Venus Goddess of Love

Venus also Known Aphrodite as she represents goddess of love (boundless eros) --her primary concerns/interests are mature, adult relationships, romance, sexuality, beauty and the arts. One account of Venus’s birth states that she rose up from the foam on the ocean as a naked and fully developed beautiful woman; and she rode on a scallop shell. her origins, in fact, pre-date the ancient Greeks. She is said to be older than Time. An even more ancient deity exhibiting more aspects than love and beauty, she can also be recognized as Astarte or Ishtar. Her origins were Babylonian/Sumerian. Her domain embraced all of nature: vegetable, animal as well as human. Among her powers were associated with fertility and growth/harvesting of crops, war, descent to the underworld, birth/life/love/death and fate. She was also worshiped as sacred ‘prostitute’ she represents the feminine archetype of relationship and love. She is adored for her beauty, her gentle manner and her amorous adventures. She has been experienced by men as fascinatingly exotic, a seductress. Her influence is of civilizing ‘man’kind through her gifts of art, culture, and in particular, her disarming manner of relating. Aphrodite’s divine gift to us is Eros, her divine son, also known as Cupid (Amor). Aphrodite’s gift of loving relationship has the power to melt defenses, leaving her lover disarmed and open--allowing the magic of eros to flow between them.