In order to understand the magical world of our ancient ancestors, we must understand the way they saw the world: as a realm under God’s creation in which all things exist, demons, angels, gods, animals, kings, criminals, magicians, warriors, love, betrayal, defeat, victory and so on. All of these different beings were present on earth AND in the sky in the form of planets, constellations, individual stars, stellar phenomena etc.
So each planet is associated with more than one divinity – and each of these divinities is shown through the planets heliacal phase. Roll credits.
Just kidding. This is a big topic which requires a lot of technical knowledge and remains an incomplete field, however I will do my best to elucidate these mysteries in this post.
The term ‘heliacal’ refers to the name ‘Helios’ the ancient Greek name for the Sun. So heliacal means, ‘to do with the Sun’. So a heliacal phase refers to the relationship of a planet’s position in the sky to the position of the Sun. The inner planets (Venus and Mercury) have different heliacal phases than the outer planets (Mars, Jupiter and Saturn); this is too complicated for me to explain here, it is enough just to know it for now.
The main two phases that the planets have are as ‘evening stars’ or as ‘morning stars’. Imagine you are an ancient priest who is watching the sky – how are the planets going to appear? They will look like rapidly moving stars! When the planets change phase they will either appear in the morning (before sunrise) or in the evening (after sunset), hence the term evening or morning star.
The way to understand this astrologically is illustrated in figures 2 and 3 below. If a planet is earlier than the sun in the order of the signs (sun is in Taurus and Venus is in Aries), then it is a morning star. If it is later in the signs than the Sun (Sun in Taurus and Venus in Gemini), then it is an evening star.
Keep in mind that the first house and the seventh house are the horizons and anything beneath them is beneath the earth and cannot be seen, but anything above these two houses can be seen. In figure 3, Jupiter Mars and Saturn won’t be seen until they rise above the horizon in 6-8hours, whereas Venus and the moon will be seen above the sunset for several more hours before sinking below the earth.
So now that the basic concept is out of the way what does it all mean???
Venus: Morning star is Athena – masculine, forward moving, loyal in love, victorious/warlike. Ruling in Leo.
Evening star is Aphrodite – feminine, unstable in love, focus on beauty, romance and sex, magnetic. Ruling in Taurus.
Mercury: Morning star is Apollo – artistic, right brain, poetic, storytelling, creative, divine inspiration. Rules in Virgo?
Evening star is Hermes – intellectual, left brain, analytical, detail oriented. Rules in Gemini
Mars: Morning star is Hephaestus – Victory in war/conflict, athletics, forging/building, controlled passion, channeled anger.
Evening star is Ares the God of bloodshed – destructive, chaotic, unrestrained anger, issues with police, criminals or military, war.
Jupiter morning star is Zeus – social advancement, acquisition of riches, glory and fame, entering high society .
Evening star is Hera – Charitable, advancement to ‘give back’, helping the unprotected or needy.
Saturn morning star is Ninurta, the dark hero – Mature, serious, strong boundaries, desiring power/control, controlled fears, slow progress
Evening star is Anzu the Devil-bird – Suspicious, hateful, holding grudges for a long time, ruthless, insecure, fearful
This is a good introduction to the different phases of the planets. In the next post I will cover the invisible planets and what each one indicates and how to identify it in a chart. Until then, go with Apollo and Athena at your back!
Julian
