Tuesday 21 February 2012

Seven Pointed Stars



Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt




Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt

A heptagram or septegram is a seven-pointed star drawn with seven straight strokes.

In general, a heptagram is any self-intersecting heptagon (7-sided polygon).
There are two regular heptagrams with the second number representing the vertex interval step from a regular heptagram.

This is the smallest star polygon that can be drawn in two forms, as irreducible fractions. The two heptagrams are sometimes called the heptagram and the great heptagram.

Fascinated with the number seven and it's importance to mysticism throughout the ages. The week breaks up into seven as do the planets: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

In alchemy, each classical planet (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) was associated with one of the seven metals known to the classical world (gold, silver, mercury/quicksilver, copper, iron, tin and lead respectively). As a result the alchemical glyphs for the metal and associated planet coincide. Alchemists believed the other elemental metals were variants of these seven (e.g. zinc was known as "Indian tin" or "mock silver").

The Chinese believe that the human being metaphorically, sheds their skin, every seven years; 7,14,21,28 etc...

Seven is also the number of primary and secondary colours.

Primary Colours

Blue,
Yellow,
Red.

Secondary Colours

Green,
Brown,
Purple,
Orange.

Here are some works created in homage to the number seven.

Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt



Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt


Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt

Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt


Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt


Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt


Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt


Seven Pointed Stars by Joe Pollitt

Classical antiquity

 
Deity, being, or character
  • The Seven Lucky Gods refer to the seven gods of good fortune in Japanese mythology.
  • The number of archangels according to some systems.
  • In Buddhism, Buddha walked 7 steps at his birth.
  • In Khasi mythology, the seven divine women who were left behind on earth and became the ancestresses of all humankind.
  • The number of sleeping men in the Christian myth of the "Seven Sleepers."
  • The number of sages in Hindu mythology; their wives are the deities referred to as the "Seven Mothers."
  • In Iran,[9] German, Spanish, and other cultures that speak Romance Languages, cats are said to have 7 lives as opposed to English, where cats are said to have 9 lives.
  • In Irish mythology, the epic hero Cúchulainn is associated with the number 7. He has 7 fingers on each hand, 7 toes on each foot, and 7 pupils in each eye. In the Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, Cúchulainn is 7 years old when he receives his first weapons and defeats the armies of the Ulaidh and his son Connla is 7 years old when he is slain by Cúchulainn in "The Death of Aife's Only Son."
  • In Galician folklore, a seventh son will be a werewolf. In other folklores, after six daughters, the seventh child is to be a son and a werewolf. In other European folklores, the seventh son of a seventh son will be a child with special powers of healing and clairvoyant seeing, and in other cultures that seventh son of a seventh son would be a vampire.
  • In Guaraní mythology, the number of prominent legendary monsters.
  • In the eponymous British folk tale, Thomas the Rhymer went to live in the faerie kingdom for 7 years.
  • Mahatma Gandhi's list of the destructive Seven Blunders of the World that cause violence: Wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice and politics without principle.
  • The cosmogony of Urantia [10] gives an explanation to the sacredness of the number 7 in some religions, including those based on a triple deity: 7 indeed is the number of all the possible combinations of three elements taken one by one, two by two, or by three. It therefore expresses all the associative possibilities of the three fundamental aspects of the absolute (Christian Trinity, for example, or Trimurti in Hinduism) which organizes the Creation. The seventh of these combinations being the one that combines the three aspects, 7 therefore also expresses spiritual achievement.
Place
  • The number of main islands of mythological Atlantis.
  • The number of gateways traversed by Inanna during her descent into the underworld.
  • Cibola was one of the legendary Seven Cities of Gold the Spanish thought existed.
  • In the Bahá'í faith, the text The Seven Valleys, by the Prophet-Founder Bahá'u'lláh, relates the journey of the soul through the seven "valleys" of Search, Love, Knowledge, Unity, Contentment, Wonderment, and finally True Poverty and Absolute Nothingness.