Eris, Ruler of Libra?

The Dark Goddess archetype* is rather like the 8th house. It is associated with sex, death, obsession, transformation, magic, the occult and the taboo. Lilith as the most infamous Dark Goddess, seems to embody the collective’s darkest, demonic side, the side that rages when her sexuality is abused.

Throughout the last 2000 years, Abrahamic religions have attempted to strip away the real magic from spiritual practice, while keeping it’s true power for themselves to use for their own ends. This has left us dumbed down, disenfranchised and generally defensive and fearful. We have forgotten how to use our own intuition.

Lilith is the witch, the part of us fascinated by all forms of divination. Astrology the tarot and other forms of occult practice are tools to help us find our way back to what our ancient ancestors took for granted. There is sometime very primal, wild and untamed about Lilith. She is natural and unprocessed.

We all have this gift inside us. One thing that mystics, homo-sexuals and strong women have in common is that they all at some point in history been denigrated, labeled taboo or been branded as ” Evil witches”. This is what tends to happen to anyone defined by his or her sexuality and sexual persuasion.

Lilith has become a bit of a catch all for many other Dark Goddesses, Persephone/Eris, Hekate, Kali, Medusa, Ceres among them. Originally these ladies were beautiful, sexual, psychic, magical beings who knew the importance of preparing for death and eventual regeneration. They respected nature’s cycles of birth, growth and death.

When the Christians destroyed Paganism, some of the goddess archetypes were warped into mans worst fears and were turned into ugly crones, devouring mothers or dangerous spellbinding witches. 

Lilith symbolises a reclaiming of that original dark goddess power, the acceptance of the dark as well as the light side of human nature. In the original bible myth she was the first feminist (Before it became warped and destructive 3rd wave feminism), Adams first wife who did not want to be “below him” either in the sexual act or in everyday life. Because of this she was cast out or exiled herself out of paradise.

Negative Lilith can warp into the worst use of feminism, she has been taken as a feminist symbol, but she should be about uniting and creating understanding between both sexes. Accepting the differences between the sexes! So she is as important for men as she is for women. Lilith is about nature balancing itself out, she obeys the laws of karma, an eye for an eye. Because of this she can be seen as quite ruthless and punishing.

Lilith also relates to the Persephone archetype. This famous springtime myth reflects the cyclical action of the lunar apogee as it unites and balances the energy between the Sun, Moon and the earth. I regard Ceres and Eris as Lilith’s sisters. Algol is seen as the Lilith star and for me Ophuichius is the Lilith constellation. Black Moon Lilith fills the astrological gap for the pagan priestess role, different from the mother (The Moon) and the wife or harlot (Venus).

Eris Ruler Of Libra

That was until the discovery of Eris! The more I have studied Eris the more I see how she is emerging as the outer planet Lilith. But more than that I’m also wondering about rulerships and why we have stopped assigning new discoveries to the signs that are still sharing rulers. Eris to me is a serious contender for rulership of Libra, since she is that missing dark goddess archetype

Sadly the chance of Eris being promoted as Libra’s rightful ruler is compounded by Pluto’s demotion. It’s almost like there is some resistance to the possibility that a heavy-weight outer planet could be a goddess rather than a god. I know some people will say that the feminine can be embodied in a male, like say Neptune who can be a foggy bitch. But to me that’s like men playing women in medieval theatre. We have moved on! Psychologically having a Goddess recognised as outer planet and given rulership of a sign says something quite profound to our collective psyche.

This has not happened. It’s also says a lot about how we read Eris in the chart. She does make me think of Mary Magdalene, who was said to be Jesus’s partner and *gasp* even wrote gospels! Eris like Mary (And Lilith for that matter) is exiled from the exclusive “Planet Status” club, like Mary, Eris’s rulership is denied, her “Gospels” are thrown out and hidden.

From the 1990s, a plethora of new bodies have been discovered, the Asteroid Goddesses, the Centaurs, the Trans-Neptunians and the Plutonoids. Our Solar system has expanded rapidly in a relatively small number of years. If “as above, so below”, then will our minds be allowed to expand too? Demetria George on a recent Goddess Podcast by Gary Caton likened it to our brains using only small amount of their capacity. To me these new discoveries are filling in the gaps.

In 2012 the Pluto/Uranus square will hit us proper. I wonder what that means for Astrology? Could a battle between the God of Astrology and the God of the Underworld, force Pluto into letting Persephone (Eris) come and go as she pleases?

She would then be free to accept rulership of Libra along side Pluto’s Scorpionic domain. That way they can sit side by side on the Via Combusta, equal in status. By 2015 when the battle is over, maybe that burning way will be a little less like flaming terror, and more like a cosy autumn bonfire.

2015 Update: Here we are in 2015 and I now use only the traditional planets as rulerships. See my Re-learning Astrology post as an explanation. However I still use the outer planets in my work (They are like slow moving fixed stars) and think it important to connect them to a sign by way of understanding them. there is definitely a resonance between say Pluto and Scorpio. Eris definitely feels like shadow Venus or even a Venus retrograde, so to link her with Libra still makes sense. The Greeks saw Libra the constellation as the claws of Scorpio which again fits the dark goddess connection quite well.

*Original post posted in November 2009, now edited, revised and includes excerpt from forthcoming book on the Eris and Lilith archetypes. 

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