Eris

Sunday poetry: May your trails be winding and full of wonder

Over the next few days the North Node, the point which marks the gatepost to the future, will connect with the new planet Eris named for the Goddess of Discord. Eris and Pluto have been in a square aspect since January 2020 and I think we can all agree that the last three years have been fairly discordant. 

In honor of the transformation that creative chaos can bring, I offer this poem. The predictable offers a sense of safety and security and the comfort of knowing what comes next, but the discordant aspects of life have the potential to open up consciousness-altering experiences which make us feel alive.


Vanessa Kay Photos

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome,
dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.

May your rivers flow without end,
meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells,
past temples and castles and poet’s towers,
into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl,
through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down
into a desert of red rock,
blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone,
and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm
where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs,
where deer walk across white sand beaches,
where storms come and go
as lightning clangs upon the high crags,
where something strange and more beautiful
and more full of wonder than your deepest
dreams
waits for you —
beyond the next turning of the canyon walls.

-Edward Abbey

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By |2023-08-06T08:17:30-04:00August 6th, 2023|Inspiration|2 Comments

Weekend update May 22, 2021: Saturn turns retrograde and an intense Sunday ⭐️

art by Jim Fitzpatrick

Like all planets Saturn has two faces, both Beast and Prince.  As Beast, he brings out our doubts and insecurities and bestows hardships.  As Prince, the self-doubt and endurance required to manage the Beastly enterprises which result in successes and mastery.  Saturn is in Aquarius, one of its rulership signs where it is happiest and best able to create the forms and structures which are required in order to build societies (Aquarius) that are effective and well-balanced.  Saturn cares little for personal feelings; the ultimate goal is all that matters.

I tell you all of this because Saturn is stationary in the sky right now and will appear to turn retrograde on Sunday May 23rd.  Retrograde planets are at their closest point to Earth, and therefore rather than becoming weaker they affect us much more personally.  Saturn will be your personal guide for the next few months (until October 10, 2021) and that will be especially true if you have planets in your chart between 5 and 15 degrees of the fixed signs (Aquarius, Leo, Scorpio, Taurus).  Now is the time to buckle down to reassess our goals and priorities – to decide what really matters and make that happen.

So back to the weekend forecast:  on Saturday we have a challenging square from Mercury in Gemini to Neptune in Pisces that culminates late in the evening EDT/early morning Sunday UTC.  With Mercury in Gemini, the mind can wander all over the place and take in lots of extraneous information without a lot of focus, and the square to Neptune adds a dreamy quality that will make any focus extremely difficult and maybe even impossible.  Saturday is a day to imagine and create, […]

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By |2021-05-22T14:55:52-04:00May 22nd, 2021|Planetary news this week|0 Comments

1.29.21 Voices from the Dark Feminine

artist unknown

As the brilliance of the Leo Full Moon begins to fade, we have an exact conjunction of the Black Moon Lilith to Eris.  The Black Moon Lilith, a theoretical point which relates to the Moon, is connected to themes of feminine rage reflecting the story of Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who refusing to submit to her husband was sent to the wilderness without her children and spent the past few thousand years wailing in frustration and anger.  The oppression of women under a patriarchal system has become a stronger story since the archetype of the Black Moon Lilith has emerged.

Eris was the goddess of discord who threw the golden apple which asked the question “Who is the Fairest” after being skipped over when invitations to a wedding party were handed out, a seemingly small act which began the Trojan War, a conflict which lasted for ten years.  The combination of these two dark goddesses lasts only a day or two, but themes of emergence from oppression into power and authority is one of the more positive themes of this alliance.  It is a good day to see where we may be letting our inner strength seep away through resentments and anger which serve no real purpose.


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By |2021-01-28T20:39:26-05:00January 29th, 2021|Planetary cycles, Planetary news this week|4 Comments

Juno and the Black Moon Lilith tell an important story right now

There is an astonishing amount of planetary energies in the sky right now.  To recap, we have had three planets tightly wound together in the stable, grounded sign of Capricorn since the spring of 2020 (Jupiter, Pluto, Saturn), creating restriction and pressure for responsibility and the supremacy of societal organizations.  Mars (action and desire) is in its own sign of Aries where it is most powerful, about to turn retrograde, in a challenging aspect to the Capricorn planets and challenging their authority and attempts to create order.

Neptune (inspiring transcendence and spiritual creativity) is in its own sign of Pisces where it has been since 2012.  Neptune’s highest expression is that of intuitive connection with a divine force, but its dark side is that of delusion and illusion.  Neptune is particularly strong in Pisces, where it is connected to pandemics, spiritual confusion, and an absence of truth and facts.

Even without the more minor bodies such as asteroids and other points, this would already be a significant time of planetary evolution.  But add to this the new planet Eris, representing discord and chaos, which is being challenged by the Capricorn planets and especially Pluto (destruction and transformation), and we have a real cocktail of intensity that is like an earthquake, shaking the very foundations of the world in which we live.  If history is any guide, this will eventually result in greater stability and equality as human society recalibrates, but in the meantime it’s not an easy time in which to live.

Juno is usually referred to as the asteroid of marriage, and it’s true that Juno has a strong connection to the uniting of two souls in a […]
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By |2020-09-15T17:01:11-04:00September 15th, 2020|Planetary cycles|1 Comment

Pluto turns direct, and what’s next

Art by Sam Brown

As you may have read in these pages and elsewhere, the outer planets travel retrograde for about half the year, every year so that’s not so unusual.  This year Pluto turned retrograde (it appeared to travel backwards from our perspective on Earth) at 23 degrees back in April, and traveled only three degrees since then.  In preparation for its retrograde turn it has come to a virtual standstill and is beaming down its Plutonian pressure for change, transformation and letting go.

While Pluto has been traveling through Capricorn, the sign of corporations and governmental structures as well as other foundational elements of our physical world, there has been a global transformation with respect to power (Pluto) in governments (Capricorn), among other things.  Pluto’s entry into Capricorn marked the economic crash of 2008, and then presided over the longest bull run in the stock market in history.  The concentration of wealth from the hands of many into the hands of a few is another hallmark of Pluto in Capricorn.

While Pluto has been retrograde, it came very close to a conjunction to Saturn and the South Node. Saturn is a personal planet and operates in the personal realm, challenging us to face our responsibilities and work diligently towards our goals and often testing us in various ways to increase our emotional and physical endurance.  Pluto is a transpersonal planet; its influence can be more ruthless in its pressure to create and support personal transformation.  Saturn makes things hard, Pluto can break us or make us.  With both of these planets  pressuring the South Node of the past, it’s no wonder that there have been personal crises and revelations of a very public nature as the Conscious […]

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