Astrology Explored

May 22, 2008

Pluto was “demoted� to dwarf planet status by the IAU, but Ceres, planetary body between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter, was upgraded from asteroid to dwarf planet at the same time. When Ceres was discovered in 1801 it was hailed as a planet. When astronomers realized, after discovering many more bodies that comprised what we call the asteroid belt that Ceres was just one of these objects, she was reclassified.

However, despite its small size, Ceres displays many planet like qualities. It is theorized that Ceres has a magnetic core and has more water than Earth. Along with astronomers, Ceres is kicking up some interest from astrologers as well. Named after the Greek goddess of the harvest, the meaning of Ceres is tied into the mythologies of the Great Mother. Ceres mythological story is poignant, resonating with the fears and concerns a mother has for her children.

To the Greeks, Ceres was the goddess of earth’s fertility. She caused the planets to grow and the animals to give birth to young. In the earlier part of man’s history, the earth was always fruitful, there was not fall or winter. Ceres had one daughter, a beautiful maiden by the name of Persephone who was her constant companion. One day, when Persephone was gathering flowers in a field by herself, the god of the Underworld, Hades, saw her and was so stricken with her beauty that he thundered by her in his chariot, snatched her, and after causing the earth to split asunder, drove the panic stricken girl to his underworld kingdom.

Hades, or as the Romans knew him, Pluto, made her his wife and queen, but Persephone was so grief stricken at her abduction and forced marriage that she refused to eat or drink. Meanwhile, Ceres searched frantically for her daughter and when she learned that Zeus’s brother stole her demanded her daughter back. Zeus refused, not wanting to get into an argument with his brother. Of all the Olympian gods, Zeus only had to broker power with Poseidon and Hades, and with the nice little power sharing arrangement he had, he didn’t want to upset the apple cart. Ceres was furious and grief stricken, and so upset she was she failed to oversee the fertility of the earth. The earth grew cold, and the plants would not grow, and humans starved. Eventually, humans began to rail against the gods, and Zeus and the others were losing followers right and left. Again Ceres appealed to Zeus, and after taking counsel with his mother, Mother Earth herself, Zeus agreed that Persephone could be released from her Underworld if she did not eat of any food of the underworld.

Persephone steadfastly refused to eat, but Hades kept after her. Finally she ate a few pomegranate seeds, the sign of fertility. When Zeus learned this he was in a pickle. So he modified his pronouncement by saying that Persephone would spend half a year with her mother and half a year with her husband. When Persephone is with her mother, Ceres is happy and causes the earth to be fertile. When Persephone returns to the Underworld, Ceres is sad the plants wither and go into hibernation. Thus we have the spring and summer, where everything is fruitful upon the earth, and fall and winter when it is not.

Traditional astrology marks the moon in your chart as representing your mother, but Ceres in your chart shows how you nurture and how you want to be nurtured. The moon represents your security needs, but Ceres shows you how you handle practical affairs.

Ceres’ mean motion is a half degree a day and her current position is 21 degrees of Gemini. We reach out to our children and try to communicate important values regarding diverse points of views. We also receive news about our children. From report cards to college admissions to decisions about life directions we see how our children fare in the world as a reflection of how well we fulfilled our roles as mothers.

A good site that explores Ceres by Sign and House is Bob Mark’s Astrology

And an ephemeris for Ceres can be found here.

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astrology, horoscopes, zodiac, Ceres