NB
Highlighted phrases describe qualities attributed to Eris
So
what does Eris represent in astrology? Well, the matter's not really
settled yet but a number of suggestions have been put forward.
Looking at events around the time of her discovery paints a very
bleak picture, but no planet is entirely bad (or good, for that
matter). If we look at what was happening around the time of Pluto's
discovery, we find a similar picture – financial collapse,
gangsters and the emergence of a pernicious ideology that ended in a
world war, yet now we associate Pluto with death and renewal. Perhaps
the scum has to rise to the surface before we can move on to
something more positive. We can be certain that Eris is not a
peaceful and tranquil energy – she's provocative, disruptive,
contrary and polarising. So how can that be a good thing? By
spurring us on. She's the grit in the oyster, the hat pin that
provokes a reaction when you sit on it ... and so on.
Let's
take a look at what's been happening since we became aware of Eris.
It starts off very dark but bear with me, because there are glimmers
of hope even in the darkest of events, and I'm going to end on a
positive note.
Events
following the discovery of Eris are strangely similar to the ones for
Pluto: a financial crash, terrorists rather than gangsters and the
rise of a pernicious ideology ... but I'm going to focus on the
Middle East because, unsurprisingly, Eris' footprints are all over
it. First, though, I want to mention two other things that are
relevant to the time Eris was discovered. The first is the unrest in
the Caucasus and the Chechen Black Widows – women terrorists who,
between 2002 and 2004, took part in attacks (Moscow Theatre and
Beslan School sieges) involving hostages that ended in many deaths.
They were the only groups of women to do so, as far as I can tell and
seemed like a graphic illustration of Eris in warrior mode, to me.
The other is the number of extreme weather events since 2004,
starting with the Asian tsunami just days before Eris was identified
as a planet and continuing through Hurricane Katrina, the Haitian
earthquake, the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and Typhoon Haiyan, which
hit the Philippines in 2013. These events come under the heading of
faceless, impersonal and uncompromising
forces that destroy
indiscriminately
– the former for a
political cause and the latter as an ecological backlash because
of how we're treating the
planet. Eris is prominent in
all their charts.
Before
looking at recent events in the Middle East, we need to take a look
at one that's approaching its centenary. At the end of the First
World War the then-imperial powers of Britain and France carved up
the land of the old Ottoman Empire to their advantage and with no
regard for the people who
actually lived there. Promises
made to certain groups
of people, like the Kurds
and the Arabs, weren't kept. This
agreement, which is known as
the Middle East Mandate, is at the heart of what's going on today.
The chart for the signing of the mandate has Eris in a prominent
position.
(Click to enlarge) |
We
move on to 2001, close enough to Eris' discovery to be within orb.
The destruction of the World
Trade Centre (whoever you
think was responsible for it)
was the equivalent of the
apple that Eris rolled into the wedding feast. It set in motion a
train of events that led to the invasion of Iraq, the emergence of
Islamic State and their declaration of the Caliphate. Eris
is strong in these charts, but perhaps the most interesting is the
one for the Iraq War, especially when
compared to that of the
Middle East Mandate. Eris, on the Midheaven of the mandate chart, is
almost exactly conjunct the Sun in
the start of war chart.
Eris plays a long game, just
as she did at her discovery.
Eris is also about the way we treat The Other – the dispossessed, refugees, the disenfranchised, social outcasts, the enemy; and also about the resentment of the excluded, which has been building for at least a century in various parts of the Middle East. We have to accept our part in the creation of Islamic State, because it didn't come from nowhere. It sprang from our colonial past. However terrible their actions seem to us, they're the result of decades of resentment and frustration. If we refuse to listen to other people's grievances, we shouldn't be surprised if they do whatever it takes to make us sit up and take notice. Also relevant here is the so-called Migrant Crisis. In the few years since Eris was discovered, we've messed up Iraq, Libya and Syria and now we're getting huffy because people there have had enough and are making their way to Europe. This shows us other aspects of Eris, namely the will to survive and facing life in the raw – as millions of people have been forced to do. The trickle of people crossing the Mediterranean became a flood last summer as we approached the Jupiter-Neptune opposition. Eris was linked to this by a semi-square to Neptune, and Amy Shapiro (see below) says 'at the extreme, Eris-Neptune aspects have seen times of waves of immigration, and displaced populations facing the circumstances of living in exile' (p 137). For months the public mood towards migrants, and even drowning migrants, ranged from indifference to hostility. The narrative was that Britain was full up; we didn't want these people coming over and stealing our jobs and our houses, and claiming our benefits … all the usual stuff you hear from politicians and press.
(Click to enlarge) |
Then
at the beginning of September, the
body of a child, Alan Kurdi, was washed up on a Turkish beach and a
press photographer
took a photo of him,
lying at the water's edge. That photo changed everything. It went
round the world instantly through social media and suddenly people
woke up to what was happening. They started to demand action from
their governments and when it wasn't forthcoming, they took action
themselves, driving refugees across borders, offering them places in
their homes and so on. The
ice in people's hearts had
melted, I
believe, because the 'migrants' were no longer the faceless Other.
They
were families, just like
their own, and they were suffering.
This
is another Eris attribute: she moves us beyond our
self-important and isolated ego and the fortress
mentality it fosters.
Now, something
interesting was happening
astrologically during this period. Jupiter and Neptune had moved into
opposition from mid-August but for just the
first three days of
September a Thor's Hammer
formed around that
opposition, made up of a Jupiter-Sun conjunction which
formed
sesquiquadrates to an
Eris-Ceres square with Neptune at the midpoint.
Rael and Rudhyar (see below) describe this configuration as a challenge to concrete action that answers a pressing social or evolutionary need (p 124). Briefly, Ceres is about the body and survival issues, while Eris is about the soul and what motivates us. The Moon, only fleetingly part of the configuration, is about the emotions the photograph of the child evoked. Neptune – on the tension point of the Hammer – calls on us to find our humanity, while Eris demands justice for the disenfranchised. Uranus is the instantaneous transmission of the image and the Jupiter-Sun conjunction, on the Ascendant, explains why it had such a massive impact. It shifted something in our psyche and put us in touch with our humanity again.
(Click to enlarge) |
Rael and Rudhyar (see below) describe this configuration as a challenge to concrete action that answers a pressing social or evolutionary need (p 124). Briefly, Ceres is about the body and survival issues, while Eris is about the soul and what motivates us. The Moon, only fleetingly part of the configuration, is about the emotions the photograph of the child evoked. Neptune – on the tension point of the Hammer – calls on us to find our humanity, while Eris demands justice for the disenfranchised. Uranus is the instantaneous transmission of the image and the Jupiter-Sun conjunction, on the Ascendant, explains why it had such a massive impact. It shifted something in our psyche and put us in touch with our humanity again.
Are
you starting to see how Eris is not all bad? You may question her
methods, but don't blame her for having to prod us into action – we
don't like moving out of our comfort zone.
Nimbyism is, alas, much more prevalent than altruism, and usually
something has to break before we can expand into something
greater, just
as a shell has to break before a chick can emerge.
In the case of Alan Kurdi, it was our hard-heartedness, or
small-mindedness, that
cracked open. We realised
our similarities to those
fleeing were more important
than our differences. This, I think, takes us to the crux of Eris:
she's about our soul purpose.
And if we want to let our
soul shine through, we have to curb the worst excesses of our ego,
whose mission is to keep things exactly as they are. We could call
individuals who let that happen spiritual warriors
or paradigm shifters.
It's not an easy path to tread, it
can be a
lonely one
and you have to be able to cope with rejection and ridicule – and
much worse, in some cases. Take Malala Yousafzai, for example. She
was actually named after a Pashtun warrior woman. Her father
encouraged her from an early age, believing her to be special in some
way. By the age of ten she was speaking
out for education rights, especially for girls, after
the Taliban moved into the
Swat Valley, where she lived, and stopped girls attending school. By
the time she was 14,
she was planning to organise the Malala Educational Foundation, to
help poor girls go to school. She
received
death threats, and was
shot in the head on 9 October 2012. She survived the attack, was
flown to England for treatment where she's lived ever since, along with
her family. The Taliban had
failed spectacularly in their attempt to silence her,
as the following year, on her 16th birthday, Malala spoke at
the UN as advocate for worldwide access to education. And on 10
October 2014, almost exactly two years after the assassination
attempt, she was named co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (shared
with Kailash Satyarthi) – the youngest ever Nobel laureate at the
age of 17.
(Click to enlarge) |
Malala
has a strongly aspected Eris, with
several aspects including ones
to the Sun,
Moon and Mars and another Thor's Hammer,
made up of
Eris-Saturn square Sun, sesquiquadrate
Pluto – which is pretty
powerful stuff. Would
she have received as
much
recognition if she'd remained in the Swat Valley and completed her
education? We won't ever know. But circumstances forced
her to
break with her old life, and allowed her soul purpose
to shine through. Malala
clearly knows what she's come here to do
and I think she's just the
first. Once
the children of the Noughties reach
maturity I reckon
we'll see a lot of
them
rising to the challenge that
Eris presents.
Suggestions
for further reading
I
drew on these books for what I've written above
Le Grice, Keiron
(2012) Discovering Eris: The symbolism and significance of a new
planetary archetype Edinburgh: Floris Books
Seltzer, Henry
(2015) The Tenth Planet: Revelations from the Astrological Eris
Bournemouth: Wessex Astrologer
Shapiro, Amy (2014)
Inviting Eris to the Party New Age Sages
Plus (for aspect
patterns):
Rael, Leyla and
Rudhyar, Dane (1980) Astrological Aspects: A Process-Oriented
Approach Santa Fe: Aurora Press