Eris Loves Rivals

Eris,  is someone to take notice of when we are facing a lot of strife in our life, Lady Gaga And Eris The Party Pooper and Eris Playing Out Another Note Of Discord. Eris, of the ‘O.M.G here comes trouble’ fame. More information on her background may help to understand her nature and needs a little more and offer us some more clues as to how best deal with her energies.

Apple of Discord

As a result of a poll in the New Scientist Eris could have been called Xenia, a nickname derived from the Greek word polixeni, meaning very hospitable to strangers, somewhat ironically. She was also nearly going to be called Persephone, a popular choice by all accounts. However, once she was classified as a dwarf-planet this choice clashed with an asteroid already given that name. Even at her inception Eris appears to already be creating some rivalry, disorder and disagreement so in keeping with her final namesake. 

Eris the trickster can play out on the world map

Eris appears to feature quite spectacularly at the moment due to her unremitting need to gate crash any gathering. Add this to this the fact that she is gaining momentum by oddly slowing down and increasing her power as she prepares to go retrograde in July 2012. Anyone with planets at or around 22 degrees of Aries, Libra, Cancer or Capricorn, Eris may be breathing down your neck. She sits in my birth chart in my 10th house, the zone of Profession and Status. Oh....

Should I forget about having any sort of profession or exterior life at all and just stay close to home in order to get away from Eris’s troublemaking and her rivalries? Looking back through the disruptions I have always experienced in the work arena could suggest that the answer is probably ‘yes’ but where will that get me? 

Before I rush back into the shelter of home to avoid Eris and occupy myself with the washing and baking some bread perhaps I should consider another reading of these signs and symbols in my chart. Strife is obviously a part of life, like it or not. We all have Eris positioned somewhere in our charts and also in our psyches. There is no point in consigning our 'unpleasantness' or  ‘nastiness’ to a dark cupboard, tucked away out of reach, banished to the nether regions of Narnia. Closing our eyes tight shut and pretending all is fine won't work either because Eris is a trickster and she will gatecrash the party anyway. In the Eris myth she stole her apple in the first place and changed it from one of the apples of immortality into a sour bitter fruit, the apple of discord. Lady Eris will always chuck in her poisoned apple anyway and with it will be throw in a lot of upset and general mayhem. That’s her offering and that’s what she brings to the party, sometimes for good reason.

Eris Is Your Opposite Number

In researching Eris’s behavior I have noticed that the zone or house opposite to the one Eris occupies in your birth chart is where her troubles can be the most obvious. It is where the apple of discord after being thrown actually lands. This area is often the 'fallout zone'. It is here where you may experience some stiff rivalry, somewhat underhand tactics and sometimes surprise intrusions. This place can also be the dumping ground for all the detritus of battle. Trouble and strife appears here when you ignore your own Eris and when you disown your inner troublemaker or pot-stirrer. If you down play this area of your birth chart, where Eris sits and waits and make out it is not as important as other areas of your life, then Lady Eris will watch as discord runs rife. Be aware not only of the house of Eris but in the exact opposite part of the chart where the apple has landed and where many things may be projected and left.

If you have Eris placed in the 7th house of partnerships and you dismiss or deny that you can at times be a trouble maker within your relationship or in business with partners, then the effects could be experienced in the 1st house of vitality, presentation and self. Lets say you get involved in an unfair partnership, or deny the other persons contributions or always get embroiled in love triangles and yet pretend nothing untoward is happening. It could be possible that your health could suffer due to the stress of keeping it all together or the image that you present to the world could be affected or your sense of independence could take a knock.

Spot the trouble, address the source and you could give yourself a helping hand. For instance,

-        - Trouble and mess at home? Is Eris in your 10th house? Then address and attend to your career, strive harder in this area and admit that you want admission into this sphere of life. Then see if that admission alone alleviates your home disruption.

-        - Trouble and mess with friends? Is Eris in your 5th  house? Then address and attend to your creativity or pleasures, strive harder here and admit that you want admission into a more creative area of life or just have more time for fun and leisure.  Does just being more fun alleviate the disruptions you experienced with friends or even alter your long term goals.

-        - Trouble and mess with your partner? Find out if  Eris in your 1st house? Then address and attend to your independence and personal space. Admit you want this expression of life to be in place and then see if that alleviates the disruptions within your partnerships.

One positive way to deal with Eris issues is to look at her position in your chart as a place where you have to try harder and make quite some effort. Strive to attain something you really want and drive towards that goal. Most importantly admit that you indeed have these very big goals and press on in this area because simple acknowledgement appeases most gods.

It is obviously not aspiration alone without perspiration in the realm of Eris and we will have to focus really hard on achieving positive results. Set our sights on something and try to get there irrespective of what anyone else is doing or has done or even despite the difficult hand we may have been dealt. This will serve to give us momentum to move forward and with this comes a lot more personal power. We can look at this type of challenge as an opportunity to get things right out into the open. Sometimes this can get a wee bit scary. We could be shown intolerance, or suspicion and envy under a variety of guises but if we choose not to react and engage we will probably feel better for it in the end. Because it is better to face it. Try to do what is necessary and you may just notice a gift horse has been staring right back at you. Facing your Eris full on and dealing with her bravely and honestly is exactly what she needs. Ultimately, Eris just wants to be included and attended to and moved out of the shadows. 

Amy Winehouse had Eris in her 11th house. It was therefore, the opposite house, the 5th, where she looked for the damage, the fall-out from the apple of discord was no doubt her romantic and recreational life. This 5th house 'mess we made' obviously fed her creativity but was only one side of the see-saw. By owning her 11th house needs to participate more profoundly and openly in friendships, sharing and caring and realising that she was not so alone in the big wide world, may have provided her with some alternative. While she struggled to be loved by the special 'one' her creativity translated to the whole world where she was loved by many. 

posted by pippa ponton & jphibbs

Eris Playing Out Another Note Of Discord

Eris has produced another clanger at another public event in the world. She has entered through the back door and rolled in her Apple of Discord - see earlier post Lady Gaga and Eris the Party Pooper.

Eris has entered the building again

David Lawley Wakelin who has made films criticising the Iraq war has just entered the court room at the Royal Courts of Justice, London through a door normally reserved for the judge and started shouting accusations at Tony Blair. He accused Blair of being a war criminal in no uncertain terms over and over again. Lord Justice Levenson had to apologise to Mr Blair for the fact that anyone was able to enter 'through was is supposed to be a secure corridor' and has ordered an investigation into this unheard of security breach. Mr Blair tried to brush off the incident but put it on the record that the claims 'were totally untrue'.
Tony Blair has Venus in Aries and Eris with her intimate knowledge of Aries energy (Aries ruled by Mars the God of war) is keeping Blair on the back foot, in a defensive pose, about his part in the Iraq War. True or untrue Eris has made her play.

posted by pippa ponton & jphibbs

Lady Gaga And Eris The Party Pooper

There has been plenty of discussion about Pluto losing star status and Vesta gaining some, as astronomers demoted and elevated these two celestial objects from planet to dwarf planet (Pluto) or from asteroid to planetoid (Vesta). All this seems very confusing to those of us just trying to get our heads around what this means astrologically. 
With all the disruption we certainly know that Eris has entered the building.

Pluto has been redefined from the status of Planet to Dwarf Planet. How does this happen and who decides? Well, the vote involved just 424 astronomers, about 5% of the astronomy population. A word of warning though about dumping old Pluto back down into the Underworld and redefining his status, on what some astronomers see as a whim. The Underworld may be where Pluto prefers to hang out, in mythology he is Lord but just don’t force him down there, don’t make light of his power and never, ever, underrate him. 

In fact the building energy between Pluto and Uranus at the moment, tension in the form of a square that will be exact on 24th June, 2012 and the first of seven! That will certainly be testament to just how powerful this ‘small’ planet can be. We should expect quite a bit of provocative and excitable revolutionary brouhaha to follow. It is true that controversy and ‘disorderly fuss’ can often end up appearing pointless and irrational but in the denouncement of German satirist Karl Kraus 'every little error could show the evils of the world and that great evils could be inherent in what can initially appear to be a small error'. 

Lets see how does this effects Lady Gaga and Eris as we cannot leave those two in the wings on their own for very long. Lady Gaga, convent educated self-professed ‘Fame Monster’ or conversely, a role model and freedom fighter. She self proclaims ‘Today and every day we fight for freedom. We fight for justice. We beckon for compassion, understanding and above all we want full equality now’. Well she has been forced to cancel her sell out show in Indonesia as hardline Islamists and other outraged groups have suggested that she can corrupt the youth in their country with her dance moves. She would claim that she was ‘born this way’ but this has become a more serious issue. The concert has been on and off like proverbial Gaga’s draws in a costume change. There have also been threats of violence as a last ditch effort to force Gaga to re-route her tour and to get the message that she and her message are not welcome. This is causing Gaga to take realistic responsibility for her own safety and the safety of her audience and consequently she has had to cancel. 

              
What of Eris, the dwarf planet/planetoid/asteroid, who is she and what is her place at this astrological table? In mythology she is the Greek Goddess of Discord and Strife and in her most famous storyline she initiates the Trojan War as a result of being the only goddess not invited to the party (a wedding celebration on Mount Olympus). After all who would want to invite a whole lot of pain to your happy day? In a fit of pique, some would say a justified wake up call, Eris simply invites herself, anyway. In effect she gatecrashes the wedding ‘do’ and by way of a wedding gift she rolls in an apple injected with a dab of poison. This myth is quite fascinating and naturally complex. The Apple of Discord inscribed for the ‘most beautiful’ causes the three goddesses who were legitimately invited to argue and the unfortunate Paris is picked to choose just one of them. He knew that whoever he ended up choosing, the two left out would bring about a whole world of pain. They all three goddesses try to bribe Paris, he was tempted by unlimited power and wealth, wisdom and strategy and the most beautiful women in the world. He chose Beauty.

Perhaps this myth can be seen as a warning against our habit of going with the path of least resistance and consigning those undesirable bits of others or ourselves into exile. Saying to ourselves ‘if I can't see it, it's not happening’ is something we tend to do as children. We can put our hands over our eyes when Mummy says time for bed but this doesn’t make Mummy or her words go away. Eventually we do have to take that bath and get ready for bed, we must advance, mature and grow up. We eventually must clean up our act. We must take a bite of the apple, take off our blindfold’s and see the truth, no matter how much we don’t like it or disagree with it. If we don’t it may force its way into being consumed eventually and then containing more toxins than is healthy to munch down on.

In the birth chart, Eris can give us information on where in our lives we inject this poisoned apple, where we can throw a right wobbler into a party which will upset the nice stable status quo. Eris will show you where you can be a thorn in the side and where you can create havoc and disturbance from a seemingly innocuous or seemingly small act.

So where is Lady Gaga's Apple of Discord? It certainly seems to be part of her life picture at the moment. Well no surprise to see that Eris is jumping all over Gaga's Venus in Aries. They are in fact involved in a conjunction, united and fully merged. Eris and Venus have become one in Lady Gaga's chart and in her life. Things are probably coming to a head for her in a less than comfortable way with regard to Venus issues such as self worth, beauty, values and desires. Ex's & Xx's Venus Rx and Venus Come Out of Your Shell .

Venus in Aries is ruled by Mars, the Roman god of war and Eris is also the sister of Ares, the Greek god of war. Boom what a combination of trouble and strife in your life.

In keeping with our love of the planetary movements synchronicity in life patterns. At the moment for Lady Gaga as Eris moves in on her chart’s lady Venus in Indonesia and the Philippines she has found herself in a major media storm pivoting around her self expression and values. She has been forced to make a strategic retreat due to an unacceptable threat of casualties.

Lady Gaga has had to reassess her Venus stuff through her Eris discord and strife life.  

                            Her values - 'I’m not a creature of your government, Manila'.
What she receives ‘Lady Gaga has been declined a permit to perform in
the world’s largest Muslim country’.
How she is desired ‘Fans have been eagerly awaiting Lady Gaga, with every seat in Jakarta’s 52,000 seat stadium scooped up – half in the first two hours of sale’.
And what in turns she desires ‘The singer, who signed up to Twitter on 26 March 2008, had 20.12 million followers on her @ladygaga account’ the most followed on the planet. She also has 8 million fans on Facebook and more than 800,000 ‘circles’ on Google+. Lady G puts this popularity down to the fact that she writes everything herself and that she posts on anything and everything she loves.

Lady Gaga meets Lady Venus and Lady Eris for a while longer so we haven’t heard the last of it yet.

Eris and Dysnomia her 'moon' (hubble space telescope wikipedia)

We all have Lady Eris in our birth charts. A point that reveals what has been banished it can also give us clues as to what form this can take and when she can apparently throw in  the poisoned apple for our attention. No one is really immune, we all have Eris in our psyches/birth charts, as well as that she is permanently ‘doing her stuff’ to our charts, permanently interacting to greater or lesser degrees at various times. Sometimes she is interacting with our charts at a low level, and her influence is less noticeable but other times she is much more insistent and combines with other dominant voices. Then there are other times when she insists on getting the whole platform to herself.

Eris is slow moving, she takes her time, so she will be sliding that Apple of Discord into Lady Gaga's party for at least the next decade and this will be a backdrop for her permanently there, probably creating trouble. Sometimes trouble can be kept at bay and other times it is more active, set off by other planetary movements. At the moment Saturn is frustrating Lady Gaga's Sun in a double whammy (Sun is also crunching Saturn) this is very stressful with a heavy workload.  She will be pressed up against time issues, deadlines, calls to grow up and be responsible. She will be asked to obey conventions, respect traditions, try to be normal, act more traditional and conservative. This adjustment will impact her ego (Sun) and the resulting flare-ups trigger those slower brewing stresses elsewhere in her chart. 
For Lady Gaga ‘Eris has certainly entered the building.

credits: google chrome & wikepedia

posted by pippa ponton & jphibbs