The Friday rite

a Venus rite for two people who freely choose to take part together

What the tradition reads

Where the Western planetary tradition and its Vedic parallel are practised by two people together rather than one alone, the tradition assigns the shared day to whichever planet governs the bond between them, and Friday, Venus's day in both systems, is the day the tradition gives most readily to partnership, reconciliation and beauty shared rather than pursued alone. The tradition treats a shared planetary rite as differing from a solitary one chiefly in its need for consent freely given by both people before it begins, since a blessing addressed to a partnership assumes two people who actually want to be in one, and the practice is not read as valid, by the tradition's own account, if either person is doing it from obligation rather than willingness. Venus's traditional qualities, fairness, freedom and being kept, in the sense of honoured and looked after, give the rite its central address, and the tradition reads a couple's honest account of what was fair and what needs arranging between them as the practical heart of the working. The tradition closes every such rite, as it closes every solitary one, with thanks rather than with a request answered or unanswered.

The story

A rite for two people addressed to Venus draws on the same grimoire logic as any solitary planetary meditation, the hour, the colour, the incense, the address, but adapts the shape to a working done by two rather than one, a variation the older grimoires themselves rarely describe in detail, since most surviving instructions assume a single operator. The specific form given here, an exchange of what the sky looked like at each partner's own birth, an honest account of what was fair and unfair in the week just past, and a closing gesture of blessing exchanged hand to chest, was composed for a private couple's own practice rather than drawn from any named older source, and this corpus does not claim otherwise; it is included as a workable, current adaptation of the older tradition's logic to a use the grimoires themselves did not write out, being concerned chiefly with a solitary operator's relationship to the planetary intelligences rather than with a partnership between equals. The Venus correspondences the rite draws on, day, colour, incense and angel, come from the same Agrippa and Heptameron sources as the rest of this corpus's planetary material, so that even where the rite's specific shape is new, its furniture is old and traceable.

The practice

1. Both people agree beforehand, in plain words, that they want to take part; the rite is not carried out if either person would rather not. 2. In the Friday Venus hour, evening or morning, one person does the blessing of the room while the other lights the lamp; rose or jasmine in the room if available, two cups of water set out. 3. Sit facing each other, close enough that knees nearly touch, and breathe twelve slow rounds together, one person counting the first four aloud and then falling silent. 4. Say the address together, one line each in turn, in the name of the One who made the lights, turning to the light of Venus for love that is fair, free and kept, asking that it harm no one. 5. Each person says one thing the other did that was fair in the past week, and one thing they would like arranged for the week ahead, without arguing the point, only stating it. 6. Each person places a hand gently on the other, over the heart or the back, and says a plain word such as blessed, kept, holding the gesture for ten slow breaths. 7. Drink the water together, give thanks, and put out the lamp together.

Written from

Corpus key rite:friday-rite.