Eris in Astrology

Keyword: Feminine Warrior for Soul Purpose

If we take a look at the mythology of the newest planet in our Solar System (even though they are calling her a dwarf) and the events surrounding her discovery, from 2003 - 2006, the idea of potentially violent struggle is indeed paramount and as well the ideal of the vital female warrior. Before being officially named Eris last fall, after the Goddess of Strife and Discord, the new planet, designated 2003 UB313, was called Xena, and the name Persephone was considered. Since Persephone and Xena, the warrior princess of popular culture, are involved in the early naming of Eris, the archetypal image comes to the fore of a perhaps damaged and certainly militant feminism that does not shrink from violence. As for events, the time frame of the discovery matches that of the Iraq War, which can certainly be viewed as a violent struggle for resources.

When Pluto was found in the 1930's, its discovery introduced some dark notions regarding the human condition, of a depth and a power that were previously unacknowledged. It stands to reason that Eris, found even farther out into the dark void at the edge of the solar system, will also. Just as we have grown through our understanding of the astrological Pluto, so too we will grow as we come to integrate the Eris archetype into modern Western Astrology.

The astrology of Eris seems to be related to the no-holds-barred fight for continued existence that is fundamental in all natural process, and for making a stand for what one believes, even if violence is involved. As the sister of Mars, the God of War, Eris willingly sought the battle. There is a side of nature that is quite harsh, a struggle for survival, and this struggle is a fundamental part of the human condition as well, for we are still half animal. Nature can be viewed in a rosy light, as it was in the hippie movement of the sixties, Bambi drinking from a little stream, but underlying this beauty is the possibility of sudden death at any moment since all of nature's children need to eat. Eris is related to this principle, and to the concept of the female warrior that embodies it, and especially to the feminist struggle for rights in a patriarchal society.

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Eris in Astrology

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