Nogah / Venus |
Traditional Meaning: Values and ideals. Harmony, art, beauty, affection. Ability to attact others and maintain relationships.
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Formative Meaning: Sensuous, material reality. Levels of unconscious sensory input. The sensous experience
of existence (formed at the Tenth Sephirot) is defined as existential (50/Noun) and archetypal (5/Hay) life linked in a copulative (6/Waw) flow (3/Ghimmel).
These two lives of Nogah, inner and outer, will be met with the double containers of Kawkab at the ninth sephirot, the perception of
living reality.
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Autiot: Noun-Waw-Ghimel-Hayt:, 50.6.3.5: existential life-copulation/union-organic movement-archetypal life.
Binah, Nogah and Lavanah all bear the stamp of the double life: outer/existential and inner/archetypal, the two
lives of Keter/Ruach Elohim Hhaim, which structure the Tree of Life. The significance of Nogah/Venus formed by
Pay/Phay at the 10th Sephira and the sophisticated psychology of the Sepher Yetsira is always missed by those
who do not understand the projection of the Cube of Space upon the Tree of Life
and deny formative status to Malkut.
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The Northern energy, entering the waters of our body throught the left hand, has no reason to be other
than it is until it meets the psyche.
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Modern psychology and cognitive science have taught us that most of our sensory input and neurological
processing is unconscious. The Northern energy of Venus/Nogah is the mostly unconscious experience of
sensuous reality. Pay/80, unstructured energy or the pool of actual potentials "forms" or "structures"
the sensual input of the world of 'Assiah at the 10th Sephira, "where the events of life, death and
existence are inscribed." (SY, p.67).
The two lives of the Tree of Life were delineated in the
Formative Meanings of the sephirot. The key to the 10th sephira and the way through centuries of
authoritative speculation and misunderstanding is summarized in one Hebrew letter: the Noun of Nogah.
The purpose of the Tree of Life is to bring archetypal, infinite life into existence, and build a structure
capable of containing and manifesting the two lives of YHWH. In Zoharic terminology, Noun appears
in 3/Binah and 7/Netzach. In the Sepher Yetsira, considering all the specifications of the sephirot --
name, function, quality, direction -- Noun appears three times: for the first time in the direction
Phani (front, face) of the 7th sephira,
for the second time in planet Nogah/Venus of the 10th sephira and for the third time in the planet
Lavanah/Moon of the 1st/4th sephira, where the
two lives are experienced in the psyche.
Additionally, there are three final Nouns: in the direction
Yamin (right) of the 9th sephira, the direction
Tsafon (north) of the 10th sephira and in the "hidden direction" of the Holy Palace, the center or kernel
Makhoon, which "directs" or "carries" them
all. These are all projections into cosmic indetermination and the only final Nouns in either system
of sephirot (Noun can't be final until existential life is achieved).
In the Sepher Yetsira, Noun begins only one sephirotic or planetary equation: Nogah.
Noun/50 announces that existential life has been achieved, and unlike its forshadowing in Netzach, integrated
with an inner, archetypal life: Waw-Ghimel-Hay. Venus/Nogah, based in unconsciousness energy
and experience (Phay) is the sensual psyche, or our living experience of inner and outer life.
Mercury/Kawkab is our mental response and activity to the sensory stimuli and reality of Nogah/Venus.
The gematria of Adonai (Aleph-Dallet-Noun-Yod) the God-name associated with the Earth, is 65.
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Tarot Autiot:
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| Archetypal Life |
Organic Movement |
Union |
Existential Life |
The double life -- inner and outer -- is first found in Binah (Bayt-Yod-Noun-Hay), the 3rd sephira.
It is realized in the 10th sephira, Malkut, in Zohar terminology, Existence in the formative
language of the Sepher Yetsira. Existential life (Noun) penetrated (Waw) by infinite, organic movement (Ghimel)
gives rise to an inner, archetypal life (Hay).
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Sephirot:
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The ten Sephirot are transformers of energy, breaking it down until it becomes completely materialized.
Suares, SY, p.53
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Infinite intemporal energy is completely structuralized (the Tsadde of Tsafon/North) by the 10th sephira, Malkut/Kingdom
in the Zohar and Esser/Yod/Existence in the Sepher Yetsira. In Esser, 10, Ayn begins a number for the first time:
realized freedom (Ayn) gives rise to the second Sheen (the Breath from below) which fills the universe.
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Seal: The North/South, left/right axis is sealed by Waw, union/interpenetration.
This is the union of the existential (Yod, up/down) and life (Hay, front/back) axes: the sensual
experience and mental response that characterizes our experience of identity developing in
time (flowing from future/front to past/back).
The North/10th Sephira is sealed by Waw-Yod-Hay: sensual life enters from the North.
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Formative: Pay/Phay, unstructured energy or the sum of actual probabilities
form Venus/Nogah (sensuous experience) at the last sephira, Malkut.
Once again, the linked categories are clear and definitive: where else could possibilities
become real, except at the 10th sephira?
The Tarot formative, the Empress, expresses the sensous experience of the natural world and
Mother Nature's evolutionary potentials clearly. Some would place the
Tower, a symbol of resistance, here.
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Triad: 8/Sun-9/Mercury-10/Venus complete the secondary triad of physical energy.
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Binomial:
Opposite sephirot on the axes of the Cube of Space can be considered as two aspects
of the same energy, because they are opposities and they are sealed with the same initial letter
of YHWH: WYH and WHY in the case of the 9th and 10th Sephirot. The energy is a one-way flow which
appears two-fold to us according to our orientation to the flow and resistance/acceptance of the
planetary energies.
The Kawkab/Mercury-Nogah/Venus binomial describes a double flow of life (Noun-Waw-Ghimel-Hay)
entering from the left and being met by a double response (Kaf-Waw-Kaf-Bayt) on the
right.
Here, at the bottom of the Tree of Life, we find the culimination of the process of structuralization
of infinite energy that began with Keter. There have been many interpretations of the meaning
of Yesod and Malkut in traditional and westernized kabbalah; few of them involve Mercury and Yesod
and none a planetary connection with Malkut. The structure and definition of the 10th sephira is
apparently the second-deepest secret in the lower six sephirot of the Tree of Life (the first being
that the Moon is not one of them).
No one seems to have noticed (after all the as-above-so-below cant)
where the Magician is pointing with his left hand and that
of the 22 Tarot, only the Empress represents the natural world
(prolific with evolutionary possibilities) with no archetypal or cosmic symbolism.
Before the anti-rationalistic revolt of medieval kabbalah, ancient geocentric astrology
and cosmology ordered the celestial spheres from Saturn to the Moon,
and grouped the first six in pairs, ending with Mercury and Venus. This
is the cosmology of the unredacted Sepher Yetsira, and it places Mercury
on the 9th and Venus on the 10th Sephira (or the reverse, in some versions).
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Direction:
Again, we see complementary energy flows. Darom, Dallet-Raysh-Waw-Mem, begins in archetypal resistance,
Dallet/4, builds the cosmic container (Raysh/200) and joins (Waw/6) with biological structures (Mem/40).
Tsafon goes in the opposite direction: starting in the definite structure of Tsadde/90, it projects into
unstructured energy (Phay/80) and proliferates (Waw/6) in Cosmic Indetermination (Noun/700).
Note that Raysh/200 (daRom) forms the Ninth Sephira and Phay/80 (tsaFon) the Tenth.
| North |
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South |
| 226/876 |
50/700 |
6 |
80 |
90 |
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40/600 |
6 |
200 |
4 |
250/810 |
| Tsafon |
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Darom |
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Subjective Direction:
There are some facts whose obviousness becomes an excuse for their dismissal, which is part of a
larger pattern which operates to undermine the implications of the perception and remove it from
view.
At the end of the sephirot and Tree of Life, in its final descriptor, we find
the left: semol, whose interior meaning is obvious but disregarded as
as a mundane coincidence in a vowel shift and taken as the simple opposite to yamin, right.
The 5th sephira, Gedolah, begins the construction of experiential space and
is YHWH's stamp of the seal of his Name (it is sealed twice with YHW). The 10th, Malkut,
ends in the left, which is Sheen-Mem-Aleph-Lammed, Shem-El, his Name.
This leftness and lastness, and other related qualities, such as materiality, sensuality and
femininity, have been subject to repression and displacement as the 10th sephira is denied
a planetary formative and its roots in sensuous reality as the 6 extremes are migrated upward.
The linked categories of the 10th sephira:
seal, formative, direction, planet, contrary, etc., are all precise equations describing
their role in the process of structuration and formation, that is to say, in stepping
down infinite energy into manifestation and materiality.
The formative meanings and symbolic linkages speak for themselves as an integrated whole which
explains clearly how the 10th sephira focuses Phay/unstructured probability into
Existence through the experience of the double lives of Nogah/Venus on the left. That is,
why the 10th, why Phay forming Nogah, why Nogah is Noun-Waw-Ghimel-Hay, and why
it is found on the left as the source of our psychological experience of the material universe
and sensual reality. In short, why the 10th Sephira is the last of the six extremities,
why it forms a planetary energy, and why that energy is Nogah/Venus in the material world.
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Yamin (the right): Yod-Mem-Yod-Noun, with its two existential Yod, is the side where the action
takes place in the physical world: it receives the 9th Sephira, Yassod, signifying, as we have
seen, the foundations which support the Autiot.
Schmol (the left): Sheen-Mem-Aleph-Lammed, is none other than Schem-El, the name of Elohim.
It is directed towards the last Sephira which is numbered Yod, existence, and is called Melkat,
the realm of infinite power infinitely magnified, endowed with the name of the first Sephira, Keter,
crown.
Thus, by Schem-El,, integrated man loops the circumference of the Sephirot, uniting the end to the
beginning and the beginning to the end. (In this language, Schem-El becomes Semol, left, by a
substitution of Sheen in Seen.
Carlo Suares, Sepher Yetsira, p.88
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Contrary Quality: Hhan (graceful) in Shaur/Taurus and Ki-Or (mirages) in Mozenaim/Libra.
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[Phay]
In Shaur what can Nogah do when its organic life is Hhan
(8.700), that is, unconscious, and when it is immersed in the dynamism of Shaur? What can a very
sensual person do in a world that projects cosmic pleasures upon the human individual?
Carlo Suares, Sepher Yetsira, p.168
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[Pay] Formed by Pay, Nogah imagining itself to be awake, projects so many vivid
myths from its dreams and cannot extricate itself from them. Of such is the imagery where Pay comes to nothing.
Carlo Suares, Sepher Yetsira, p.161
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Hhan-Kee'or |
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| 200 |
6 |
70 |
10 |
20 |
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50/700 |
8 |
| 306 |
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58/708 |
| Gematria: 364/1014 |
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Zodiacal Environment: Shaur/Taurus
and Mozenaim/Libra are the zodiacal homes
of Nogah/Venus.
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In Shaur what can Nogah do when its orgainic life is Hhan (8.700), that is, unconscious, and when it is immersed in the dynamism of Shaur?
What can a very sensual person do in world that projects cosmic pleasures upon the human individual?
In Mozenaim Nogah acts, as in all spheres where energy has two aspects, as an organic and physical connecting agent.
The scope and depth of this harmony depends upon the individual's degree of maturity.
In Betolah Nogah brings a new element: the full life of its Noun (50). Furthermore, its Waw-Ghimel-Hay combines with the
Waw-Lammed-Hay of Betolah. This intense organic movement allows the sign to attain the revelation foreshadowed in the sign Sartan.
It is at a deeper level. SY 168-169
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