In the black pool of midnight Lu has slung the morning star,
And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar...
These words of George Russell's poem "Morning Star", beautifully capture the mood of our brightest planet Venus, now returning to the starry stage as goddess of the dawn.
Because Venus is the brightest object in our sky after sun and moon, it dominates the celestial landscape and, in addition to being the goddess of love and beauty, it is also always either the morning star, or the evening star.
As long ago as 1500 BC, during the time of ancient Babylonian culture, people understood that the morning star and the evening star were the same celestial object~sometimes appearing in the east before dawn, sometimes appearing in the west after sunset.
When we move further along in history, to the Ancient Greek culture, we find there are two separate gods governing Venus: Eosphorus was god of Venus as morning star; and Hesperus was god of Venus as evening star.
What the Greeks were expressing here was their understanding of the different qualities of love and beauty. When Venus is morning star, we see it before the sun rises, which suggests that the love she bears toward humanity has been worked over by the gods in the sacred heart of night, while we have been sleeping.
When Venus is evening star, we see it at the end of our day, after sunset, which means that now love and beauty have been informed by our own activity, which can be prone to jealousy and possessiveness and earthly passions.
But don't lose heart! Venus will be our morning star from now until March of 2016, which means the goddess of the dawn is leading us on with divine, rather than merely human, love.