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The Rise and Fall of Venus
Observing >
After sunset tonight and for the next weeks to come, a solitary bright object in the western skies will be making a vain attempt to escape the clutches of the setting sun. It is Venus, the Evening Star, and her path in the sky over the next season will dramatically show us why she has been so popular through the ages in both myth and metaphor.
Venus has an orbit that is permanently parked in the Number 2 spot from the sun after Mercury. Her place in the sky, therefore, takes the bright planet never too far from the Sun from our perspective. If we could freeze the Sun in the noontime sky for a year we could watch Venus go around the sun - passing in front towards the right (the west), then crawling behind to the left (eastwards), coming out from behind to begin the circuit all over again.
Now you can imagine that during those weeks when Venus is to the west of the sun - on the "right" - she precedes the Sun when they both rise in the morning. It is then that our nearest neighbor is called the Morning Star, shining far brighter than any other object besides the Moon.
But months later, as Venus continues to orbit around to the backside of the Sun, she appears to be getting closer to our star every morning, and finally gets so close as to disappear into the fires the Sun.
Just weeks after that, Venus reappears on the other side of the sun, to the east, and follows that Greater Light through the sky.
Now, when the sun sets and the skies darken, Venus, the follower, has seemingly "reappeared" as the Evening Star. As her orbit takes her more and more around the sun, she appears to rise higher and higher in the twilight western sky. It's almost a "Look at me, see how bright and shiny I am!" sort of circumstance, an attitude that lends itself to great stories of human nature.
What Venus doesn’t know is that her current rise into brilliant fame is short-lived; she is destined for a fall back into the sun.
Venus's recurring ascent from and descent into the fires was well known by the Babylonians, and the Sumerians before them. In Babylon the goddess associated with Venus was known as Ishtar, in Sumer she was Inanna.
Inanna's stories are numerous, and can't be described here; not because of the space limitations, but because they were quite racy. She was one promiscuous goddess to say the least
But one of her escapades, edited here for the family, shows us how nature and human nature unite in myth. E. C. Krupp's excellent book "Beyond the Blue Horizon" describes Inanna's exploits as she attempts to take control of the underworld.
Dressed to kill - literally - Inanna descends into the kingdom of the dead. Unknown to her, she is quickly discovered. Forced to disrobe, she is still unaware that she herself is being prepared for death. She finally stands naked before the magistrates of the netherworld, who find her guilty of attempted overthrow, and she is killed.
But some spirit spies are sent down into the abyss. They find her rotting body and bring her magically back to life. She then ascends again, reborn to former glory.
Sound like any planet we know?
The Bible itself uses the bright planet as a metaphor for the fall of prideful beings.
The prophet Isaiah condemns the king of Babylon in the fourteenth chapter:
How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn.
You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above all the stars...
I will make myself like the Most High"
But you are brought down to the grave,
To the depths of the pit.
As you watch the great planet rise higher in the sunset skies over the next weeks, keep in mind the lessons given us from the ancients and painted on the skies: pride goes before the fall.
Posted by Mark Ritter at 2007.01.21 05:37 PM | Comments (0)
