COPPER – The Substance of Venus
PLANET OF BEAUTY AND LOVE
In Venus there is a desire, ^necessity, for beauty and harmonious union. Where she rules, there is beauty, song and dance. Instruments and bells are made of brass with the resonance of copper. Egyptian ladies used the copper ore malachite for beautifying their eyes.
The influence of Venus is predominant in the horoscopes of artists, musicians, the creators of beautiful clothes and jewellery. Artists use copper extensively for etching and print making, and in pigments for colourful paints. There are few substances on earth which possess the beauty of this soul metal, the many rich colours of red ranging from rose to almost gold.
In the alchemical operation ‘the colours of the peacock’s tail’ appear, a bird sacred to Venus (and the African goddess of love, Oshun) which owes its beautiful blue-green plumage to the presence of copper. As much as 6% copper has been measured in the wing pigmentation of certain species of birds.
The crystallizations of Lilly Kolisko4 using gold chloride and copper sulphate were characterized by their delicate colouration, nearly always creating a border of light green at the top of the copper “pictures.”
This brilliance of colour is also displayed in copper’s various ores such as malachite, azurite, dioptase, chalcopyrite and bornite, ranging from green and blue through to purple and red. If you ever watch copper burning you will notice the characteristic blue-green flames with flashes of red. The alchemists described Venus wearing a blue cloak over a red spirit, these colours reflected even in Botticelli’s painting.
The blue-green waves from which Venus rises illustrate copper’s special affinity to water — even the colour of liquid molten copper is sea-green. Most copper ores contain water, and the soluble copper salts such as copper sulphate and copper chloride, with their beautiful green and blue crystals, consist of up to 35% water. In fire copper loses its colour and turns black, when exposed to the atmosphere it assumes the green or bluish deposit of copper carbonate known as verdigris. While copper sulphate (blue vitriol) dries into a white powder on contact with air, it rapidly absorbs water to return to its crystallized state.
As Rudolf Hauschka writes “…copper absorbs water and changes it into form and colour. This capacity for organizing fluids is a characteristic copper attribute. Plants perform this function in organic nature…Copper, which has the same tendency in the dead mineral world, is closely bound up with all vegetative processes.”5
Copper’s connection with the fluidic functions is also demonstrated in cold-blooded animals such as snails, mussels, oysters, crabs and squid from the sea, which breathe with the aid of a blood pigment rich in copper known as haemocyanin. (The conch on which Aphrodite rests is a type of mussel.) Mellie Uyldert notes: “These soft, moist animals belong to the sensory element water which is linked with a person’s emotional life. It is well known that oysters have an aphrodisiac affect.”6
Astrologically, Venus (or copper) rules the two signs of Libra and Taurus. Where Libra represents the harmonious balance of the scales, in the sign of Taurus the bull, Venus shows herself as the patroness of skilled agriculture, connected closely with plants and occupations dealing with nature. Interestingly, copper and some of its ores imitate plant forms, veined leaves and tiny trees. Hathor, an Egyptian form of the goddess, shows her connection with the generative forces of the earth in her cow-form (her horns which are still used in bio-dynamic preparations for gardening). She is ‘union in beauty’ and her name Het-Hert means the ‘house of Heru’, the Sun.
Edible plants rich in copper include red clover, lettuce, garlic, carrot, cabbage, chickweed, sunflower seeds and walnuts, among others.
Copper’s involvement in the circulation of liquids is also shown in the living organism, in the venous blood which carries the toxic substances to the excretory organs. Copper is abundant in the female sexual organs, ruled by Venus of course! and, according to Uyldert, copper in the body is used up by sexual activity. She says this is the reason why people with no outlet for these energies often suffer from gallstones, which contain copper. Just as copper imitates plant and tree forms in its natural state, in the human female reproductive organs the inner passage of the cervix appears like branches forming from a tree trunk, and is given the name arbor vitce.
In the ancient temples of the goddess her cosmic energies were conveyed by sacred prostitutes who conducted the revitalizing and healing love of Venus, the copper energy, maximizing the ‘orgiastic potency’ (to use Dr. Reich’s term) of the worshippers. For the sake of our good health, at least, we should bring those temples back!
MEDICINAL COPPER
The liver is also rich in copper and liver extracts have been used to treat copper deficiencies. These deficiencies can cause malfunctions of the thyroid, unhealthy circulation (particularly the legs), spasmodic cramps, epilepsy, some mental illnesses, multiple sclerosis (whose sufferers often have been deprived of love and affection, according to Uyldert), and poorly developed sexual characteristics.
I have often used homeopathic copper for children’s leg-cramps — growing pains — and it is also used for convulsions, deficient kidney action, diabetes, etc.
One of the most famous uses of copper for many centuries was a form of copper vitriol available from apothecaries as the ‘powder of sympathy.’ The power of this remarkable powder for healing wounds was extolled in/I Discourse Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy written by an English nobleman at the court of Charles I in 1658. Rather than using the powder on the wound itself, a bandage with blood from the wound was placed in a bowl of water containing a handful of dissolved copper vitriol. Its cooling effect was transmitted etherically to the wound, (note copper’s high level of conductivity) apparently resulting in a rapid healing.
Another use of copper as a medicine was to rub the affected area with a piece of this metal a specific number of times a day depending on the affliction. For influenza we are told to rub the forehead with copper twice daily.