Thursday, July 31, 2014

Still Cycling... with ERIS

An announcement 9 years ago this week, by NASA:
July 29, 2005: "It's definitely bigger than Pluto." So says Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology who announced today the discovery of a new planet in the outer solar system.
The planet, which hasn't been officially named yet, was found by Brown and colleagues using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego. It is currently about 97 times farther from the sun than Earth, or 97 Astronomical Units....The planet's temporary name is 2003 UB313. A permanent name has been proposed by the discoverers to the International Astronomical Union, and they are awaiting the decision of this body before announcing the name. Stay tuned!
(See HERE)
Hat-tip Cosmos News

We now know this dwarf planet as Eris.

I wasn't a Blog Lady in 2005, but my second and third posts when I opened this blog in 2006 touched on the demotion of Pluto, which was directly related to the discovery of Eris and other outer bodies.

By 2008 onward I got around to waxing, fairly non-lyrically, about Eris on a handful of occasions. Looking back:
Eris & Sedna or Eric & Sid? (2008);
and
Eris Cycles (2011).
The latter garnered some good comments at the time, and more than six and a half thousand hits over the years.

I hadn't thought much about Eris lately, before noticing the anniversary of the announcement of its discovery. Eris is such a slow-moving body, its 560-year orbit makes Pluto look like a Speedy Gonzalez. The outer planet ephemeris indicates that Eris now is at 23 Aries (tropical zodiac). Looking around for additional information worth adding here, I found:

Synodic Astrology - The Path of Eris & The Eris Synodic Cycles 2003 - 2016
Harmonic Cycles of Growth in Consciousness

by Nick Anthony Fiorenza


This astrologer uses sidereal placement which has Eris in the constellation of Pisces, but this doesn't detract from the information given for those of us who use tropical zodiac placements. I hope the astrologer will not object to my using a snip from part of his long and very interesting article. This, from at the section headed
Synodic Astrology: Eris & Uranus - 1927 - 2016

A new Uranus-Eris synodic cycle begins in Dec of 2016. The last Uranus-Eris synod occurred around 1927 in early sidereal Pisces on the Vernal Point.....................................
The correlation of global events and historical transitions surrounding the 1927 Uranus-Eris synod may be ideal for astrologers to explore in order to gain more insight into the astrological nature of Eris.

A few events occurring during this time were: In Global Communications - The first transatlantic commercial telephone service was established between New York and London. There were breakthroughs in radio and television, with television's first successful long-distance broadcast. These were technological shifts severing the limits of the past (a Uranian theme), ones that would then continue throughout the synodic cycle. The new technological developments also disrupted humanity's world perception regarding possibilities in time and space, fitting to Eris' nature, just as Eris' discovery disrupted humanity's world view, ultimately to embrace additional planets in Pluto's realm and the resultant need to redefine our astronomical classification of planets (forming the Dwarf Planet category).

These were also the days of Ford's Model A; Mae West, Duke Ellington, and Ernest Hemingway. However, shortly to follow was the Great US Stock Market Crash in 1929, which led to the Great Depression (fitting to the Vernal-Point-Diphda theme). Although originating in the US, the Depression spread to Europe and all other parts of the world causing severe political disarray. This also proved opportunistic for tyrants like Hitler and Stalin. World War II followed a decade later.

Remember, Uranus and Eris move quite slowly so their active orb lasts over a long period, and a synod merely marks the start of cycle which will then unfold over time—the Uranus-Eris cycle being about 89 years.

If a comparable pattern continues then, beginning in 2016, with a new US president about to enter the White House, we can only surmise how the 1927 pattern might unfold this time around. For sure there'll be bigger and ever more unintelligible (to the lay person) technological shifts, making those in the 1927 cycle look distinctly primitive by comparison. Our world view and maybe even our universe view, will be disrupted and re-aligned in some significant way. A new version of 1927's "crash" could turn out to be climatic rather than financial - maybe even both in concert - or maybe neither but something nobody has thought of yet. We must hope against hope that the rise of more monsters in human clothing, directing the world again into darkness, will not follow the previous cycle's pattern. This need not be the case. Cycles proceed in spiral fashion, each benefiting from that immediately preceding it. Let's hope we humans shall, this time, reap the benefit of hard experience from the previous cycle.

As stated in Eris Cycles (link above) "Whatever else we might consider astrology is all about, cycles are what drive the true astrology. Eris' cycles deserve a thought or two."

3 comments:

mike said...

"Let's hope we humans shall, this time, reap the benefit of hard experience from the previous cycle."

The adage, history repeats itself, has become an adage for a reason. No, I doubt that we've learned and the immediate global tumult seems applicable to the failing.

1927 saw the conjunction of Eris and Uranus, with Uranus in an applying square to Pluto [Uranus about 3*, Pluto about 16* July 15, 1927], with aspects to Neptune over the next decade. The conjunction occurring in 2016-2017 will have Uranus separating from the Pluto square, but Pluto will be moving into square with Eris over the next several years; Neptune will not form any significant aspects. Should be interesting!

Doug Walker has an interesting essay about Eris, interpretation, long and short term historical influences:
http://www.historicalastrology.com/the-astrology-of-eris/

mike (again) said...

Re: Your post July 29th, comment with quote from Michael Lutin. Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto will be forming their new synodic cycles in 2020...these conjunctions will be square Eris.

Twilight said...

mike ~ I prefer the saying that "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes" (Mark Twain I think).

I was trying throw a wee positive possibility into the mix when I mentioned the spiral, and possibility of benefit from experience. While I don't want to sound like a Pollyanna, I do think we have a duty to at least try to see possibilities of better outcomes than continual war drums, violence and doom. It's very difficult, I grant you, but whenever there's a crack - let us let the light in, even if it's an iffy and foggy kind of light.

Interesting it will be, I think we can rely on that!

Re Doug Walker's article - I wish he hadn't begun with all the mythological stuff on Eris. I had a ranting paragraph on that aspect in my post, but deleted it yesterday. Eris was the name given to this body by people who think astrology is a load of codswallop - why do astrologers go along like lap-dogs or sheep and harp on the mythology of the name?

In the case of Neptune, Uranus, Pluto, they have at least had time to prove whether or not the names fit - or did we make the names fit? That's a whole other topic that I wish I were astrologically educated enough to write about.

I prefer to rely on cycles. Now, maybe the cycles do indicate that Eris = war and discord, but wouldn't it be equally possible to find other repeats or rhymes in the Eris cycles, for someone working with a different agenda?

I could be wrong on this, of course, but I get the uncomfortable feeling from some astrologers that they are pushing things to suit their own agenda, to fit the article they want to write. Not always, just sometimes.