Birth Of Venus Quotes

The Devil may take the reckless, but the good will surely die of boredom. Boredom and frustration.

Someone told me much later that you always know the people who are going to make a difference in your life, from the very first time you set eyes on them, even if you do not like them at all. And I had noticed him, as he had me. God help us.

So if we could not have love, my husband and I, then at least I could have alchemy.

If you love a man for his honesty, you cannot become angry when he shows it.

There is more glory in peace than in war,

Why has not anyone seen that fossils alone gave birth to a theory about the formation of the earth, that without them, no one would have ever dreamed that there were successive epochs in the formation of the globe.

And, such was the sound that the chorus made together, that to have been a part of it at all was enough for me.

Either you’re standing under your halos, eyes up to heaven, or you’re munching apples in their faces and flashing your bush. I’m not even sure they know which they prefer. The best you can do is choose when you change your costume.

Venus of Willendorf carries her cave with her. She is blind, masked. Her ropes of corn-row hair look forward to the invention agriculture. She has a furrowed brow. Her facelessness is the impersonality of primitive sex and religion. There is no psychology or identity yet, because there is no society, no cohesion. Men cower and scatter at the blast of the elements. Venus of Willendorf is eyeless because nature can be seen but not known. She is remote even as she kills and creates. The statuette, so overflowing and protuberant, is ritually invisible. She stifles the eye. She is the cloud of archaic night.

Someone told me much later that you always know the people who are going to make a difference in your life, from the very first time you set eyes on them, even if you do not like them at all.

She was called Maria. She was a Maria Magdalena who washed away sins, and she was Venus Anadyomene to me, though she was ill-nourished I think since birth, my artist’s eye saw she was puny, though my lover’s eye saw her breasts as globes of milky marble, and the tuft between her legs as the bushes surrounding the gate to Paradise Lost—and Regained.

Death was, after all, a temporary staging post in a longer journey

A man in Florence once had a heart attack when he saw the Birth of Venus, if you can believe it,” said a voice beside him. “Palpitations are more common, though. That’s what Stendhal had. Couldn’t walk, he reported, after seeing a particularly moving work of art. And Jung! Jung decided it was too dangerous to visit Pompeii in his old age because the feeling—the feeling of all that art and history round him, it might kill him. Jerusalem… Tourists in Jerusalem sometimes wrap themselves in hotel bedsheets. To become works of art themselves, you know? Part of history. A collective unconscious toga party. One lady in the holy city decided she was giving birth to God’s son. She wasn’t even pregnant, before you ask. Funny what art will do to you. Stendhal Syndrome, they call it, after our lad with the palpitations, though I prefer its more modern name: Declan Lynch.

Either you’re standing under your haloes, eyes up to heaven, or you’re munching apples in their faces and flashing your bush. I’m not even sure they know which one they prefer. The best you can do is choose when you change your costume

Together he [Girolamo Savonarola] and his archenemy Lorenzo [de' Medici] would have been the stuff of gargoyles. One could almost imagine the diptych in which their profiles confronted each other, their noses as powerful as their personalities.

At the Uffizi, I experienced a moment that was touching, painful, and almost embarrassing. We stopped in front of the famous Botticelli painting, The Birth of Venus. I gazed wistfully at her incomparably lovely, yet, as Vasari described, oddly distorted form emerging from the waves in a seashell, her long red-golden tresses blown by Zephyrs. No woman ever had so elongated a neck or such sinuous limbs. Botticelli contorted, and some might say deformed, the human shape to give us a glimpse of the sublime.

One more point. The aspect of Venus is most favorable and potentially dominant over that of Mars. Venus symbolizes yourself, of course, but Mars is both your husband and young Smith—as a result of the unique circumstances of his birth. This throws a double burden on you and you must rise to the challenge; you must demonstrate those qualities calm wisdom and restraint which are peculiarly those of woman.

There, flanking either side of the walkway were a pair of raised fountains. The base of each was a shell-shaped bowl filled with water and lily pads. Standing in each bowl was the masculine version of Boticelli's famous "Birth of Venus". The man stood in the same pose as Venus, left hand coyly drawn up o cover his chest, right down by his genitals, yet instead of covering them, he held his optimistically endowed penis, pointing it upward. Water jetted from each penis, and over into the basin of the twin statue opposite. The water didn't flow in a smooth stream though. It spurted. "Please tell me there is something wrong with his water pressure" Cassandra said. "No, I believe that's the desired effect.

you draw" (the painter)

such volumes of philosophy had the air of old men about them: venerable but having lost the energy to influence a world that had moved on from them.

The light shifts around the dais to the scratching of the chalk on the page, each line careful, considered, the result of a singular communion between the eye and the hand.

Children brought up in the company of adults learn better than most the power of solitude.

I had wanted to talk to my mother like this for so long. To meet her woman to woman, as someone who had walked the same road before me, even if she had not passed through exactly the same places.

The proof of “sudden” changes (p. 223 to the end) is quite convincing and meritorious. If you had done nothing else but to gather and present in a clear way this mass of evidence, you would have already a considerable merit. Unfortunately, this valuable accomplishment is impaired by the addition of a physical-astronomical theory to which every expert will react with a smile or with anger—according to his temperament; he notices that you know these things only from hearsay—and do not understand them in the real sense, also things that are elementary to him. . . . To the point, I can say in short: catastrophes yes, Venus no.

Not a single family finds itself exempt from that one haunted casualty who suffered irreparable damage in the crucible they entered at birth. Where some children can emerge from conditions of soul-killing abuse and manage to make their lives into something of worth and value, others can’t limp away from the hurts and gleanings time decanted for them in flawed beakers of memory. They carry the family cross up the hill toward Calvary and don’t mind letting every other member of their aggrieved tribe in on the source of their suffering. There is one crazy that belongs to each of us: the brother who kills the spirit of any room he enters; the sister who’s a drug addict in her teens and marries a series of psychopaths, always making sure she bears their children, who carry their genes of madness to the grave. There’s the neurotic mother who’s so demanding that the sound of her voice over the phone can cause instant nausea in her daughters. The variations are endless and fascinating. I’ve never attended a family reunion where I was not warned of a Venus flytrap holding court among the older women, or a pitcher plant glistening with drops of sweet poison trying to sell his version of the family maelstrom to his young male cousins. When the stories begin rolling out, as they always do, one learns of feuds that seem unbrokerable, or sexual abuse that darkens each tale with its intimation of ruin. That uncle hates that aunt and that cousin hates your mother and your sister won’t talk to your brother because of something he said to a date she later married and then divorced. In every room I enter I can sniff out unhappiness and rancor like a snake smelling the nest of a wren with its tongue. Without even realizing it, I pick up associations of distemper and aggravation. As far as I can tell, every family produces its solitary misfit, its psychotic mirror image of all the ghosts summoned out of the small or large hells of childhood, the spiller of the apple cart, the jack of spades, the black-hearted knight, the shit stirrer, the sibling with the uncontrollable tongue, the father brutal by habit, the uncle who tried to feel up his nieces, the aunt too neurotic ever to leave home. Talk to me all you want about happy families, but let me loose at a wedding or a funeral and I’ll bring you back the family crazy. They’re that easy to find.

His thoughts became as scattered and aimless as the rivulets sluicing down her lush curves. She was a goddess rising from the water. Like Botticelli's Birth of Venus, except with heavy silvery hair darkened by her bath that, unlike Venus, she didn't use to hide her feminine secrets. She stood with her chin held at an obstinate angle, her shoulders straight in an observance of good posture, those soft gray eyes staring at him with a mixture of resolution and expectation.

CROW: Harrison, Beatle did that ancient. It cuts a thinner slice with us. Roles fall to birth blood. We’re star marked and playing inter-galactic modes. Some travel past earthbound and score on Venus, Neptune, Mars. HOSS: How do you get to fucking Neptune in a ‘58 Impala! CROW: How did you get to earth in a Maserati?

To fill the days up of his dateless year Flame from Queen Helen to Queen Guenevere? For first of all the sphery signs whereby Love severs light from darkness, and most high, In the white front of January there glows The rose-red sign of Helen like a rose: And gold-eyed as the shore-flower shelterless Whereon the sharp-breathed sea blows bitterness, A storm-star that the seafarers of love Strain their wind-wearied eyes for glimpses of, Shoots keen through February's grey frost and damp The lamplike star of Hero for a lamp; The star that Marlowe sang into our skies With mouth of gold, and morning in his eyes; And in clear March across the rough blue sea The signal sapphire of Alcyone Makes bright the blown bross of the wind-foot year; And shining like a sunbeam-smitten tear Full ere it fall, the fair next sign in sight Burns opal-wise with April-coloured light When air is quick with song and rain and flame, My birth-month star that in love's heaven hath name Iseult, a light of blossom and beam and shower, My singing sign that makes the song-tree flower; Next like a pale and burning pearl beyond The rose-white sphere of flower-named Rosamond Signs the sweet head of Maytime; and for June Flares like an angered and storm-reddening moon Her signal sphere, whose Carthaginian pyre Shadowed her traitor's flying sail with fire; Next, glittering as the wine-bright jacinth-stone, A star south-risen that first to music shone, The keen girl-star of golden Juliet bears Light northward to the month whose forehead wears Her name for flower upon it, and his trees Mix their deep English song with Veronese; And like an awful sovereign chrysolite Burning, the supreme fire that blinds the night, The hot gold head of Venus kissed by Mars, A sun-flower among small sphered flowers of stars, The light of Cleopatra fills and burns The hollow of heaven whence ardent August yearns; And fixed and shining as the sister-shed Sweet tears for Phaethon disorbed and dead, The pale bright autumn's amber-coloured sphere, That through September sees the saddening year As love sees change through sorrow, hath to name Francesca's; and the star that watches flame The embers of the harvest overgone Is Thisbe's, slain of love in Babylon, Set in the golden girdle of sweet signs A blood-bright ruby; last save one light shines An eastern wonder of sphery chrysopras, The star that made men mad, Angelica's; And latest named and lordliest, with a sound Of swords and harps in heaven that ring it round, Last love-light and last love-song of the year's, Gleams like a glorious emerald Guenevere's.

Since stone tools were the only technology that survived archaeologically for millions of years and across several hominin species, it was assumed that they were male technology. It said so on the box: man the toolmaker, man the hunter. Women gave birth, cowered in the backs of caves, posed as the model for a Venus figurine occasionally so that Palaeolithic ‘man’ could get his other rocks off, and maybe collected a worthless vegetable from time to time when the mammoth chops were running low. The sometimes openly stated and mostly implicit assumption was that human physical and cultural evolution was driven by male hunting. Was this the best we could do?

It was so cold. In the monastery. Sometimes the wind came from the sea with ice in it... It could freeze the skin off your face. Once the snow was so deep we couldn't get out of the doors to the woodshed. A monk jumped from a window. He sank into a drift and took a long time to get up. That night, they made me sleep next to the stove. I was small, thin, like a piece of birch bark. But then the Stove went out. Father Bernard took me into his cell... It was he who first gave me chalk and paper. He was so old his eyes his eyes looked as if he was crying. But he was never sad. In winter he had fewer blankets than the others. He said he didn't need them because God warmed him. (...) But even Father Bernard was cold that night. He laid me down on the bed next to him, wrapped me in an animal skin, then in his own arms. He told me stories about Jesus. How His love could wake the dead and how with Him in one's heart one could heat the world... When I woke it was light. The snow had stopped. I was warm. But he was cold. I gave him the skin but his body was stiff. I didn't know what to do. I got out a piece of paper from his chest under the bed and drew him, lying there. His face had a smile on it. I knew that God had been there when he died. That now He was in me, and because of Father Bernard I would be warm forever.

A thousand confused thoughts came to birth in her mind and grew there, as the sunbeams grew without along the wall... Her thoughts were all in keeping with the details of this strange landscape, and the harmonies of her heart blended with the harmonies of nature. When the sun reached an angle of the wall where the “Venus-hair” of southern climes drooped its thick leaves, lit with the changing colors of a pigeon’s breast, celestial rays of hope illumined the future to her eyes, and thenceforth she loved to gaze upon that piece of wall, on its pale flowers, its blue harebells, its wilting herbage, with which she mingled memories as tender as those of childhood. The noise made by each leaf as it fell from its twig in the void of that echoing court gave answer to the secret questionings of the young girl

Woman I is considered to this day to be one of the most anxiety-producing and disturbing images of a woman in the history of art. In this painting de Kooning, who was reared by an abusive mother, creates an image that captures the divergent dimensions of the eternal woman: fertility, motherhood, aggressive sexual power, and savagery. She is at once a primitive earth mother and a femme fatale. With this image, marked by fanglike teeth and huge eyes that echo the shape of her enormous breasts, de Kooning gave birth to a new synthesis of the female. 7.6 The first known female sculpture, the Venus of Hohle Fels, circa 35,000 B.C.

Money Facts The Lira was the basic unit of Italian currency from 1861, when Ital was unified, to 2002. That year, Italy adopted the euro, the currency of the European Union (EU). Today, fifteen EU states use the euro. One euro is divided into 100 cents. Bills come in values of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 euros. Coins come in values of 1 and 2 euros as well as 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents. In 2008, US$1.00 equaled about 0.63 euros, and 1.00 euro equaled US$1.58. On the front of each euro note is an image of a window or a gateway. On the back is a picture of a bridge. These images do not represent any actual bridges or windows. Instead, they are examples from different historical periods. Each country designs its own euro coins. Italy chose to honor its greatest artists. Its 2-euro coin shows a portrait by the Renaissance artist Raphael. The 1-euro coin shows a drawing of the human body by Leonardo da Vinci. Other Italian coins show a statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Sandro Botticelli’s painting Birth of Venus. The 1-cent coin, the smallest, features Castel del Monte, a thirteenth-century castle near Bari.

In Florence the sublime and terrible go hand in hand: Savonarola’s Bonfires of the Vanities and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and Niccolò Macchiavelli’s The Prince, Dante’s Inferno and Boccaccio’s Decameron.

That’s Gippy’s natal chart, the horoscope of his birth. Now, in addition to the Sun and Moon, the planets in our solar system, including the one we’re on and starting with the little fellow closest to the Sun, are Mercury, Venus, the Earth, then Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

As long as I was both my own master and apprentice I would be forever caught in the web of inexperience.

[...] The statement "Botticelli's Birth of Venus is stunning", for starters, is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, because there is no experiment that might show this statement to be false. Parallax method and equations conventionally determined that the average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384 400 Km (238 855 miles). Now, if we were to conduct hands-on investigation for its validation or an audit to demonstrate its falsification, direct testing of such a distance measure would require a scientist to physically travel the space with a giant ruler to calculate the scale between the two points. [...] The problem that scientific certainty is a myth still struggles to brush past the academic prejudice of most scientists who are green on critical analysis for its alleged pedagogical irrelevance.

作为一星期的第一天，星期天在古时候是献给太阳的，古犹太教的安息日定在星期六，基督教之所以改星期日为安息日，是因为耶稣在这一天复活。约从公元4世纪起，罗马天主教会就将星期日定为假日，在这一天禁止任何人工作，教徒都得停止一切娱乐活动，上教堂去做礼拜。随着时间的迁移星期天作为法定假日已经被世界各国广泛引用。 在古罗马神话中，月亮为太阳之妻。因此，在一星期中也必须有一天是献给月亮的。他们把一星期的第二天叫做Lunaedies，盎格鲁—撒克逊人借译了该词，作Monandaeg，意即Moon day，现代英语作Monday。 在北欧神话中，有一个战神名叫Tyr，相当于罗马神话里的Mars。当狼精Fenrir在人间作恶时，Tyr自告奋勇前往擒拿，在绑缚狼精时，一只手被咬掉了。Tyr在古英语中拼作Tiw，从Tiw产生了古英语词Tiwesdaeg，意即the day of Tiw，这就是现代英语Tuesday的原始形式。 星期三（Wednesday）在古英语中原作Modnesdaeg，意为Woden's day。Woden是日尔曼战神Tyr之父，相当于罗马神话里的商业神Mercury。古罗马人以Mercury来命名星期三，把星期三叫做Mercurii dies。其实，英语Wodnesdaeg就是译自该拉丁词，只是在借译时Mercury换成了Woden而已。 在北欧神话中，最有权势、最勇敢的神要数雷神Thor。他相当于罗马神话里的主神Jupiter/Jove。当Thor驾着公山羊拉的战车奔驰而过时，天空顿时雷轰电闪。Thursday正是以Thor命名的，它在古英语中原作Thuresdaeg，意即the day of Thor。 在古英语中，星期五（Friday）原作Frigedaeg，意即the day of Frigg/Freya。Frigg/Freya乃北欧爱情女神，亦即战神Woden之妻，由于沉溺于奢侈的生活而遭丈夫遗弃。该女神相当于罗马神话中的Venus，罗马人以Venus来命名星期五，称之为Dies Veneris，意即the day of Venus，而英语借译该词时把Venus换成Frigg，作Frigedaeg。 Wednesday和Thursday是分别以Frigg/Freya之夫Woden及其子Thor命名的，因此作为一种抚慰英语就把星期五献给了她。北欧人将星期五视为一周中最吉利的一天，是结婚日。对基督教徒来说，星期五则是不吉利的一天，因为耶稣正是在这一天被钉死在十字架上的。 Saturn乃罗马神话中的农神或播种之神。每年12月17日，古罗马人都要举行农神节（Saturnalia），纵情狂欢，他们还以农神的大名来命名一星期中最后一天，亦即the day of Saturn，英语Saturday即由此借译而来。 ●Christmas 圣诞节 Originally, Christmas was a Christian holiday aiming to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ more than 2,000 years ago.

I am a woman again. A Venus birthed anew. Suddenly overnight, a life force pulses through me and my heart expands. I’m in love with life, and in love with the possibility, that love and beauty are not behind me. QUIVER

...their heathen fingers understand truth and beauty.

Pride and respect are earned, not given by birth.

Why I thought, must there always be two conversations? one that women have when there are men present & one we have when we are alone?

I am like Icarus without wings. But the desire to fly was very strong in me. I think I was always looking for a Daedalus.

Manet’s barmaid in Bar at the Folies-Bergère, whose reflection in the mirror behind her was clearly at odds with her posture, and then there was the unnaturally long neck and grotesquely large feet of the beautiful woman featured in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.

The list of luminaries receiving Medici patronage ranged from da Vinci to Galileo to Botticelli—the latter’s most famous painting, Birth of Venus, the result of a commission from Lorenzo de’ Medici, who requested a sexually provocative painting to hang over his cousin’s marital bed as a wedding gift. Lorenzo de’ Medici—known in his day as Lorenzo the Magnificent on account of his benevolence—was an accomplished artist and poet in his own right and was said to have a superb eye.

Professor Paglia attended a presentation and lecture by a "feminist theorist from a large Ivy League university who had set out to 'decode' the subliminal sexual oppressiveness . . . [and] to expose the violent sexism . . . in fashion photography". The presentation featured slides of cosmetic ads. One was a Revlon ad of a woman standing in a pool in water up to her chin. "Decapitation!" the feminist theorist shouted. "She showed a picture of a black woman who was wearing aviator goggles and had the collar of her turtleneck sweater pulled up. "Strangulation!" she shouted. "Bondage!". When the "lecture" was over, Professor Paglia, "who considers herself a feminist, stood up and made an impassioned speech. She declared that the fashion photography of the past 40 years is great art, that instead of decapitation she saw the birth of Venus, instead of strangulation she saw references to King Tut". After Professor Paglia finished, "she was greeted, she says, 'with gasps of horror and angry murmuring. It's a form of psychosis, this slogan-filled machinery. The radical feminists have contempt for values other than their own, and they're inspiring in students a resentful attitude toward the world (New York Magazine, 21 January 1991, p. 38).

MODERN SCIENCE CAN SOLVE ANY TECHNICAL PROBLEM IT RECOGNISES therefore 257 THE GREAT FUTURE OF MANKIND WE CAN DOME THE CRATERS OF THE MOON AND GROW FORESTS IN THEM and then STRIP FROM VENUS HALF THE CLOUDS WHICH MAKE HER SURFACE A FACSIMILE OF ANCIENT HELL AND GIVE HER MOIST AIR RAINING AN OCEAN WHICH, STOCKED WITH PLANKTON AND WHALES, WILL COMPOSE A WARM PACIFIC PLANET WITH VOLCANIC ISLANDS WHERE SLOWLY NEW LIFE WILL TAKE ROOT and then HOLLOW THE LARGEST ASTEROIDS, LIGHT ARTIFICIAL SUNS IN THEM, ACCELERATE THEIR AXIAL ROTATION TO PRODUCE CENTRIFUGAL INTERIOR GRAVITY, BUILD HORIZONLESS GARDEN CITIES ROUND THE WALLS AND LET ADVENTUROUS GENERATIONS SAIL TO THE STARS IN THEM because WITHOUT FIGHTING OTHERWORLDLY HUNS, PLUNDERING OTHERWORLDLY AZTECS, KOWTOWING TO OTHERWORLDLY SUPERMEN, WE CAN CREATE ALL THE GOOD WORLDS WE EVER IMAGINED and thus LOVE, SEX, BIRTH, CHILDREN NEED NO LONGER LEAD TO POVERTY, FAMINE, WAR, DEBT, SLAVERY, REVOLUTION, THEY WILL BECOME OUR GREATEST GIFT TO THE UNIVERSE WHICH ENGENDERED US! However THE COST OF FERTILISING THE WASTE OF THE UNIVERSE, STARTING WITH THE MOON, IS SO GREAT THAT ONLY A RICH PLANET CAN AFFORD IT so we must EMPLOY EVERY LIVING SOUL TO FERTILISE OUR OWN DESERTS, RESTOCK OUR OWN SEAS, USE UP OUR OWN WASTE, IMPROVE ALL GROUND, NOURISH EDUCATE DELIGHT ALL CHILDREN UNTIL ALL ARE STRONG, UNAFRAID, CREATIVE, PRACTICAL ADULTS WHO LOVE AND UNDER-STAND THE WORLD THEY LIVE IN AND THE MANY WORLDS THEY COULD LIVE IN 258 GLORY RAGE RADIANCE for it is technically possible to CREATE A WORLD WHERE EVERYONE IS A PARTNER IN THE HUMAN ENTERPRISE AND NOBODY A MERE TOOL OF IT yes God we can BECOME GARDENERS AND LOVERS OF THE UNIVERSE BY FIRST TREATING OTHERS AS WE WISH THEY WOULD TREAT US AND LOVING OUR NEIGHBOURS AS OURSELVES (What happened three nights later when you went home to Denny?) FUCK OFF YA FUCKIN BASTARDING BAMPOT YE! LEA ME ALANE YE BLEEDN CUNTYE! YE ROTTN PRICKYE! Yes I’ll tell you about that but not right now. Give me a bit more time. Please. God.

Our fourth chakra is our heart chakra that gives pure love, compassion, good parent quality, self-confidence and detachment. Our spirit is most importantly in our heart, and the spirit is nothing but love. Its ruling planet is Venus, which represents the signs of Taurus and Libra as love, beauty, art and rule. A Venus which works well creates harmony and beauty wherever it is. It makes you feel nice to people. Strong Venus in a birth chart adds significant beauty to a male. The uniqueness stretches out from a person's inner nature and focuses on a person's behavior and attitude. Benevolence and sweetness encourage us to create positive emotions in people and help us transform them. When our heart opens, we become more connected with our subconscious. The spirit of pure love that is ignited in our heart naturally extends to our surroundings and also sparks similar emotions among the people around us. •       The Vishuddhi is called the fifth Chakra. This chakra located in our throat area helps us to feel that we are part and parcel of the whole. When this chakra is open we feel that we are a part of the whole. When this chakra is open, we experience the sensation of being one with the universe, with nature and with other humans. Saturn is the ruling planet for that center of energy. Saturn also rules the Capricorn and Aquarius signs. In our birth chart difficult aspects of Saturn make us feel lonely in life. Saturn is something of a disciplined teacher. Saturn's position in our birth chart offers us life field checks and lets us develop our shortcomings. It reveals the human character parts which need to be completed. It sometimes limits, creates hurdles and makes initiatives useless. Saturn is doing this so we are learning the lesson it is trying to teach. Once we learn our limitations and discover them, Saturn gives us stability, robustness and detachment. The fifth chakra also governs the ability within us to discern between right and wrong. During moments that Saturn is questioning us, with the aid of this chakra, we will use our power of judgment to realize what is right and wrong. This center of energy also gives us a state of witness. This allows us to enjoy life while playing our role and as a drama experience all the tragedy and difficulties. In this game the earth, the whole universe and planets play a role and put it on stage. Saturn creates a pessimistic personality when functioning badly, who cannot see the good things in life and feels sorry for himself.

Their association with the hearth, from the legendary birth of Servius Tullius onward, kept these gods close both to the women who managed the household and to the slaves who prepared the food. By contrast, the grander shrines in the public rooms of the house (especially but not exclusively the atrium) only very rarely featured paintings of the lares, genius, or snakes so typical of kitchen cults. Instead, these shrines contained small statues of the gods (either of bronze or rendered in a variety of other materials) cultivated by the family, deities known collectively as the penates, which is to say gods worshipped by a kin group.12 These deities included an eclectic mixture of the gods of local public cults (such as Venus the patron deity of Pompeii or Mercury the god of trade) with others of personal or gentilicial significance to the family.13 While small statues of lares could frequently be found here, their religious function was different than their role in the kitchen. In other words, the main focus of the shrines in the atrium was not on lares, although these familiar gods were usually invited to every religious occasion in the house.

The safest opposition is one that doesn’t exist until the right moment.

Our best sales territories may be under our Mercury lines. Our publishers are waiting along our Jupiter lines. Saturn lines can help our children choose a university. Venus lines point to love. Moon’s lines show a woman’s best place to give birth and raise her children. Sun lines show where we can succeed, gain recognition and literally shine in the world.