Astrology Explored

The newest dwarf planet discoved is the goddess of Discord, Eris. Her mythology is complex. Looked upon primarily as the genesis of discord, she is looked at another way as well.

“The Goddess of Discord is just one way of looking at Eris. But the other [side of Eris] [is that] . . .She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbor, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbor vies with his neighbor as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men.�
 
In other words, another form of the word strife is “striving.� Competition creates conditions where individuals . . . strive to improve their life.�

The parthogenically produced daughter of the goddess Night, who, in turn, was created in primodial Chaos, she has no male heritage. Eris had the ability to produce children without the aid of a consort and she did so many times. She was whole unto herself, not needing the male principle to complete her. Except for the God of War, Ares, whose (non-sexual) company she kept, she was excluded from the company of the patriarchal Olympian gods. Called the Queen of Battle, supposedly delighting in the bloodletting of war, was this the reason she was excluded from the company of other gods?

Or was it that as goddess in her own right, whose provenance was more ancient than that of the King of the Gods, (being the great, great, great grand aunt to Zeus), she had little appreciation of the pretentions of Zeus’s extended family? When not invited to a wedding, she threw a golden apple into the midst of the celebrations, with the inscription “To the fairest.� Hera, the wife of Zeus and the goddess of marriage, Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of sexual love and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, all representing the fragmented image of women wrought by the cultural invasion of patriarchal culture, vie with one another for the prize, setting in motion the events that prefaced the Trojan War. In highlighting the fragmented nature of the feminine by promoting a competition among other goddesses, Eris earned her reputation as the Goddess of Discord.

While it is perfectly acceptable for men to compete with one another it still is not culturally acceptable for women to compete. A recent study illustrates that women who negotiate for higher salaries face a heavy price for doing so.

Eris illustrates a feminine principle that is whole in itself, not needing the male principle for completion, ready and willing to compete to illustrate a point. Her “discord� is that of being at odds with the patriarchal culture and the fractured view of femininity that pervades our culture to this day.

10 Billion miles from the Sun, Eris takes 560 years to complete its highly elliptical orbit around the sun. All the people alive today are born with either Eris in Pisces or Eris in Aries. The discovery of Eris while in the sign of her traditional companion Aries shows us that we are ready to remember the experience of the feminine as whole and complete without the male principle for completion.

Eve with her apple supposedly got us thrown out of paradise. Eris, with hers, just might help us get it back.

astrology, mythology, Eris