Morning Star

Definition

A morning star is an inferior planet — Mercury or Venus, the two planets orbiting closer to the Sun than Earth — seen above the eastern horizon before sunrise. It is the stretch of the planet's cycle from its heliacal rising, the first morning it becomes visible again, through greatest western elongation — its widest separation from the Sun — to the next solar conjunction. The effect is purely visual: the planet shows in the dawn sky because it has pulled far enough from the Sun, and bright enough, to stand out against the twilight.

In Tradition

In both traditional and modern Western astrology, the morning-star phase is read with a different interpretive flavor from the evening-star phase. Astrologers agree it carries qualities of initiative, forwardness, anticipation, and emerging expression — the planet rises "ahead of" the Sun each day. Traditional doctrine places the morning-star phase in the oriental position; even so, traditional sources read Mercury and Venus as preferring the occidental, evening condition for their full strength, leaving the morning-star phase with its own distinct character.

In Practice

An astrologer recognizes the morning-star phase from an ephemeris — a table of daily positions — by confirming that the inferior planet rises before the Sun (its place along the zodiac is earlier than the Sun's by more than the visibility threshold) and that it has come out of solar conjunction. The phase is read as supporting initiative, foresight, and assertive expression. In horary and electional work, a significator — the planet standing in for a person or matter — in morning-star condition is read as actively pushing forward; in a birth chart, Mercury or Venus as a morning star is read as bringing initiative or anticipation to the fore. Mercury's morning-star phase is sometimes called "Promethean," Venus's "Phosphoros" or "Lucifer."

Historical Origin

Ancient astronomers at first took morning-star Venus and evening-star Venus to be two separate bodies — Phosphoros and Hesperos in Greek — and the early Pythagoreans recognized that they were one and the same. Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and Phaseis treat the phases mathematically, and al-Biruni's Tafhim §§284-289 describes the cycle of visibility. The modern Western synthesis appears in Hand's Horoscope Symbols and Sullivan's Retrograde Planets.

Etymology

Origin: English/Greek. Meaning: Descriptive: a star (planet) of the morning. Greek: Phosphoros (light-bearer).

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Etymology

Further Reading