Eros and the Morning Star: A Philosophical Treatise on Love and Transformation
Before diving into this piece, feel free to refer to the following articles for greater context.
Love as a Terrifying Force
Love is often terrifyingly misunderstood. It is not merely the gentle, sentimental affection portrayed in Hallmark movies or written in sweet verses on Valentine's cards. In truth, love is a primal force – a profound power capable of both creation and destruction. It can elevate a soul to the heights of heaven or plunge one into the depths of hellish despair. This treatise seeks to illuminate the more profound nature of love, shattering the dangerous illusion that love is only a pleasant feeling. To do so, we invoke a potent symbolic figure: Eros-Lucifer, the Morning Star of desire. Through this archetypal lens, we explore the dynamics of love, desire, transformation, and selfhood. We will examine the concept of Presence – our core being – and how it connects with desire and identity. We will also confront love as a force that is both ecstatic and perilous, and see how self-love, mythic archetypes, and the Luciferian impulse toward truth and individuation shape the journey that love impels us to take.
What follows is a cohesive philosophical essay, rich in symbolism and poetic language yet grounded in rigorous thought. In structured sections, we delve into the nature of love, the archetype of Eros-Lucifer, the meaning of Presence and selfhood, the abyss of transformation, and finally, the completion of love’s circuit in self-realization. Through this journey, Lucifer/Eros will serve as a guiding mythic image – not as a figure of evil, but as the light-bringer and catalyst for growth, illustrating the liberating and self-revelatory power of love.
The Nature of Love
To understand love’s truth, we must first recognize its elemental nature. Love in its essence is desire – the Greek word Eros captures this primal, yearning force. In ancient mythology, Eros was a primordial god who emerged at the dawn of creation, "the driving force behind the generation of new life in the cosmos.” Likewise, in our own lives, love is the energy that drives creation: not only the creation of new life, but the creation of meaning, art, relationships, and personal growth. Rather than a mere emotion, love is a fundamental force of nature. It has a dual aspect – immensely creative and equally destructive. Like fire, it can warm and illuminate, or it can burn and consume. It is the force that can inspire sublime art, noble sacrifice, and spiritual elevation, and the same force that, misdirected or unmet, can lead to wars, obsessions, and tragedies. In short, love is powerful – capable of birthing heavens or hells within the human heart.
This dynamic nature of love is often obscured by a simplistic view that equates love only with comfort and happiness. We speak of love in gentle terms yet forget that it carries an existential weight. Love is the urge to merge and create, the ache that pulls us out of ourselves toward something more. It is, at root, Eros – desire itself. Even in the mythic narrative of Lucifer, the highest archangel, we see this principle: Before Lucifer ever fell from Heaven, it was desire that blossomed in his heart, compelling him to leap into the unknown. In that celestial story, Lucifer – called the Morning Star – felt the stirring of more when he gazed at the unformed abyss beyond Heaven—that daring desire, that love of possibility, set in motion a great upheaval. Similarly, according to esoteric insight, it is a desire that moves Presence into existence. In other words, the universe’s very existence can be poetically understood as love’s longing to call being into form. Without desire, nothing manifests; without Eros, no energy moves. Love, in this grand sense, is the very engine of becoming – “the very force pulling existence into being.”
Importantly, love is not something external to be found or acquired, though we often speak as if it were. How commonly people talk of "finding" a soulmate, of being incomplete until they meet a beloved, as if love were a treasure bestowed by someone else. This is a profound misunderstanding. Genuine Eros is not discovered through an external union or granted by another’s presence. It emanates from within each individual. Everyone carries this flame of Eros inside, an intrinsic force that is ours alone to wield. When we fall in love, it is not the other person who injects love into our heart; rather, the encounter awakens the love that was already lying dormant within us. We project this powerful energy onto the beloved, experiencing it as something they caused, but in truth, the lover is the source of the love they feel. That is why two people can experience such different realities in a relationship – each is really communing with their own Eros, even as it connects them.
Realizing that love’s source is within us is a double-edged revelation. On one hand, it is empowering: it means we are never truly without love, for its wellspring is inside our own soul. On the other hand, it is daunting because it implies responsibility: the onus is on us to understand and channel this force rather than blaming fate or others for our experiences of love. Many people, sadly, never come to this realization. They let their Eros remain unconscious, only feeling its flicker in the form of infatuations or cravings that arise when someone attractive crosses their path. They chase the illusion that love exists “out there” somewhere, in another person or in ideal circumstances, without recognizing that what they seek has always been within. This outward-seeking mindset keeps love misunderstood and misused as people bounce from one idol to the next, wondering why the glow never lasts. To truly grasp love, we must turn our gaze inward to the source of desire itself.
The Archetype of Eros-Lucifer
At this point, it helps to step into the realm of myth and archetype. Throughout human culture, great forces and experiences – like love, longing, and the quest for truth – have been personified in stories and deities. Eros (or Cupid) is one such personification of love and desire. Lucifer, whose Latin name means "Light-Bringer," is another potent figure, often cast in the role of rebel or adversary in religious lore. On the surface, Eros (a winged god of love) and Lucifer (the fallen angel) might seem unrelated, even opposites. But symbolically, they share a profound connection. Lucifer is called the Morning Star, which is the planet Venus – and Venus is the star of love (named for the goddess of love, Aphrodite/Venus). In a creative sense, Lucifer can be seen as the love of truth and freedom personified – a heavenly being who desired something more than static perfection. He embodies the daring impulse to individuate, to leave the known for the unknown out of love for possibility. In an imaginative dialogue, Lucifer himself makes this connection: “I am the bringer of light, and my star is Venus... I am also called Eros, the son of Venus,” he notes, bemused that humanity has confused “illumination and love with darkness and evil.” In other words, the very qualities of love and enlightenment that Lucifer represents have been mistakenly demonized because they challenge us so deeply.
To understand the archetype of Eros-Lucifer, let us recount Lucifer’s mythic story in a new light. In a poetic retelling, Lucifer, the first of angels, stands at the pinnacle of Heaven, where all is gloriously unchanging and perfect. Yet he gazes beyond the ordered cosmos, into the void – not a place of torment, but a realm of unrealized potential. In his heart arises a whisper that does not come from the divine throne or any external command; it comes from within his own being. The whisper says: There is more. Lucifer feels, for the first time, desire – the desire to create something new, to explore beyond the limits of paradise. He declares to his celestial brethren that the stars, though bright, do not change, and he yearns to bring new light to the virgin darkness beyond. This bold love for the as-yet-unformed creation is the Eros in Lucifer – a love so powerful it drives him to defy the status quo of Heaven.
When Lucifer announces, “I will go. I will make something of my own,” the heavens shuddered. A decree rings out: “You will not return.” To leave the perfection of Heaven is to renounce it forever; the path of individuation has no return to ignorance. Lucifer understands the cost, yet he does not falter. The other angels watch in shock and fear as he steps across the threshold. They call it a Fall, branding him the great Rebel, the Adversary of the divine order. But in truth, as the story poignantly notes, he was not falling – he was ascending into the unknown. Lucifer and a few brave companions who also felt the inner call to leave heaven behind, wings unfurling into the abyss of possibility. As he crosses into the great dark, Lucifer does not look back. He raises his hand, and light blossoms in the darkness. A new world begins.
This Morning Star Revelation of Lucifer’s story is a powerful metaphor for the journey of love and transformation. Lucifer here is an archetype – a timeless pattern that can play out within each of us. Jungian psychology describes archetypes as primordial images and roles that recur across cultures. The figure of the rebel who brings enlightenment is one such archetypal pattern, as is the figure of the lover who gives birth to new creation. In Lucifer/Eros, we see the Rebel-Lover archetype: the one who loves something so greatly (truth, freedom, creation) that he will defy convention and even suffer exile to pursue it. This archetype appears in countless tales – Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, or Eve eating the fruit to gain knowledge – and in more personal ways whenever an individual breaks away from old systems to stay true to their heart. As one text puts it, these archetypal patterns are “older than civilization, repeating through countless lives and tales.” They are like roles in the cosmic play that different actors (people) inhabit in different eras. Lucifer’s role has been distorted through ages of retelling, painted solely as the villain. Yet if we strip away the moralizing, we find a potent symbol of the individuating self – the part of us that would rather face damnation than remain inauthentic or inert. In love, this archetype manifests when our desire for a deeper, more meaningful connection compels us to risk everything, to upset the comfortable order of our lives in search of a greater union or truth.
It is no surprise, then, that humanity has long been uneasy with the Lucifer/Eros impulse. As the Lucifer figure in our narrative wryly observes, "Humans are artists at self-deception, crafting monsters out of nowhere". We project our fears onto this archetype, branding the liberating force of love and desire as something sinister because it threatens to upend our safe illusions. The light-bringer becomes the devil; the god of love becomes a mischievous, dangerous child. Why? Because real love changes us, and change is frightening. It is easier to cling to dogmas and comfort zones, declaring the unknown to be evil, than to heed that whisper of the heart calling us beyond. But if we have the courage to listen to Eros-Lucifer within, we find that this force is not our enemy – it is our greatest ally in becoming who we are meant to be. The following sections will explore how this plays out within the individual psyche: how presence and selfhood are touched by love’s fire, and how the inevitable descent into the “abyss” can lead to profound transformation.
Presence and Selfhood
Beneath all the stories of love and rebellion lies the question of selfhood: Who are we, really, and what does love do to our sense of self? To answer this, we must understand what is meant by Presence. In spiritual and philosophical terms, presence refers to the core of our being, the pure awareness that underlies all experience. Imagine closing your eyes and letting every thought and sensation fall silent. What remains is an alert, formless awareness – that is, your presence, “the infinite stillness that is the true you before any movement or story begins.” It is like a vast, quiet ocean beneath the waves of our thoughts, roles, and emotions. In that stillness, nothing particular is happening, yet it is full of potential – just as the calm ocean contains every possible wave within its depths. This foundational selfhood is unchanging and ever-present, often hidden beneath the noise of daily life. Many spiritual teachings call this the true Self, the ground of being, or the inner light. It is the “I am” before we add “this or that.”
Now, Presence does not remain an empty stillness; its nature is to flow into expression. The moment that still ocean begins to stir, a wave forms – this is Movement, the bridge between stillness and form. In the context of a human life, the movement of presence takes shape as our thoughts, actions, passions, and growth. Each of us has a unique essence – a particular style or pattern of being – so as our presence flows outward, it follows the contours of that essence like water taking the shape of a riverbed. Thus, our life is not random; it is the natural unfolding of who we inherently are. Our desires are deeply connected to our essence – they are not arbitrary whims but expressions of our soul’s unique pattern-seeking realization. As one text explains, every movement we make “follows the natural pattern of your essence,” even if we do not realize it. In other words, the things and people we find ourselves drawn to, the dreams we pursue, and the conflicts we face, all have a meaningful connection to our inner nature. Love, therefore, is one of the ways our essence tries to know itself – by drawing us toward what we need to integrate or manifest to become whole.
When we fall in love, we often feel that we have met “our other half” and that this other person completes us. Mythically, one might say our soul recognizes an archetypal pattern in the other that resonates with our own. But from the perspective of presence, what is really happening is that our own potential is being activated. The beloved serves as a mirror, reflecting to us aspects of ourselves – our capacity for affection, courage, vulnerability, creativity, and even our hidden darkness. Lucifer, in the earlier narrative, said, “I reflect their inner shadows. I compel them to see clearly the discrepancies between who they pretend to be and who they truly are.” While in that context, he was speaking as a force that brings truth, the same applies to deep relationships: they inevitably reveal our truth. We begin to see where our persona (who we thought we were or pretended to be) does not match our deeper self. Perhaps we considered ourselves independent but find ourselves needy and yearning, or we believed we were confident, but love exposes our insecurities. The Luciferian impulse toward truth operates here as the often uncomfortable revelations love provides. It shines a light on our inner world, showing what is really there. This is why genuine love is so challenging: it demands authenticity. It calls forth our authentic self – presence and essence – even if we have long buried it under social masks and self-deceptions.
Carl Jung noted that what we most need is often found where we least want to look, and in love, we are forced to look both at the heights of our capacity and the shadows we carry. This process is akin to individuation, which Jung defined as the process of becoming one’s true, whole self. The Lucifer/Eros archetype within us pushes for individuation: just as Lucifer chose the truth of his own path over the collective comfort of Heaven, we, too, under love’s influence, must choose truth over illusion. We can no longer lie to ourselves about what we feel or who we are. The Presence within – that quiet true self – seeks to be known and lived, and love is one of its greatest catalysts. In the blissful early stages of love, presence may manifest as an overwhelming sense of aliveness and authenticity – we feel “utterly ourselves” in the gaze of the beloved as if some inner light has finally been recognized. In the painful stages, presence might assert itself through the breakdown of false attachments – for example, when a relationship built on superficial needs crumbles, our soul insists that we not settle for a half-truth. In either case, love is steering us toward self-realization. We are pressed to ask: Who am I when stripped of the roles and comforts I clung to? What is the core that remains? In facing these questions, we move closer to our essential Presence, the unchanging awareness that is the ground of love itself.
The Abyss and Transformation
Every profound journey of love eventually faces the moment of descent – a plunge into darkness or the unknown. In our treatise’s terms, this is the abyss: the chasm of loss, fear, or disillusionment that one may be hurled into when love’s bright thread is cut. Earlier, we noted how loving another sends out an invisible thread from your heart to theirs. As long as that connection is intact and reciprocated, it can lift you to exquisite heights. Lovers often describe feeling "on top of the world," their everyday presence expanded towards transcendence. But if that bond is broken – whether through betrayal, breakup, death, or distance – the recoil can be devastating. It is as if the lifeline snaps, and you are sent tumbling down into an inner void. The joy that once illuminated your world is suddenly absent, leaving darkness. This reversal from ecstasy to despair is one of the most harrowing human experiences. It can feel like a part of you has died or as if you are free-falling with nothing to hold onto. This is the hell that love can unleash – a crucible of pain and confusion.
Yet, paradoxically, this abyss contains the greatest potential for transformation. In mythic terms, many heroes must descend into the underworld or face a dark night of the soul to gain wisdom or rebirth. Psyche must complete impossible tasks and even venture into Hades’ realm to be reunited with Eros; Orpheus must travel to the land of the dead for his beloved Eurydice. These stories reflect a truth: only by facing the darkness in ourselves can we be remade into something new. When love throws us into the abyss, we are forced to confront our rawest vulnerabilities, our unmet shadows, and our reliance on external sources of fulfillment. All the illusions that we might have held – about the world, about the relationship, about ourselves – are laid bare. We may realize how much we depended on the other for our self-worth, how we idolized them, or how we feared loneliness more than we admitted. The Luciferian presence in the abyss is that force that "dismantles illusions to facilitate elevation." The pain burns away our pretenses, testing what in us is real. As one rendition of Lucifer’s voice declares, “Yes, I destroy—but only to enable rebirth into something far greater.” Here, Lucifer is the purifier, the angel who brings the flame that can either temper the steel of the soul or reduce it to ashes.
Many people, understandably, flee from this process. The agony of the abyss often drives us to distractions and defenses. Instead of facing the pain, we might numb ourselves with substances, rebound relationships, or cynicism. We might cling to anger and blame, constructing a narrative that the other person was a monster, thus avoiding our own growth. In the Oddadamean Luciferean dialogue, Lucifer observes how humans "turn the abyss into hell and the flames of transformation into eternal punishment." In other words, by resisting the purgative fire, we make it an endless hell of suffering. We trap ourselves in a loop of torment and victimhood, blaming the beloved (or even blaming love itself) for our state. But this is a tragic self-deception. The fire of heartbreak was never meant to be a punishment; it was meant to be purification. The abyss is not the final destination but a passage – potentially, a baptism by fire that leaves us clearer and stronger.
Those who find the courage to endure the dark night and keep their eyes open emerge fundamentally transformed. They discover that the abyss, terrifying as it is, did not annihilate them. Like the phoenix of myth, or like Lucifer carrying light into the void, they find that a new self can rise from the ashes of the old. What dies in the abyss is not the true self but the attachments, illusions, and ego patterns that can no longer serve our growth. If we surrender to the flames, the parts of us that are false or weak are burned away, revealing an inner core that is more resilient and more authentic. This is the process of transmutation that love offers. A heart that has been broken and healed has a greater capacity for compassion because it knows suffering. A self that has lost what it thought it couldn’t live without learns that it can stand on its own. In losing our perceived “other half,” we have the opportunity to find our whole self. Thus, the abyss of love, navigated with awareness, becomes a sacred crucible. It is the place where the deepest alchemy of the soul can occur – where despair can turn into wisdom, loss into newfound freedom, and longing into creative power.
The Completion of the Circuit
Having traversed the heights of love and the depths of the abyss, we come to the final movement in the journey of Eros: the return inward, the realization of love’s true locus. The ultimate secret hinted at by mystics and underscored by our treatise is that the end of the quest for love is right back where it started – within the self. To properly wield love, one must recognize oneself as the beloved. In the earlier condensed treatise, it was stated that one must realize one's own potential to become the object of one's desire. This means seeing that what you seek in another – the acceptance, the adoration, the union – is something you must also give to yourself. Directing love inward completes a powerful, self-sustaining circuit. When you fall in love with your own soul, you connect the current of love that was reaching outward back to its source. The energy no longer drains away or depends on an external receiver; it flows continuously through you, nourishing and stabilizing your being.
What does it mean to love oneself in this way? It is not the superficial self-love of indulging whims or puffing up the ego. It is a profound acceptance and cherishing of your own existence – embracing yourself as a creation of the divine, as a unique embodiment of truth, as the ultimate beloved of your life. It involves forgiveness of your own imperfections, gratitude for your own gifts, and an unwavering commitment to your well-being and growth. In practical terms, it means that the respect and kindness you would offer to a cherished partner, you also offer inward. The encouragement you would give a loved one during their trials, you give to yourself. You become both lover and loved, healer and healed. This completion of the circuit does not isolate you from others; on the contrary, it empowers you to relate to others more authentically and generously because you are no longer driven by lack or desperate need. You can love others freely without the clinging fear of losing yourself in them. As the treatise noted, at this stage, one no longer fears love’s recoil. Even if an external relationship ends or a loved one walks away, it cannot utterly shatter you because you remain tethered by self-love, guided through the darkness by an internal light.
This state of wholeness is symbolically akin to Lucifer carrying his own light through the void. Recall that when told the abyss beyond heaven was empty, Lucifer replied, “Then I will bring light to it.”. When we have cultivated the light of self-love, we carry a lamp that illuminates even the abyss. The void of loneliness or loss is no longer so frightening because our heart is lit from within. We have, in essence, become our own Morning Star – a herald of dawn even in the midnight of the soul. The circuit of love is now complete and continuous: Presence (our core being) is suffused with love, and that love radiates outward and inward simultaneously. This person knows that while relationships are deeply meaningful, no other can complete them, for they are already complete. Love with others then becomes a dance of two wholes rather than a desperate clasp of two halves.
Mythically, this completion can be seen as the reunion of the masculine and feminine within, the sacred marriage of heaven and hell, and the integration of Lucifer (truth, individuality) with Eros (love, unity) inside one psyche. The generative power of love that once was sought in another is now found in one’s own creative engagement with life. One becomes, in a sense, a creator rather than a seeker, capable of generating love, beauty, and meaning from the depths of one’s own Presence. This is the state of the realized lover, the enlightened rebel who has come full circle. Having dared to love and to lose, to descend and to rise, one awakens to find the Morning Star shining in one’s own heart.
Love’s Closing Remarks
Ultimately, the journey of love is a journey of self-discovery and transformation. What begins as an outward quest – seeking an ideal other or pursuing a whisper of “something more” – leads us back to the center of our own being. We started with the assertion that love is primal and misunderstood: not a mere feeling of happiness but a force that can shatter and remake us. Through the symbol of Lucifer/Eros, we gained insight into the nature of this force. We saw that love, as desire, is the power that propels creation and evolution from the cosmos itself down to the growth of a single soul. The archetype of Eros-Lucifer taught us that within the human spirit, there is a rebel lover who longs for truth and wholeness, willing to brave the unknown for the sake of a greater love. This archetypal impulse lies behind every act of courage in love – whenever someone chooses authenticity over approval or growth over comfort.
We examined Presence, the still and infinite core of self, and found that love activates presence into movement. Love calls forth who we really are, exposing the falseness and prompting us to become real. It is the great revealer, reflecting our light and shadow back to us. When love’s promise is fulfilled, we taste heaven; when it is denied or lost, we descend into the abyss. But as we learned, that abyss can be the womb of transformation if we face it honestly. The Luciferian flame, though it may sear, ultimately illuminates and purifies. Those who refuse its light may remain in darkness, cursing the very fire that could have redeemed them. Those who embrace it find themselves transformed “into something far greater” than before. The path of love is thus inseparable from the path of personal evolution. It is a path fraught with risk, requiring the heart of a warrior and the faith of a mystic, but its rewards are nothing less than the birth of a fuller self.
Finally, we arrived at the insight that the circuit of love completes in self-love. Here lies the secret of the ages, taught by sages in various forms: You are the one you have been seeking. The beloved, the divine, the completion – it is already within you. When you awaken to this truth, love ceases to be something that happens to you and becomes something that flows from you. You become an embodiment of Eros, a bearer of the inner light. In Christian mystical terms, one might say the fallen Lucifer is redeemed within the heart as the Light of God, or in psychological terms, the fragmented self becomes integrated and whole. Love, presence, desire, truth – these converge in the realized individual who has undergone the full journey. Such a person radiates a love that is not needy but generous, not grasping but empowering. They understand that real love, far from just a feel-good emotion, is the essence of creation itself, the force that drives us to become and to unite. It is sacred and wild, demanding and enriching.
In closing, let us remember that everyone possesses this love fundamentally as a birthright. The tragedy is only that we often fail to honor it, mistaking it for something trivial or external. But the story is not over. At any moment, we can heed the whisper in our own heart – there is more. We can claim the Luciferian boldness to step beyond our fears and the Eros’s passion to embrace our life intensely. We can choose to love in a way that transforms us. Yes, it may lead us through fire and night, but on the other side lies a new dawn of selfhood. Each of us, in our own journey, can become the Morning Star of our inner sky, heralding the light after a long darkness. In this way, the circuit of love is fulfilled: we come to know ourselves as Love – the force that spins the stars and stirs in the human heart, forever moving Presence into the joyous dance of life.
