Simply put, the Venus Cycle tracks the movement of Venus as seen from the earth. This relative viewpoint causes Venus to pass through several discrete phases. These phases correspond to the cycle of life as depicted on the Aztec Sacred Round veintena and tell the story of Christ’s life.
Alpha and Omega: The Morning and Evening Star
Perhaps you have heard of the Morning Star and the Evening Star, but did you know that they were both references to one in the same planet: Venus? Depending on where Venus is in its orbit around the sun, it is recognized as either one or the other.
Since Venus orbits the sun in a smaller orbit than the Earth, it never appears to travel very far from the sun in the sky. This means that as Venus goes around the sun, we see it from earth as appearing either on one side of the sun or the other. In fact, if you were to look up at the sun on any given cloudless day, you’d be seeing Venus in the sky too. But, because the sun is so bright during the day, you cannot see Venus unless the sun is below the horizon, darkening the sky. Therefore Venus is only visible to the unaided eye either in the evening when it is trailing the sun as it sets or in the pre-dawn sky when it is preceding the sun as it rises. This is the meaning of the Evening Star and Morning Star, respectively.
Alpha and Omega: The Morning and Evening Star
But think about this as an observer from the earth who is tracking the bright light that is Venus every evening as it sets in the west:
- The evening star at first appears to be further and further away from the sun each night, growing in size and brightness,
- Eventually, it slows down and begins to dim and reverse course.
- As it gets closer and closer to the sun each night, it finally gets so near the sun that it is no longer visible and it appears to have vanished completely from the sky each night.
- That is, until about three weeks later the observer turns around to face the east and lo! Suddenly, Venus is seen coming up ahead of the sunrise!
- And with each passing day it grows brighter as it gets further and further ahead of the sun as it rises.
- Eventually it slows down again and begins to return to the sun.
- Eventually it is no longer seen again and will remain unseen for a longer period (almost two months).
Venus Setting as the Evening Star
As Venus approaches the sun, it gets harder and harder to see. This is the descent into “death” and ” hidden in the underworld” phase of the Venus Cycle.
Venus Rising as the Morning Star
About three weeks later, it will be possible to clearly discern Venus rising sufficiently far enough ahead of the sun so as to be visible to the naked eye. This is the ascent into the “resurrection” phase of the Venus Cycle.
Technical Details
The Venus cycle lasts about 585 days. This is longer than either Venus’ orbital period of 225 days or Earth’s of 364 days. Why is this? Because the Venus Cycle is the measure of time related to the phases Venus passes through when viewed from the earth: since both planets are orbiting the sun in the same direction, the amount of time it takes for Venus to return to the same place relative to the Sun when viewed from Earth is almost as long as both planets’ years added together.
Take the animation here (Fig. 1), if you take the starting frame as a reference for when Venus is closest to the earth (Fig. 2), it is observable that Venus does not again return to that proximal location until the earth has travelled 1.6 times around the sun (Fig. 3).
This ratio between the movement of the Earth in its orbit to the movement of Venus in its orbit means that it is not until every 8th year on Earth and every 13th year on Venus that the Earth and Venus return to their original position relative to the sun and the stars. Interestingly, in that time their relative paths trace out a pentagram (see Fig. 1), which is a powerful symbol of Christ.
Venus Cycle Phases
Now that we have established precisely how Venus moves through space and how that movement appears from the Earth, it is now possible to describe its apparent phases and how a calendar is built out of this.
In the below image (Fig. 4), it will be noted that Venus, marked as a five-pointed star with an elongated ray pointing to the sun as the source of its light, appears from the earth to take a path in four major stages: around the setting sun, hidden for a time, around the rising sun, and then hidden once again though for a longer period of time. The direction of this movement is indicated by the arrowhead marks on the black path. This enables us to trace the Venus Cycle through nine phases that correspond to nine of the 20 Aztec Sacred Round veintena glyphs (see Fig. 5).
Inasmuch as all the sacred calendars involved in the Restored Enoch Calendar point to Christ, it should be no surprise that the Venus Cycle too reflects his life. At the same time, Christ is an archetype for the journey of all souls and thus personal applicability may be construed as well. Here is a brief description of the phases of the Venus Cycle with that context in mind:
(1) Venus appears as the Evening Star, marking Christ’s mortal birth as a light unto the world and corresponding to the Aztec Sacred Round glyph of Temple, meaning the physical body; as the days pass, Venus grows further and further away from the sun; (2) Venus then appears to slow down in its wayward drift away from the sun, marking Christ’s maturation and full growth into manhood, corresponding to Lizard; (3) Venus descends back toward the sun, the mortal life of Christ coming to its conclusion as he gains the mastery over all enemies, corresponding to Serpent; (4) Venus is now too near the sun to be seen and is thus not visible in the sky for almost three weeks, a symbol of Christ’s descent into hades where he preached to the spirits in prison, the most fitting glyph being Death; (5) suddenly, Venus reappears in the sky, but now on the opposite horizon as the Morning Star just as Christ was suddenly resurrected from death, connected to the glyph Reed, and as Venus ascends higher into the sky as the days pass even so Christ ascended into heaven; (6) Venus begins to slow in its ascent away from the sun but at this point is also at its brightest when seen from the Earth, matching Christ’s brightness as he is crowned king of kings and lord of lords, matched to the symbol of Falcon; (7) Venus then reaches its apex where it appears to pause in the morning sky for a time before descending again, a fitting match for the rest of the Lord, a time of refreshing before new labor begins, symbolized by the Lotus; (8) Venus descends back toward the sun, just as Christ prepared once to come into the world from a prior lofty place, corresponding to Light; and finally (9) Venus is once again too near the sun to be seen and, on account of passing behind the sun on the far side of its orbit from Earth, it is not seen for about two months, which corresponds to Christ’s time spent in Mary’s womb before being born into mortality, symbolized by Wind.
Inasmuch as the Venus Cycle is limited in its symbolism to just those events pertaining to the major episodes of mortality, resurrection, and rebirth, only a minority of the veintena symbols are directly associated with the phases of the Venus Cycle calendar (see Fig. 5). The nine chosen glyphs can be divided roughly into the three episodes just mentioned:
- Mortality (colored red):
- Temple
- Lizard
- Serpent
- Resurrection (colored green):
- Death
- Reed
- Falcon
- Rebirth (colored blue):
- Lotus
- Light
- Wind
(That said, the veintena clearly describe the phases of the soul in at least four different major episodes aligned to the seasons of the Restored Enoch Calendar. Those episodes could be termed Mortality, Death/Spirit World, Resurrection, and the Heavens.)