Okay so, I have been seeing the name Venus everywhere for several months now. I never really put much stock into it until a friend of mine told me that when you see the same name repeated over and over again in your life it usually means that’s the name of your spirit guide. Not sure if that’s true, but wanting opinions on that.

Also, I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s not my spirit guide but in fact the Roman Goddess, Venus and perhaps she’s calling for me. So I looked in the CH shop and they don’t have her. They have the Greek Goddess, Aphrodite, but I’ve never felt really connected to Aphrodite. I know she’s essentially the Greek version of Venus and lots of people would say they are the same, so I’m just wanting some help on that too. I honestly don’t know much about immortals. The only thing is the associations that the CH encyclopedia has for Aphrodite really resonate with me. Like the her month is September and her gemstone is sapphire: my birth month and birth stone. And her foliage is a gardenia and that’s my favorite flower. Her plant is Venus...the same name I’ve been seeing over and over for months now.

So I’m a bit confused and just hoping some of you who know more about immortals and work with them can give me some insight on all of this. It just seems too coincidental to not look in to.

I say it is much clear that Aphrodite search to connect with you? Aphrodite and Venus are kind of the same just one is Greek (and for me the original) and the second is from the Roman Empire.

It is definitely a calling ! If you want to be sure , ask for a reading.

Hmm, this is a very difficult one. Many would indeed say that Aphrodite and Venus are kind of the same, but on the other hand...

I have a binding with Aphrodite and not Venus. I know when we talk about the planets, sure planet Venus is totally named after Aphrodite, but... when it comes to names, I'm not sure. I mean, maybe Venus and Aphrodite are the same, but as Venus she is some bit different then she is as Aphrodite. I mean, when we talk about people who experience multiple personality disorder, you wouldn't go and tell them that they are just all and the same right? And when it comes to tv/theatre...
Kit Harrington is Kit Harrington, the person, and the tv-person Jon Snow. But Jon Snow is NOT Kit Harrington. Dean Winchester is not Jensen Ackles. Harry Potter is not Daniel Radcliff! But the actors who play the person, are somehow the person.
I wouldn't even say that Aphrodite is anyones version. It's more like Venus is Aphrodites version. -p

So in my opinion, if you read the name Venus, go with Venus and not Aphrodite.

You can just go to; https://shop.creepyhollows.com/custom-c ... quest.html
and put into the order: Roman Goddess Venus.

Another thing to bear in mind is that you can get different bindings of an immortal. So if you do ask CH for a custom conjure of Aphrodite, you can tell CH all this and ask or discuss what's possible in terms of getting a binding of an aspect of Aphrodite that is closest to what is calling you as Venus...unless they can do a binding of Venus herself.

I don't know exactly how CH approaches bindings of an immortal but there are multiple sides to Aphrodite and she can be bound by either, white, neutral or dark arts.

Historically the Roman Venus took on a lot of aspects of and became syncretised with the Greek Aphrodite, who herself is traceable back to the Phoenician goddess Astarte, and may just possibly have an origin with the Indo-European dawn goddess Heusos.

The planet Venus is common to Venus, Aphrodite and Ashtarte. Venus shares a lot of Aphrodite's symbols. EDIT: Venus maybe has a clearer personality than Aphrodite. There are sides to the Aphrodite myth I wouldn't want a binding of. I've only worked with a very light natured side of her energies. When I got a binding of Aphrodite I got her as a Master Spirit for specific purpose and was pleased to find it was the nice aspect that I like.

There's a lot of common territory between the two. Heron Michelle is a devotee of both (https://heronsrook.com/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/witchonfire/) and you can pick through her writing at length. She started out with Aphrodite and moved into a stronger connection to the Venus aspect. It's not easy to find simple and clear information on the specific differences between the two and, therefore, what is unique about the Venus aspect.

There are a couple of ways to come at this.

One is to restrict yourself to just these two facets of the gem, so to speak. Venus was indigenous to the Romans who then essentially dressed her in Aphrodite's clothes to more closely identify them. The other way to approach this is as approaching an aspect of a MUCH older Goddess. She at least tracks back to Astarte/Ashtaroth/Ishtar, but is also associated with Hathor and Innana--and eventually the Catholic perspective on Mary. This indicates She is Someone who is deeply primal in the human experience (not exactly a surprise, given Her sphere(s) of influence.) A balance of these two perspectives, I think, yields a fuller picture, since it seems that, in some ways, Venus came fuller circle to an ancient Mother Goddess than Aphrodite did.

I found this(http://occultcorpus.com/forums/index.ph ... aphrodite/), and it rang true even though they didn't cite sources:

One needs to begin with the understanding that while the Romans eventually came to associate their gods with the Olympian Pantheon, these gods originally had a distinct character. Aphrodite especially is a stretch from the Latin Venus, because in origin she isn't even Greek. She arose "from the sea" - i.e. she was a Phonecian goddes, Ashtoreth, only added to the Olympian pantheon relatively late (although obviously naturalized and well-established by the time that Homer composed the Illiad).

Venus seems to have been a goddess of fertility, particularly of the agricultural sort and of garden vegetables. From functional gardens to ornamental ones, and from cultivated natural beauty to beauty in general, seems to be the course taken in the evolution of Venus as a concept. The Romans retained similar goddesses in their original context, such as Pomona, goddess of orchards, and grafted others onto Greek mythic stock, hence the Roman grain goddess Ceres becoming merged with the Greek Demeter.

Aphrodite's current, then, is one of exotic beauty, with an almost Babylonian splendor, with affinities with the sea and the stars, while Venus will be more earth-bound and domestic, more familiar and "home-grown" in feeling. I actually rather like the Roman gods, who seem to have been a rather down-to-earth bunch before being conflated with the Greek gods, which the Romans associated with high culture, art and philosophy with which they were eager to lay claim to through their own religious practice.

Along the lines of the earthiness of Venus mentioned above, she seems (like many of the older forms of the Greek and Roman Deities) to have had some chthonic aspects, being identified with other Roman goddesses dealing with death, sewers, sloth, corpses and funerals (you can pick through some of her epithets indicating this in her Wikipedia article.) This scholarly article is also interesting on the subject, albeit a much deeper and narrower read: https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/public ... a-and-cybe

But Venus also seemed more in touch with Her primal/universal roots than Aphrodite in some ways (http://www.mother-god.com/roman-goddess-venus.html), and this made some parts of her character more etheric and generative than merely lustful:

Venus is universally associated with the sea, and with the Morning and Evening Star. Like the Our Lady Mary, she bore the title Stella Maris: "Star of the Sea". Like the Virgin Mary, her sacred flower is the rose, and indeed she was sometimes simply called "Mari" (meaning Mother/Sea-Goddess).

Now, while these are universal attributes of Our Mother God, they are also specific to the Sushuric, or Venusian, aspect of Dea and also to Her creative function.

The association of Our Lady Mary with Our Mother God as Creatrix is examined in our page on Creation Myths and the Virgin Mary. But why should the Sushuric function, as typified by the Roman Goddess Venus and her cognates, be linked to Dea as Creatrix?

...The profound connexion between love and generation, not merely in its human reflection, but as the very reason for the existence of the universe, is so fundamental as to require a page of its own: and, as we shall discover, this important truth is deeply connected with the inner meaning of the very name of the Roman Goddess Venus.

I imagine since Venus is also Aeneas' mother, that there would have been something specific to that in her Roman cults. Nothing comes readily to hand, but it would be a great thing to explore. This might be interesting on that front: http://www.academia.edu/29246423/Venus_ ... The_Aeneid_

Thank you so much everyone, especially Alys- thanks for all the sources! I will be reading them all and looking more into this. It has all been very helpful, and yes I still feel more connected to Venus because of her “home grown” and “earthen” qualities. I’m very connected to the Earth and nature and gardening, so it all seems to fit me. Plus, my fav place is the beach and being near the ocean so that helps a lot too. Thank you again! Time to do some reading!