Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Chaos Thy Name is Eris (or vice versa)

 Glyph used by Discordians
A couple of recent astrological articles have focus on Eris, and how that minor planet's position - now - might be reflected in current mundane events.

From Mountain Astrologer: article by Arielle Guttman
The Goddess of Discord, The U.S. Chart and the 2016 Election

From Diary of a Mundane Astrologer by Raye Robertson:
An Astrological Fairytale: The Evil Fairy, Prince Charming & the April 19 New York Primary.



 Alternative glyph
Eris, being so distant from Earth, with a l-o-n-g 560 year orbit, hasn't seemed to me to be highly relevant, other than maybe, for fun, playing around with the mythology involved in the name Eris. Goddess of Discord she's called. We have lots of that - all the time!

Astrologers professional, amateur, and mere dabblers like myself have no idea, (if they/we are absolutely honest), of what it is they/we are dealing with in astrology, so it's worth experimenting, using new possibilities, in the hope of discovering which, if any, proves to be a good fit. It's akin to Prince Charming's experiments with the glass slipper (he's mentioned, in another context, in one of the links above).

I've dallied with Eris in the past. Three of five relevant posts are:

PUMA Reflection of Eris ? That one harks back to the 2008 election season and PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) -remember that group?

Eris Cycles from 2011.

Still Cycling...With Eris from July 2014.

I'm still feeling much the same as astrologer Jack Fertig, in the PUMA post linked above:
Jack Fertig: "I want to caution here that I don’t really hold with the notion that the name that astronomers give a planet necessarily defines it. Remember that according to the astronomers, Pluto and Eris aren’t even full fledged planets right now.

Uranus could have appropriately been named Prometheus, and I do think Bacchus would be a better name for Neptune. We relate a lot to the mythological gods through our experience of the planets, and we attribute a lot to Uranus that frankly had nothing to do with the Greek Myth. We also see a lot to Neptune that the Greeks and Romans didn’t. And it’s perfectly fine to update the myths to contemporary realities.
...........We are starting from scratch and can at least use the mythic Eris as a touchstone for beginning investigations."

ALSO, from Jack Fertig (who surmises that Eris might rule Libra):
"But what I do see here with the so-called goddess of strife, is in fact striving, competition. I see her as an agent of group dynamics, how we define ourselves vis-à-vis others, not just as individuals but also as Libran team-mates, as members of a group within a larger group. At the wedding of Peleus and Thetis she introduced a competition that set off the Trojan War. But she’s only directly responsible for the competition; not the war!"

2 comments:

mike said...

The Arielle Guttman - TMA link was interesting. I'd not come across "Venus Star Point" prior and found it peculiar that "Venus Star Point is a registered trademark of www.sophiavenus.com & Arielle Guttman" [ http://www.beliefisnotrequired.com/venus-star-point ]. One thing for sure, there's always something astrologers provide as new hypotheses, but this one threw me with its registered trademark...LOL. Better to call it for what it is: the previous Sun-Venus conjunction prior to birth.

I'm old school and am not a fan of asteroids, planetoids, or hemorrhoids. I appreciate the notion of keeping it simple. Yet I concede that since Eris' mass is slightly larger than Pluto, it deserves special attention.

Being a Bernie fan, I enjoyed her positive astrological comments toward him. She omitted that his Moon is less than 5* conjunct his Mars, which adds importance to her observations regarding Eris' current transiting position conjunct his Mars.

Bernie's natal Eris (chaos) is 5* Aries [ https://astrology.richardbrown.com/eph/Eris.1900-2103.quick-eph.txt ] and exactly trine his Pluto (the collective) in Leo. Guttman's natal charts in the TMA article provide smaller asteroid placements, but not Eris...go figure! Eris makes no significant aspects in the natal charts of The Donald or Hillary.

Using my old school astrology, I still say that the Jupiter-Saturn and Saturn-Neptune squares are more influential in this election cycle, with the carry-over of the Uranus-Pluto squares of the past several years. The collective mood is provided by the transiting planets and the candidates' natal charts, and transits to such, fulfill the commitment toward the collective, for better or worse.

Twilight said...

mike ~ As you observed "there's always something astrologers provide...." especially when selling a book! LOL! I'm not impressed by Venus Star Point - to my mind it's it's just another of those astro board games ploys.

As for Eris - it is interesting to experiment, but even in mundane issues Eris's orbit of 560 years puts reliable detailed historical research in many foggy areas globally - and it has to relate globally, not just to USA/Europe. Also, because human sensibilities change so much over that long period and the way of life on Earth changes too, if astrologers did find something of interest, it would probably be misunderstood from our vantage point in the 21st century.

As for Eris's position in respect of human individuals' natal charts - I doubt it could be of any relevance at all. As for Eris transits - same likely applies for individuals, but I shall find out soon enough as Eris is around a degree from my natal Aries Moon right now. :-)

I prefer old school Western too, and a stripped down "acoustic" version, at that. :-)