Culture and Cosmos Vol 20 1 and 2: Marriage of Heaven and Earth

This issue of Culture and Cosmos includes edited papers based on presentations at the 2014 Sophia Centre Conference titled ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Earth’. The notion of marriage as the creative and productive union of archetypal forces, powers or entities is shamelessly borrowed from the alchemical tradition. As is in previous years conference explored a range of topics covered by the umbrella term ‘cultural astronomy and astrology’, and as represented through the research and teaching of the Sophia Centre University of Wales Trinity Saint David, including the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology. 

The choice of words – Heaven and Earth – was intended to evoke religious imagery. The text in the call for papers made this clear: ‘All human cultures have both identified the sacred in the landscape, and created structures which embody the sacred. In many cases these sacred spaces are related to the stars, planets and sky. This academic conference will consider the construction, creation and representation of the sky in sacred space’. The papers in this volume have been divided into two themes: the first, ‘Land and Architecture’, and the second, ‘Text and Image’.