Venus makes her superior conjunction with the Sun on Aug. 15, when she's at her greatest distance from Earth and passing behind the Sun. During this period, Venus is invisible for almost 60 days, and then reappears from darkness as an evening star in the west. Ancient sky-watchers considered the periods of darkness when Venus disappeared as a time when the goddess traveled to the the underworld.
The ancient Babylonians called Venus the double-phased Ishtar- the morning star of war and the evening star of love. As morning star Venus was often represented as a warrior bearing weapons. However, as an evening star the archetype shifts and becomes more attuned to reconciliation, treaties, communication and cooperation. Interestingly, the time it takes for Venus to shift from it's morning star phase(war) to evening star phase(love) is longer than it's shift from evening star to morning star.
Some of the earliest references to Venus are found on 5000 year old clay tablets from the Sumerian city of Uruk. In ancient Sumer the goddess Inanna was associated with Venus, and the Uruk tablets identifcy her celestial persona as the planet Venus, symbolized by an eight-pointed star.
And mythological Inanna's descent into the underworld corresponds with Venus setting in the West and then rising again in the East. After passing through a series of seven gates where at each one she removes an item of clothing and is thereby stripped to her core- Inanna/Venus emerges from the dark realm of the underworld with a renewed sense of her true, authentic self. (The Assyrian and Babylonian name for Inanna is "Ishtar" and reflects the Sumerian origins of "Easter" and the theme of resurrection.)
