square is the 4th dimension and four elements (fire, water, earth, air). The triangle or third dimension, is also body, mind, and soul. When they intersect, their union is a type of divine synthesis.

The great pyramid of Egypt has 43 deg angled sides.

It has been speculated that Jesus was a mage who practiced alchemy, taught in Egypt by John the Baptist, who also had a disciple Simon Magus. Also the miracle of turning water into wine could have been an alchemy allegory.

Traditional Christian symbols, the cross and the fish have been shown in the above posts to be alchemical in origin.

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Edited by Rainbow Rowan
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I have to check out the Great Pyramid, haven't heard of that. However, the Bent Pyramid went from 52 degrees to 43 degrees.

Thanks for that info. Yes I had the incorrect pyramid. :P

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The crow (or raven) is the beginning of the Great Work of the alchemy of the soul. It represents a withdrawal from material senses and ascension into the ethereal. This alchemical bird represents the death process. Death in the sense that it is a beginning.

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Osiris was born at Mount Sinai, the Nyssi of the Old Testament, (Exodus XVII, 15) the birthplace of nearly all the solar gods of antiquity, although Osiris actually lived in human form some 75,000 years ago. One of the Great Teachers, civilizers and benefactors of humanity, in the course of his mission he encountered evil, was murdered by his brother Set at the age of twenty-eight, and buried at Abydos. According to Bonwick (Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought) he did not remain in the grave, but at the end of three, or forty,(2) days rose again and ascended to Heaven and thenceforth became the judge of the dead and the hope of a future life for the Egyptians. All of which proves that the story of Christ was found ready in most of its details thousands of years before the Christian era, and the Christian fathers had no greater task than to apply it to a new personage. This detracts no whit from Christ; it only goes to show that the biographies of all these Divine Instructors are practically identical because all are similar in nature and mission, and in a mystical sense their legendary life-record is true.

The name Osiris (Asar in Egyptian) is connected with fire, as is Asari in Babylonia; Aesar in old Etruscan means a god, derived possibly from the Asura of the Vedas, a modified form of which is Is'war or Iswara of the Bhagavad-Gita. In his universal aspect of destroying fire necessary to regeneration, Osiris is the "Lord of Terror," and in Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead he is "the devourer of all slaughtered things," just as Krishna in the eleventh Gita is "Time matured, come hither for the destruction of these creatures."

The real meaning of immortality, including life before birth as well as life after death, seems to have been as much misunderstood by many of the Egyptians as by Christians today, whose heritage of ideas, true and false, comes in unbroken continuity from that far past. Judging from the Book of the Dead, resurrection was insured by the recitation of magical formulae, or conferred upon the dead by Osiris. As Christians believe their resurrection possible because Christ rose from the dead and appeared in one of his finer "sheaths" on Easter morn, so the Egyptians thought that the body of Osiris had been dismembered and afterwards reconstructed into a living being, therefore their members would also be reunited into a living whole. In Chapter XLIII the deceased says: "I am Fire, the son of Fire, to whom was given his head after it had been cut off. The head of Osiris was not taken away from him, let not the head of Osiris Ani (the deceased) be taken away from him. I have knit myself together,... I have renewed my youth; I am Osiris, the lord of eternity."

Isis is the Virgin-Mother, sister and wife of Osiris and mother of Horus. She is "the woman clothed with the sun" of the land of Chem. In the litany apostrophizing her, she is the "Immaculate Lady," "Queen of Heaven," "Illustrious Isis, most powerful, merciful and just," titles transferred entire or with slight change to the Virgin-Mary. (See Isis Unveiled, II, 209, for comparison of litanies). And not only was the adoration of Isis restored under a new name, but even her image standing on the crescent moon was adopted by the Christians, while her well-known effigy with Horus in arms has descended to our time in the many pictures of the Madonna and child. The "Black Virgins," so highly reverenced in certain French cathedrals were found, upon critical examination, to be basalt figures of Isis! But behind the symbolism of Isis were sublime spiritual and cosmical truths never conveyed to her worshippers by the mother of Christ.

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She is "the woman clothed with the sun"

Much like a Biblical scripture.

"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed in the sun, and the moon under her feet..."

Revelation 12:1

Figures on crescent moons appear frequently in alchemical woodcuts.

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standing on the crescent moon

Obviously it inspired "Christians".

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A tree with its roots in the heart rises from the Mirror of the Deity through the Sphere of Understanding to branch forth in the Sphere of the Senses. The roots and trunk of this tree represent the divine nature of man and may be called his spirituality; the branches of the tree are the separate parts of the divine constitution and may be likened to the individuality; and the leaves—because of their ephemeral nature—correspond to the personality, which partakes of none of the permanence of its divine source.

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The alchemists were wont to symbolize their metals by means of a tree, to indicate that all seven were branches dependent upon the single trunk of solar life. As the Seven Spirits depend upon God and are branches of a tree of which He is the root, trunk, and the spiritual earth from which the root derives its nourishment, so the single trunk of divine life and power nourishes all the multitudinous forms of which the universe is composed.

In Gloria Mundi, from which the below illustration is reproduced, there is contained an important thought concerning the plantlike growth of metals: "All animals, trees, herbs, stones, metals, and minerals grow and attain to perfection, without being necessarily touched by any human hand: for the seed is raised up from the ground, puts forth flowers, and bears fruit, simply through the agency of natural influences. As it is with plants, so it is with metals. While they lie in the heart of the earth, in their natural ore, they grow and are developed, day by day, through the influence of the four elements: their fire is the splendor of the Sun and Moon; the earth conceives in her womb the splendor of the Sun, and by it the seeds of the metals are well and equally warmed, just like the grain in the fields. ...For as each tree of the field has its own peculiar shape, appearance, and fruit, so each mountain bears its own particular ore; those stones and that earth being the soil in which the metals grow."

[attachmentid=21753]

Edited by Rainbow Rowan
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Here there are seven spheres in the Tree of Alchemy, for the seven planets of classical astronomy.

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The Tree of Life, however, has eleven Sephiroth, including the hidden one Daath (Knowledge).

The Four Worlds are like the Tree of Life, except they are like a ladder to ascend upon spiritually.

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The World Of Action (Manifest World), The World Of Formation (Formative World), The World Of Creation and The World Of Archetypes (World of Emanations).

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[attachmentid=21754]

The Sun. Whether you call it Amaterasu, Apollo, or Ra. It means power, glory, illumination, life force, vitality. The source of life on earth. An important part of mythology, art, and literature, the Sun also represents a psychological principle that transcends time and place.

One might say that the Sun is symbolic of our ability to direct our will and

to have a sense of purpose.

The Sun can be considered our inner King, the one who rules and takes considered action. Of course, when looking into our Sun nature, the myths tell us that it's a good idea to ask a few questions. Too much Sun can mean ego run amok. You remember the myth about Icarus who flew in his great wings of wax a little too close to the sun?

In most traditions, the Sun is considered a masculine way of being. However, to the Teutonic, Japanese, Oceanic, Maori, and Cherokee cultures the Sun is feminine.

When you read myths, you may also begin to notice that the Sun god or goddess is often paired with another god, whether Moon, Earth, or Storm. The Greek Sun god Apollo has a twin sister, Artemis, the Moon goddess. In our story of Amaterasu, sun is paired with storm. In these pairings, the rational intellect must be balanced by the irrational emotions; the light of understanding and action with the power, passion, and latent creativity of the unconscious mind. We are more whole when both "gods" are taken into account.

Sun symbols often involve the wheel, disk, or circle, sometimes with radiating rays. Sometimes the sun is associated with an eye. To the Aztecs, the rising sun was symbolized by the eagle.

In astrology, the Sun rules the sign of Leo, which is symbolized by the lion and is associated with royalty. And in 18th century France, Louis XIV called himself "the Sun King," emphasizing the power of his will and the glory of his court.

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