Astrology and Mythology: Venus in Her Past Lives

venus-2Venus made her way into Taurus at the beginning of this month, a good placement for her. Venus likes the Taurean emphasis on sensual delights. Venus is an ancient goddess, her provenance going back to the beginnings of civilization. The first planet we see in the evening and and the morning, despite her playgirl image, Venus is an important player in the pantheon of ancient dieties.

The word “planet” means traveler, and the gods and goddesses traversed the ancient world. The first identity thieves, the ancient deities would merge their identity with a similar local gods and goddess, and take on their names and attributes. In Sumer she was Inanna before she became Ishtar in Babylonia, where she ruled sex, fertility, love and war. The sacred whore, this powerful goddess had more than her share of Plutonian themes in her love relationships. Her greatest threat against the other gods and goddesses when she was angered was that she would break the gates of heaven and earth and unleash the dead upon the living. She probably had to move on for her own good. She next materialized as the goddess Astarte, retaining her associations with sex, love and war. It was as Astarte that she became associated with the bull, donning the head of a bull to demonstrate her authority. In Egypt, she is Isis, probably the most powerful of all the Egyptian deities, having acquired the power to resurrect the dead. Revered as the sacred mother, she was a powerful magician. Her greatest claim to fame was reanimating her murdered husband, the god Osiris, long enough to impregnate herself with their only child. Egypt was a difficult and tragic life, so again, on the road she went, resuming her identity as Astarte, and eventually morphing in the identity of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sensual delights. She shed her responsibilites as a war goddess, handing them over very nicely to the Goddess of Discord, Eris, and went on to live the high life partying and seducing as many lovers as she could. She could be very manipulative when she so chose. It was her offer to playboy Paris to give him the most beautiful woman in the world that started the Trojan war. Aphrodite later took the name of Venus as her Roman name where she continued her role as the goddess of sex.

Though Venus seems to have softened her party line from her many incarnations, it is important not to underestimate her power. It is under her spell that we make many critical decisions, who we love and how we love them. Venus in your chart shows what you are willing to do to get what you want. We must not forgot that though themes of power and control are played out through Pluto, Venus has a long history of maniputative plots of her own. It is interesting that Venus in the sky now is making a hypnotic trine with Pluto and is challenging Mars. We can expect the themes of power, control and sex to continue make headlines during Venus’s sojourn in Taurus. Two years ago, when Venus strolled into Taurus, the D. C. Madam, Deborah Jean Palfry was found dead at her mother’s home. Now we are regaled with the stories of Sandra Bullock’s soon-be-ex, Jesse James’ “sex addiction”.

Note: This is repost of my May 2, 2008 piece on the old AE site, brushed up, of course, to add current events.

Photo printed under a Creative Commons License from Flickr.

facebook-logo1twitterloge1Add to Technorati Favorites

This entry was posted in Astrology and Mythology, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.