The humble square, with side length equal to one unit, is like the number one. It’s area is one square unit and, when we add another identical square to one side, the double squareA unit rectangle of 1 by 2, with important use for alignment (Carnac), cosmology (Egypt) and tuning theory (Honnecourt Man). appears. Above right the Egyptian Djed column is shown within a double square. The Djed is the rotating earth which the gods and demons have a tug of war over. This is also a key story in the Indian tradition, called The Churning of the Oceans, where the churning creates both the food of the gods (soma) and every wonderful thing that emerges upon the Earth. In this, the double square symbolized the northern and southern hemispheres of the Earth. The anthropomorphic form Djed shown above has elbows indicative of the Double square.
Figure 1 The churning of the ocean (Samudra Manthan in Sanskrit)
The Djed appears to be the general principle of rotation of, and apparent motion around, the earth.
The god Isis is (as a planet) Venus and is shown (fig.2) offering up the sun disk: another Djed is below, with her Ankh symbol of Life atop the Djed, now having female arms . This sun most probably points to the practical year as 365 days which is 5/8 of the Venus synod of 584 days. (This ratio of 1.6 is the sixth note of the octave 1 to 2.)
In figure 2, two female attendants provide the duality which one might take to be her two famous manifestations of (firstly) the brightest Evening Star, as the sun goes down, and then (after that) the brightest Morning Star before the sun rises. Above there is duality again with three baboons either side of the sun, perhaps representing the six visible planets: Moon, Venus and Mercury: Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and their “tug of war”.
Figure 2 The creation of Horus-Ra from out of an ankh with female arms atop a djed. from Budge 1899, also fig. 7.8 of Richard Heath, The Harmonic Origins of the World.
The numbers 5 and 8 are Fibonacci approximations {1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 …} to the golden meanThe Golden Mean is that unique ratio {1.618034}, relative to ONE {1}, in which its square and reciprocal share the same fractional part {.618034}. It is associated with the synodic period of the planet Venus, which is 8/5 {1.6} of the practical year {365 days}, by approximation. It is a key proportion found in Greco-Roman and later "classical" architecture, and commonly encountered in the forms living bodies take., a transcendent number {1.618034…} which rational numbers can only approximate. Venus and the Earth have clearly settled into orbits around the sun resonant with Fibonacci ratios since the Venus orbital period (224.701 days) is 8/13 of the solar yearFrom Earth: the time in which the sun moves once around the Zodiac, now known to be caused by the orbital period of the Earth around the Sun.. And it is this fact that eventuates in what we see on Earth, namely the manifestations of Venus every 8/5 of a practical year. of 365 days.
Figure 3 The double square, its in-circle and out-circle manifesting golden rectangles around itself.
In this post, I developed a result sent to me, that a square drawn within the upper hemisphere of a circle must define a golden mean rectangle either side from its height of 1 and the remaining radius of 0.618034… and so it can be seen that the divine principle of the Golden Mean emanates from the double square, either side of each square, when the double square is embraced by a circle drawn from its center. Obviously, on Earth and between orbits (of Venus and Earth), the Golden Mean (also called Phi) has to be approximated by whole number ratios but the principle is present within the geometry and its out-circle. Schwaller de Lubicz thought the dynastic Egyptians held the Golden Mean to be “the fundamental scisson” (literally “scissor cut”) in the range one to two and, its reciprocal can be seen to share the portion over 1 (figure 3).
One can see that geometry and the early numbers would have been seen as two aspects of what we call space and time, in which “things” are separate from each other in Existence but somehow conjoined within Eternity. What we call order is in fact an achievement of harmony made possible by the arranging and fitting of parts to form a coherent whole. It is this insight which gave meaning to their study of geometry and numbers from the prehistoric onwards, into the recorded history of early civilizations. The meaning for Life on Earth became encoded within ancient and prehistoric symbols, whose geometrical and numerical language of expression went to the heart of phenomena.
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