Dave Muller looks at the transit of Venus and puzzles over the ancients
saying "As above so below"
New pattern in the sky
A South News
commentary
Wednesday June 9 2004
by Dave Muller
Venus dazzled Australian stargazers Tuesday as it made it first transit
across the Sun in more than 100 years. A transit of Venus is a similar
event as the Moon eclipsing the Sun but happen less often. Just as a new
moon does not result in an eclipse so a conjunction of Venus with the
Sun does not result in a transit, with Venus passing either above or
below the Sun.
Although less spectacular than a solar or lunar eclipse, the transit of
Venus is far more unusual. It also has particular significance for
Australians because it led to the first British exploration of the east
coast, by Captain James Cook. Prior to this Terra Australis Incognita or the
Great Southern continent, a vast area of land which was believed to
exist in Europe but had never been found. 
Transits
of Venus are very rare but astrologers claim are also very powerful.
Eclipses are said to often bring unexpected developments which can
change expectations and history. The imperial dominance of the Jupiter
theologically based societies such as Babylon, Olympus and Rome have all
been unexpectedly eclipsed.
Fate or not, the timing of April/May's solar and lunar eclipses have
coincided with a worldwide public loss of confidence in US occupation
of Iraq. Astrologers have pointed that the eclipses being on Taurus/Scorpio axis has
lead from monopolistic financial scandals involving Haliburton to the
sexual prison abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Five transits of Venus have been officially recorded. The last occurred
in 1882 and Cook witnessed the phenomenon in 1769. Cook had sailed to
the South Pacific to witness the transit and to try secretly to discover
the Great South Land (Australia), which he did and claimed it for
England dispossesing the local native aboriginal population.
According to one astrology website "A transit promises everything
from romantic breakthroughs to "great shifts in human consciousness".
The one in 1519, for example, was followed by the spread of the
reformation, circumnavigation of the globe, and the age of female rulers
in Europe, including Mary Queen of Scots, Mary I, Elizabeth I and
Catherine de Medici.
While Venus transits happen only over a hundred years; they also happen
in pairs, 8 years apart. The last pair happened in early December 1874
and 1882, and the ones before that on June 6 1761 and June 3 1769.
Tuesday's transit will be repeated 8 years later on June 6 2012
Venus takes around 225 days to orbit the Sun but it takes 584 days for
Venus and the Earth to line up with the Sun. This is the time for a
morning star or evening star to return. It takes 2922 days for Venus,
Earth, Sun and stars to agree or complete one cycle of the zodiac.
The approx maths is 13 x 225 = 8 x 365 = 5 x 584.
Venus passes in front of the Sun in same monthly pattern 5 times every
8 years and thus Venus traces a five-pointed star pattern around the
ecliptic. But due to the non exact precision this pentagram slowly
rotates backwards over a longer period of time taking a quarter of a
century for 72 degrees to coverof the one fifth of the pentagram. From
one perspective this corresponds to the Sun-Venus conjunctions returning
to the same date and same part of the sky.
However the reason transits of Venus are so uncommon is because
Earth and Venus orbit the Sun in slightly different planes. This
difference, about 3.4 degrees, means that the two planets exactly align
with the Sun only twice (eight years apart) every 121.5 or 105.5 years
when the conjunction is near or on the heliocentric node. This
transit is on the south node like the June 1770's transits that led to
the mapping of Australia. It contrasts to the last and ruling north Veus
transit nodes of December of 1874 and 1882 which some
commentators, following the failure of the Paris Commune, have described
as the beginning of monopoly capitalism and the exploitation of the
third world or global south by a greedy imperialist north. Thus we may
be entering a new era where the global south enters a new era of human
discovery, ecological prominence and personal freedom - an era which may
be free of imperial exploitation.
Venus and the Olympics
Historically
in the last century in every leap year the Sun and Venus meet in June,
alternating with Venus passing in front of Sun ( Inferior Conjunction as
in a transit) and Venus passing behind the Sun (Superior Conjunction).
Thus giving rise to the morning and evening stars.
As the morning and evening stars alternate we have 5 Venus-Sun
conjunctions every 4 years with morning and evening stars alternating in
the same part of the sky with every cycle. The five venus conjunctions,
3 morning and 2 evening stars and vice versa, form a pattern like the 5
Olympic rings which are brought to prominence every 4 years.
The conjunction of a morning star and evening star with
Neptune also forms a pentagram of such points with a periodicity of 144
years or 18 times 8 years. The superior Sun-Venus conjunctions with
Neptune of 1814 and 1822 match those of 1958 and 1966.
The most spectacular case of Venus meeting Neptune at a solar eclipse
was on November 12 1966 when this conjunction close to the Sun was
photographed at high altitude during totality.
A series of recursive and embedded Sun-Venus pentagrams can be thus
constructed to form a larger cycle "orbits" pentagram and
Mandelbrot Set.
Mayan calendar
Like the worship of Ishtar in ancient Mesopotamia Venus was also the
key to Mayan cosmology and mythology. The ancient Mayans tracked the
morning star risings of Venus, which occurs every 584 days, noticed that
if Venus emerged in the east as morning star on, the spring equinox then
Venus would again emerge close to the spring equinox eight years later.
After 520 years the cycle was exact. Thus they created a framework of
cycles for predicting the future morning star risings of Venus - for
centuries to come.
There are 260 days from the first sighting of the morning star until it
reaches the Superior Conjunction when it is on the opposite side of the
Sun and becomes dim and dips below the horizon. It reappears some 50
days later as an evening star and is visible in the night sky for some
260 days again before reaching the Inferior Conjunction when it
disappears for around 8 days and the cycle recommences. The calendar is
based on the sacred cycle of the tzolkin (20 days x 13) or 260 days - a
time interval which largely correlates with the human gestation period.
With this system, they could also predict solstice and eclipse dates.
This moon cycle was incorporated into the Mayan Venus Calendar, by way
of the 9-moon sacred cycle of 260 days.The solar year (20 days x 18 + 5)
and the sacred cycle of 260 days synchronise with each other around one
Exiligmos eclipse cycle or 3 Saros cycles when an eclipse returns to the
same longitude but some 600 miles north or south of its predecessor. But
the general relationship is even more straightforward. Eclipses on
average occur every 173.33 days. This is known as the eclipse half year.
Three times this equals 520 days which is exactly two tzolkins.
Adding further to pattern the ratio of the sidereal orbits of the Earth
to Venus is 1.6222 or a good approximation of Phi - the golden proportion of recursion - which can seen in the spiral geometry of sea
shells and fractal geometry. The simplest application of fractals is to
plot the cumulative number of objects larger than a specified size
against the size. In many cases, fragments, earthquakes, faults, mineral
deposits, oil fields, etc. fractal dependence is found. Hence the
pattern of a pentagram of morning stars or evening stars around the
zodiac takes on mystical geometry. The occult five pointed star of the
Wicca probably has its roots in the discovery of this fact in ancient
Egypt under the cult of Isis.
Note: Astrological versus
Astronomical position
The precession of the equinoxes has created the astrological signs to
be some degrees out of phase with observable astronomical positions.
Yet it is most convenient in examining recurrent pattern to use our
"Tropical Calendar" where date and zodiac degree are fixed, that is
based upon the notion that the Sun always enters the first degree of the
astrological sign of Aries on the Vernal Equinox (March 21). However
with the precession of the equinoxes, the astronomical observable vernal
equinox moves through all the constellations of the Zodiac over the
26,000 year precession period. Every 72 years we actually move backward
1 degree. Presently the vernal equinox (March 21) is in the
constellation Pisces and is slowly approaching Aquarius.
Modern astrology was based on the geocentric model of the universe
developed by the Hellenic Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in 2nd
century AD and outlined in his principal work, the Almagest (al-Magisti
-"the great work" in Arabic). Astronomically the alpha star of the
constellation Piscis Australis is located at 7 Aquarius. Astrologically
today it is located at 3 Pisces. Yet at the time Ptolemy was making his
astronomical observations in Alexandria c132 AD the two positions were
in agreement. This simple fact is often overlooked by some commentators.
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