The warm and lovely metal copper is Venus’ personal metal, and female her gender. Strangely, baby girls are born with 30% more copper in their bodies then infant males! 

Medicinally, Venus is a wound-healing  vulnerary, and soothing demulcent, relieving pain. Her effect on the body is primarily relaxing. She also increases the romantic libido (as opposed to Martian lust). She rules sugar too, and her general properties sweeten our lives in so many ways. 

Furthermore, the physical planet Venus is a greenhouse and very warm indeed!

So, we may now ask, how can Venus be “cold”? Well, she can’t! There is just nothing cold about her.  Well, how about pleasantly cool then?  If you lived in the Sahara, yes, you might very well experience Venus that way. However, if you lived in Norway, Venus’ action upon your body would instead be pleasantly warming! 

How can Venus be both cooling and warming? Because Venus’ ray produces that one action the Renaissance could not envision: normalizing!  Venus, the Peace-Keeper is ever seeking to produce the happiest mean between any two extremes. This is also the function of her home sign Libra- think of the scales! Libra governs legal decisions.

We must re-designate Venus’ traditional temperature assignment from “cold” to “warm/cool” as needed!

On the whole, Venus’ influence upon the physical body to be gently warming and moist, (whereas Luna, the Moon is always cool-cold and moist). However, lady Venus is happily cooling and moist as circumstance demands.

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Now, let us place our attention on Sol, (the Sun) and Mars.

Tradition gives “hot and dry” to both Mars and Sol. The non-experienced medical astrologer treats them the same! The problem is that in practice, they do not act the same at all! Mars is definitely hot. However, he is piercing heat. Mars either penetrates from the inside out (excreting); or from the outside in (entering, cutting, inseminating). Most importantly, Mars is not always dry! In Water signs he morphs hot and moist.

Mars governs the Water Triplicity and rules the Water sign Scorpio. I rest my case. The Sun is obviously a supremely hot star, and the source of all heat. However, his photons constitute our bodies without burning us up! Here is a secret: by transit, the Sun does not create “heat” except when in fire signs or when aspecting Mars!

Rather, he governs over the unique quality of each season as sojourn through the twelve seasons we call the “zodiac signs” of geocentric tropical astrology.

For example, when in water signs Sol produces cool moisture! Only in the first two fire signs is he distinctly hot. (In our sole Winter fire sign, Sagittarius, he moves the outward heat into the neuromuscular system and higher mind.) Never expect the transit Sun to deliver “heat”. More often then not, when conjunct a natal planet, this is not his manifestation (unless in fire signs).

Knowing this, how can we best resolve the mystery of the Sun’s astral heat? And how is the Sun’s heat different from that of Mars? This is not hard to fathom if you consider H. L. Cornell’s designation of a cell’s nucleus as Sun-ruled. Traditionally too, the Sun governs the Vital Force of all living beings. Life itself!

Whereas Mars brings the red-blood heat, animal passions, metabolic burn and muscular force, conversely…

The Sun is the heat of Life itself, the Vital Force! The Sun is Light.

 

The Renaissance Herbal Mess: Correcting the Mistakes of the Past 

Renaissance doctors were master herbalists and significant astrologers. However, as humans, they also made some interesting mistakes. Unfortunately, these errors have been parroted down the centuries without question. Foremost is what can amusingly be termed: “The Herbal Mess”. 

Herbs were traditionally grouped under their “ruling” planet for multifarious and often contradictory reasons including: sympathetic action to planet’s influence; antipathetic action to same planet’s influence; color; form; function; taste; smell; sympathetic action organ affinity; temperature.

The hopeful herbalist is confounded by lengthy lists of herbs grouped by planet, seemingly willy-nilly. “Just pick one!" 

For instance, some Solar Herbs are indeed warming (Sun), whereas others sport large yellow flowers that resemble tiny Suns (Sunflower). Still others are gathered in the Sun’s sign Leo (St. John’s Wort); or treat heart complaints  (the heart is governed by the Sol (Hawthorne). Some solar-specified herbs stimulate the heart whereas others sedate it. The list goes on. 

When cross-examined, many traditionally assigned “solar herbs” treat many other organ systems equally well-(Angelica); whereas others have blue flowers (Rosemary). Saint John’s Wort is an infamous sedative vulnerary - qualities antipathetical to the Sun. However, its delicate yellow flowers bloom in Sol’s home sign Leo on St. John’s Day. 

Hawthorne is another solar-classed herb that is highly specific to the heart. However, it blooms intensely in a week-long spree in May (season of Taurus) and is renowned for its sexually-reminiscent flower scent and tiny white or pink flowers (Venus, ruler of Taurus), and horrid thorns (Mars). 

As we see, these herbal lists have never been segregated according to specific energetic action in a manner truly useful to either astrologers or herbalists. The working  result is about as useful as a cart disengaged from its horse! It is also true that few herbs are truly governed by only one planet! Even our lovely rose, so beloved to Venus, possesses obvious spiny, toxic thorns - a little gift from her lover Mars! Realistically, Rose is Venus-Mars. 

I would promote the creation of herbal tables by sympathetic energetics. Not only does this approach make sense, but it provides a realistic guide to prescribing for symptoms caused by planetary excess and deficiency. Finally!

E.g. purely Martian herbs must be the majority of these qualities 1) hot in the 3rd or 4th degree; 2) red color somewhere; 3) rich in iron; 4) stimulant in action; 5) thorny, highly pungent or poisonous;  6) affinity for Mars-ruled functions and systems: male parts; libido; excretion; digestion; bile; anti-parasite; antibacterial.

Obviously, our best candidate is cayenne pepper! As we see, most herbs have two or three planetary rulers, or sign rulership, or both!

SOLUTION TO THE HERBAL MESS

Personally, I’d suggest an altogether new method for listing planetary-herbal assignments. Herbal lists should be segregated by either their Sympathy or Antipathy to the known qualities of specific planets (e.g. Mars). Further designations can be made by organ affinity (many herbs have multiple bodily affinities); and degrees of hot/cold; dry/moist, (e.g. hot to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th degree, etc). The renowned herbalist Matthew Wood and I have been working on solutions to this exact problem.

Factually, planet-herbal lists should never be used as an exclusive means of selecting herbal medicines. Planets are best used to discern the energy types and patterns underlying disease. Once the disease energetics are established, the healer is supremely empowered to select the best herbs for the job!

These new Planet-Herbal categorizations could be then paired with what I believe to be the most thorough, fun-to-read and user-friendly herbal repertoire in print: The Earthwise Herbal Repertory by Matthew Wood.

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MEDICAL ASTROLOGY BOOKS!  by Judith Hill
available through Amazon;  Barnes & Noble and New Renaissance Bookshop 

Medical Astrology: A Guide to Planetary Astrology.   

Astrology & Your Vital Force: Healing With Cosmic Rays and DNA Resonance

The Astrological Body Types (illustrated by author)