Venus engages in a complicated dance with the Earth which creates a 584 day cycle of relationship as the two planets journey in orbit around the Sun. In one half of this cycle, she is the Evening Star, shining her brightest in the west just after the Sun has set there.  In the other half, Venus shines most brightly in the east just before the Sun rises there. Then she is the Morning Star, heralding the dawn of the Sun, a new day.  Facing east, the people of the Middle East saw a lioness awake, or a mistress of lions; a Goddess of War; a  protector of pharaohs; the strength and majesty of a kingdom, or an empire.

To the Egyptians and the Hittites, the Lion Goddess was expressly a Sun Goddess and represented the power of the king, or the queen.  The Egyptians worshiped the lion-headed Sekhmet, a ferocious…