Eris – Rulership and Rehabilitation

After an astrologer friend suggested the notion that Eris was the true ruler of Libra I thought about it (for a very long time – about a year now). It was her opinion that Venus didn’t seem to be the true ruler of Libra but rather Taurus and we talked at length over the course of this year about the legend of Eris and some of the qualities that really don’t fit Libra. First of all there are more Libra generals than pretty much any other sign, they are amazing tacticians and well-known for being fierce competitors, and in my experience they are the most competitive of all signs. They are creative and visual, no doubt which is why they fell under the purview of Venus for so long. However they are not sensual like Venus, Taurus however is. Taurus loves great food, fine wine, beautiful things, and has a curvy sensuality that Libra is missing. Libras are more intellectual, more in their head and often disconnected from their bodies. While it is true that they like nice things as long as they are intellectually stimulated they can do without them. Taurus however needs to eat a great meal no matter how little money they have they will use what little they have on the perfect gourmet spice or amazing wine. They are also willing to work for other people without taking this on as their identity. They can separate work, seeing it as a means to an end – the end being a nice lifestyle where as a Libra would rather be a pauper who works for himself doing what he loves than a rich man who works for a paycheck just to support himself in a luxurious lifestyle. Now I’m not saying all Taurus people live a life of luxury, I’m just saying that work is work and their lives are not defined by it in the same way – it’s just a job. To a Libra its time wasted when they could be busy daydreaming or working on something of value to them personally.

At first I resisted the idea that Eris was the ruler of Libra after all she isn’t really considered a very “nice” Goddess and Libras are generally thought to be very nice – they avoid conflict, they don’t like disharmony and I have Mars in Libra and have many Libra friends so I felt sort of bad thrusting this sort of odd ball Goddess on them. However after much thought I think my friend’s observation is correct. Eris is the sister of Aries. Aries is the other side of the astrological coin to Libra. And in many ways she fits the Libra traits if we strip away some of the judgment put upon her by the ancients.

The legend or myth basically tells the story of a wedding in which all the Gods were invited except Eris (due to her association with disharmony). She was upset by this and came up with a strategy to get even in a very clever and covert way, she threw a golden apple into the proceedings which read: To the fairest. Of course all the egotistical Goddesses thought it was for them, Hera, Aphrodite and Athena. The three women fought over it and then asked Zeus to judge who the apple was for, being the father and husband he decided it wasn’t a good move to judge such a competition and asked Paris to do the honors. Each of the Goddesses offered him a bribe. Aphrodite’s won out and he was given the most beautiful mortal woman in the world to take as his wife Helen of Troy. This of course caused the Trojan war.

Now on the surface this is kind of a nasty thing to do, however one must admit that Eris was prejudged and instead of internalizing the hurt she turned it around in a clever way to make a point. She waged a war against those who had castigated her. If she had been a man, this would have been a sign of strength – she was in fact a warrior. Her strategy used psychology and surprise – very modern war methodology, in fact it very much resembles the Trojan horse that was to come in the wake of this supposed event. She used her enemies vanity and megalomania against them and in fact they are the ones who chose to respond with bribery and promises in order to win this imaginary and empty competition. She used her understanding of psychology to manipulate those who had hurt her, in order to teach them a lesson – after all they had been unfair to her.

Now her strategic genius would make sense in relationship with Libra. It would explain why there are so many generals who have been Libras and (I believe famous chess players as well). It would also explain the competitive spirit Libras have – the challenge they find and need to fuel them in their work, whether it is competing with themselves to do better, or with a rival they want to show up.

I was told by a prominent astrologer I studied with early on (many, many, many years ago) that there were more people born with Libra rising in the US than any other sign. He said it was something close to 50 percent (or something of that nature) totally out of balance with what one would expect, due to the fact that we are far north, and Libra rises for the longest period of time during most of the year. And we are by far the most competitive people on the planet, we take great pride in our work and love being entrepeneurs and working for ourselves.

In many ways Libras have much in common with Aries people, except Libras, instead of being direct and straightforward, work behind the scenes, get their ducks in a row and then strike. They don’t like being in the center of an arguments especially prolonged ones. They prefer to plan their attack and then let nature take its course. This can upset the apple cart, but that’s OK as long as they aren’t there when it turns over (much like Eris).

So instead of seeing Eris as the Goddess of Discord I prefer to take her back to what I imagine was probably her proper place – before her power was taken away due to the change from a matriarchal society into a patriarchal, and think of her as a supreme warrior and brilliant strategist capable of winning even when all the odds and all the Gods were against her!

I’ll dissect how it affects people as individuals and what it means in people’s charts in the next post on her.

Best wishes and many blessings,

Denise

Some Forward Movement on the Dwarf Planets…

Ceres which had once been considered a planet than downgraded to an asteroid has recently (the last couple of years) been put into the planetoid or dwarf planet category. Now it’s been my experience that “dwarf planets” are just as powerful as regular planets. Pluto, now a “dwarf planet” is a major butt kicker and in my humble opinion it’s more of a malefic than Saturn. Saturn will collect his toll but Pluto will put you in the grave if you aren’t paying attention or have unfinished karmic business.

We can be all love and light(y) about the planets and how they all teach us things and really it’s for our own good, but bad stuff does happen in this world. Let’s put it this way Charles Manson had a Scorpio stellium in his 8th house (the Scorpio house, one of the houses of death and the occult) so pretty much everything in Manson’s chart led back to Pluto. And if there was a personification of Pluto here on earth, it would pretty much be him. He was a cult leader, a murderer, a sexual abuser and somehow got kids from the suburbs to become sociopaths. If one wasn’t convinced of the validity of astrology than all one would have to do is be told a few basic things and a copy of Manson’s chart and it would be clear to a 10-year-old child that there was something strange going on between the two things.

So back to my point. I’ve found some interesting things out about Ceres. Ceres appears to rule nurturing, the ability to nurture and being nurtured as well or what nurtures a person. It is my opinion that Ceres is the actual (true) ruler of Virgo and Mercury is the ruler of Gemini. I believe we are figuring this out now because the earth is in desperate need of nurturing and people who have strong Virgo in their charts (that would be anyone born after 1960 until about 1971) would be the harbingers of a major turning point in the energy of the world. Until then we had been an agrarian culture, until about 60 years earlier when we had the industrial revolution, we lived close to the land. We had gone from hunting and gathering (in most parts of the world) to growing our own food and eating it. I still find this idea kind of weird, like eating one’s children – which is probably really weird that I find this weird, but it always has a creepy sort of thing about it, the idea of growing a plant so one can eat from it even though this is often a mutually beneficial relationship, it still weirds me out – which is why I have mint growing and can’t use it and strawberries I can’t find myself eating. I’m a freak what can I say.

Anyway, we went from finding our resources to cultivating our resources – this was a huge change and at that time our bodies actually changed. We evolved. According to some researchers even a new blood type came into being around that time, that blood type is A. Before this, human beings shared one universal blood type (which is why we can all use it when we need a blood transfusion) – O. The negative or positive after the blood type has to do with the RH factor, which is sort of another issue altogether. It’s extremely rare to be RH negative, I think less than one percent of the population has this issue.

Back to my point, I love to go off on tangents : It took 60 years of full on “better living through chemistry” to really screw up the eco system and put mother nature out of whack. It’s my belief that the food movements of the 60s and 70s of returning to a more healthful eating style were just the beginning of a needed revolution in our connection to the earth and our connection to the feminine aspect of ourselves. It’s interesting to note that over the last 30 or so years there have been innumerable sightings of the Virgin Mary on walls, tacos, birth marks, lamp shades etc. not to mention the statues of the Virgin said to be crying blood. Why not Jesus? Why not Saint Joseph? You get the picture. The world seemed in need of some sort of Goddess figure, a return of feminine power – as women’s political and economic power has waxed and waned over history, now it seemed the 3 most powerful and largest religions (all based on the same God Jehovah) had castigated the feminine and relegated all things female into the realm of inferior – so much so that even women believed this and instead of embracing themselves as equal but different an entire generation of women tried to take on the roles of men and dismissed all that was beautiful about being female (I’ll have to write a whole piece on this as this is a giant thing to say in this context and needs clarification but I’ll leave that to later).

Now we have Ceres – the Goddess returning, the nurturer, the Great Mother, the root of the word cereal. She is literally and figuratively the host of humanity, feeding us physically and emotionally as well as spiritually. She is unfortunately one of the only positive Goddess figures assigned to these new dwarf planets. I’ll go into those ladies in a later article.

Ceres in your chart is the place that healing happens, the place that represents how you need to be nurtured and how you nurture others. Mine is in Gemini in the first house, makes sense, eh? Yes, I love to nurture through communication and I’m the person who if behind you in a supermarket line, you would inexplicably feel the need to tell me all your troubles. And I’d listen and actually be really happy to do so. When I found this in my chart I was like, wow, no wonder why this always happens to me and everyone thinks I’m so nurturing and an earth momma. Although, I can tell you I’m really not that at all. I have really no earth (except 2 generational planets) in my chart and one could fly a kite using all the wind I create from my blabbing. I’m so airy and so watery it’s kind of ridiculous.

Now here’s the kind of disturbing thing about the dwarf planet Eris – from the research I’ve done she’s the sister of Aries. She’s the Goddess of strife and discord. She wasn’t invited to one of the Gods royal weddings (between Peleus and Thetis) and as revenge painted an apple gold and through it into the festivities addressed only to “the fairest.” So Hera, Athena and Aphrodite all fought over it. Zeus asked the mortal shepherd Paris to settle the dispute. Supposedly, Aphrodite bribed Paris into picking her by promising to deliver whatever woman he wanted for his bride. He picked the fairest woman of all mortals named Helen, of course, it was due to her abduction by the Gods that the Trojan war began.

As one can plainly see here, the message imbued in the myth of Eris is revenge through the use of trickery and deceit through human frailty such as: vanity, greed, pride, competitiveness and the need for prestige, even being number one (sounds like us, the US). It is the false promise of these things that leads to the downfall of the Gods and a horrible war here on earth. It’s sort of like the use of our own domestic airplanes on 9-11 turned against us, something used for pleasure, business, fun, something generally very safe (it’s the safest form of travel in terms of accidents) used as a weapon of horrible destruction. It was so bizarre and unexpected no one seemed to know what to do on that day, even the slightly mental deficient president or his (literally) heartless VP.  It was around this time that Eris was found and since then the world has been fighting a shadowed enemy among us, one that can not be seen, one that is hidden, crafty and uses our own resources against us.

I have some thoughts now on the other dwarf planets and their significance like Sedna whose limbs were cut off and was thrown into the sea by her father (patriarchy) where she became a sort of protector of the ocean from what I can remember. Now we are dealing with major environmental oceanic issues that will only continue to get worse. I have to study her more and put it together I think though her discovery and the BP disaster are related.

More on Dwarf planets soon…

Keep on praying, keep working on yourself. By lifting yourself up – you lift all of us.

Best to all,

Denise