Cyprus has the distinction of being the island blending geography and mythology: the birthplace of Venus. Since the 1974 Cyprus War, the island has been split by what is known as the Green Line between the unrecognized Republic of Northern Cyprus and the internationally recognized face of Cyprus that officially entered the European Union in 2004.
The split of Cyprus into two faces, light and dark, distinguished as such by culture and geography, is indicated on the flags of both parts: the Cyprus flag (above) reveals the entire island in the Venus mineral copper above a double laurel, a peace sign.
The Northern Cyprus flag (above) consists of two parallel red lines bordering the Crescent Moon with the symbol of the Turkish flag (below): the Crescent with the five-pointed start at the center which represents Islamic arc of the Ottoman Empire with Cyprus at the Center. The double lines represent the double face of Cyprus along with double meaning for their bordering symbol. It is Cyprus, known as Aphrodite’s Island, who gives new meaning to the Turkish flag embossed on her breast overlooking the split capital of Nicosia.
The Crescent Moon with the five-pointed star is the ancient symbol for the Morning Star on view in the night sky during the seven or eight conjunctions of Venus and the Moon. Venus disappears from the night sky and before heliacal rise as the Morning Star, Venus makes the interior or exterior conjunction with the Sun. This passage of Venus to and from the underworld makes a perfectly symmetrical cycle creating a pentagram with repeating heliacal risings over eight years. This image was interpreted as the crescent boat carrying Venus through the gate (the conjunction) at which she had to remove or retrieve an object marking the passage.
In 2017, Venus heliacal rise on 31 March is at Zero Aries, the start of the natural zodiac. This marks a new beginning for both Venus and “Aphrodite’s Island”. Erotic artifacts found on Cyprus give evidence Sacred Marriage Rites taking place on the island long after they fell into pantomime in other parts of Asia.
Aphrodite’s Island exchanged rulers – from Phoenicians to Greeks to Egyptians to Romans to Richard the Lionhearted to the Templars to the Turks to England – and finally to 1960 independence.
A Cypriot, Barnabas returned from Jerusalem with Paul to make Cyprus the site of the first Christian missionary. Therefore, the sacred marriage rites, along with Aphrodite worship, were due to be repressed by the Christian rule of Aphrodite’s Island, later to be replaced by the Ottoman Turk invasion.
The unrecognized northern face of Cyprus in a series of exhibition/performances to celebrate a holistic Venus whose faces are celebrated in time and space as the Morning and Evening Star.
In celebrating either side of the Green Line as an opposing face – the unrecognized Turkish Side that is Muslim (Hesperus) and the recognized Greek face (Lucifer), MARRYING CYPRUS presents a modern mythology of a bipolar Venus within the context of unifying an island that has been divided by religion and politics.
By enacting performance and image creation as ritual in concert with the planetary movements, MARRYING CYPRUS provides the geography for the zero point: the initiation of a new art movement arising from Cyprus, crossroads of east/west and north/south.
The hieros gamos (sacred marriage) of the Morning and Evening Star is a visual manifestation of the MARRYING CYPRUS unity of the two halves of the Green Line, the heart of Cyprus with its dual cultures reborn in the body of the ever-present icon – the bipolar Venus.