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~ VENUS ~

She was the Roman "Great Goddess". In her sexual aspect, her name was derived from being the mother of the Venetian tribes of the Adriatic, after whom the city of Venice was named. Other derivatives are "veneration" and "venery". Venery used to mean hunting; for She, like her eastern counterpart Artemis, Venus was once a Lady of Animals, and her Horned God Adonis, both the hunter and the sacrificial stag became venison, which meant "Venus's son."

Her temples were denounced by early Christian fathers because they were "dedicated to the foul devil who goes by the name of Venus - a school of wicked ness for all the votaries of unchasteness." More simply stated, was that they were schools for instruction in sexual techniques, under the tutelage of the venerii or harlot-priestesses. They taught an approach to spiritual grace, called venia, through sexual exercises like those of Tantrism.

Like Tantric yogis, educated Romans envisioned the moment of death as a culminating sexual union, a fianl act of the sacred marriage promised by the religion of Venus. Ovid, and initiate, said he wished to die while making love: "Let me go in the act of coming to Venus, in more senses than one let my last dying be done." Centuries later, in Shakespeare's time, "to die" was still a common metaphor for sexual orgasm.

Modern interpretions of classic mythology tend to picture Venus as a sex goddess only, suppressing her powers as birth-giving and death-giving. They were equally important to her cult.

During the early Middle Ages, Venus became the ruling Fairy Queen of the magic mountains called Venusbergs. She also became a Christian saint, St. Venerina, who never exhisted in human form but only as a cult figuren continuing the worship of the Goddess in Calabria. In thr Balkans she was called St. Venere, and still invoked as a patron of marriage by young girls making a wish that they might find good husbands.

There's even a magic rhyme addressed to the planet Venus which still echoes down from the centuries: "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight."

The Evening Star, Venus, was also Stella Maris, Star of the Sea. In her sacred city of Venice, on Ascension Day each year, the Doge of Venice ceremonially marries her by throwing a gold wedding ring into the sea.