Aphrodite delayed not, but said, ‘And I, Master, will attach to the Love and Pleasure and Laughter.’(Corpus Hermetica, EXC. XXIII. Isis to Horus)
Venus (gk. Aphrodite), like Mercury, is an inner planet in close proximity to the Sun. Of all the planets (aside from the Moon), Venus’ phases are most apparent. Over the course of 18 months, an observer will notice that Venus oscillates in brightness – for nine months it waxes brighter and brighter in the sky, and for nine months it wanes. The intensity of Venus in the sky during its period of brightness resulted in this planet also been known as Phosphorous by the Greeks, and Luciferous by the Romans.
The Morning and Evening Star:
Since Venus is one of the two inner planets it orchestrates a unique pattern in the sky. The planet vanishes from the sky twice in its 584-day cycle; the short Inferior Conjunction when Venus is in front of the Sun, and the long Superior Conjunction when it is behind the Sun (IC and SC in the diagram below).
After a brief eight-day disappearance during its Inferior Conjunction, Venus reappears in the eastern dawn sky minutes before sunrise. Each passing day Venus appears slightly early and further west than the previous day, shining brightly in the pre-dawn sky for longer periods of time. Once it appears about 47˚ west of the Sun, Venus is considered to be at ‘maximum western elongation’, from this point onward the planet’s early morning presence dwindles. Finally, 263-days after its first rise as a Morning Star, Venus enters Superior Conjunction and disappears from the early morning sky. After a period of 7-8 weeks Venus reappears in the sky, but now it is in the west as the Evening Star moments after sunset. As the days pass, Venus appears further east and stays in the dusk sky for longer periods of time until reaching its ‘maximum eastern elongation’ from the Sun. The nights following, Venus starts appearing closer to sunset and the planet’s time in the evening sky wanes until it enters Inferior Conjunction and disappears once more…
The complete cycle takes approximately 584 days (583.9). Like Mercury, past astronomers (particularly the Aztecs and Maya) measured the cycles of Venus against greater periods of time. The most basic Venus::Sun ratio is 5 Venus cycles every 8 solar years. Yielding a 2 day error, the 5/8 ratio holds true, but is nowhere near to the precision of the Mercury::Sun ratio.
Venus and the Pentagram:
Within the Venus::Sun cycle we find that the locations of Inferior Conjunction (or Superior Conjunction, or indeed any fixed reference in the Venus cycle) when plotted in an ecliptical chart produces pentagonal geometry. As an example we will plot five consecutive Inferior Conjunctions of Venus between 582BCE and 576BCE.
The precision is remarkable. Any point in the Venus synodic cycle plotted at 584-day intervals will produce the pentagram. The next conjunction cycle (begins 30May 574BCE) will produce a similar pentagram only turned about 2 degrees clockwise and so forth.
Phi, Geometry and Gematria:
Of particular interest is that while the Sun::Mercury ratio gives us an approximation of Pi, the Sun::Venus ratio produces the first two digits of Phi (1.61803398…). Furthermore, the pentagram produced by Venus’s conjunction cycle in ecliptic astronomy is a geometric expression of Phi as the ratio of line segments are all based on Phi.
The Golden Mean, or Phi, is found everywhere from the spirals of a nautilus shell to the proportions of the human body and even in the geometry of our DNA. Phi is rhythm; it is a mathematical harmony that describes the repeating geometries of various universal forces. It is the ordering principle behind otherwise chaotic forces; and we see the evidence of this order in the spiral shapes and proportions we have come to associate with the Golden Mean.
As a transcendent irrational number, Phi is to be understood as a manifestation of the Shekhinah/Sophia principle, or the omnipresent divine feminine that slithers throughout the Cosmos and propegates the beauty of the Golden Mean.