Eros transits to planets and other asteroids

Eros conjunct Vesta

Hestia, in the high dwellings of all, both deathless gods and men who walk on earth, you have gained an everlasting abode and highest honor: Glorious is your portion and your right. --Homer

Eros will conjunct asteroid Vesta on the 9th of December at 2 degrees of Scorpio.

Vesta, or Hestia as she was known to the ancient Greeks, was the goddess of the hearth, the flame that burned brightly in every family home. She was also goddess of the sacred ceremonial fires that were used for public rituals. There are almost no images of Vesta, and it is thought that the Vestal Virgins, the women that attended her flame, were living images of the goddess. Plato referred to Hestia as the living flame itself.

Like Athene, Vesta is worshiped as a virgin, although the original meaning of the word did not imply sexual innocence. A virgin then described a woman who stood on her own, relying on no man for support, identity or companionship. Many of these virgins had lovers and consorts, although they never married or adapted themselves to life with a man.

In Roman times, the Vestal virgins were like nuns, taking a vow of celibacy and devotion to the goddess. Transgressions were punished by a torturous death. It seems that by the time of Pontifex Maximus, the term virgin had taken on its current meaning under the masculinist hegemony.

In pre-Hellenic Greece, the Vestal virgins not only tended the sacred flame but performed a primary role of renewal to guaranteed the continuation of the royal line. As divine harlots, they would initiate men who came to the temple in honor of the goddess. This was not an exercise in sexual satisfaction; it was the symbolic consummation of a sacred union. A child born to a vestal was destined for royal succession if the king had no male offspring.

These conflicting images, the virgin as celibate and the virgin as harlot, seem to signify an inherent confusion that can surface when Vesta and Eros meet by transit. It's said that Vesta was never touched by the spell of Eros although when associated by aspect, she certainly is. This can evoke some challenging feelings, the first of many being denial. Eros wants divine transformation through intense, creative and intimate encounters and Vesta wants to consummate a divine union to preserve the flame of life. From this perspective, them seem aligned. It is just the 3000 years or so of subjugation of women and sexual expression puts a damper on things.

A Vesta/Eros conjunction linked to the natal chart may bring out the passion and sexual intensity of both asteroids. It may also, depending on the rest of the chart, bring out a measure of guilt and repression. What is being awakened is very powerful and some individuals will find it easier to express and integrate than others.

There can be friction between marriage and a single life, career or family, artistic pursuit or practicality, outer adventure or introspective study. The aspect degree, sign and house placements will help indicate how this conflict may manifest and also be most creatively expressed. For example, in a natal chart, a woman Eros conjunct Vesta in Scorpio in the tenth house found the struggle sometimes overwhelming. At a young age she nestle herself into the secure surroundings of a family life and had two children. In a few years, she started having clandestine affairs until she broke out and became single again. Later, she remarried and had two more children with the new man, only to find she was compelled to start a career that would keep her far from home for long periods. Eventually, she found ways to keep the family hearth burning, enjoy divine union and the release of her passions through creative risk taking.

Please feel free to share your view about this conjunction on the forum.

Eros trine Uranus

Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightening my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls and fits.
--P.B. Shelley

When the god of love rests, no matter how briefly, on the Starry Sky Uranus, the unusual, exhilarating and zany is not far around the corner.  This mixture may be the definition of infatuation although that is not to say a  relationship begun during this transit is not real or valuable.  In this case, duration is definitely not a measurement of worth.

Uranus touched by Eros can feel like adrenaline coursing through the circulatory system.  As the heart races, pupils dilate, and insomnia shatters any hope of rest, we can feel like we are in a constant state of readiness.  Everything is primed for a wild time and whether it lasts for less than a day or longer than a month makes no difference.  What counts is the rush.

Under this transit, staid ways of relating, predictable routines, and out of mode substructures tumble to the ground as psychic earthquakes crack the foundations of being.  Eros acts in sudden and unpredictable ways which stimulate Uranus to follow suit.  The goal is creative change and these two gods usually have little problem achieving it.

Unusual circumstances can occur when this transit touches off a natal planet, angle or point, bringing peculiar situations and sometimes shocking responses.  It is the unexpected nature of the circumstances that take us by surprise, tossing us into a situation that we might otherwise evade.  The experience may leave us wide-eyed and breathless, but seldom unchanged.

Please feel free to share your view about this aspect on the forum.

Eros & Osiris

Homage be to thee, O King of kings, Lord of lords, Ruler of princes, who from the womb of Nut hast ruled the world and the Underworld. Thy members are {like} bright and shining copper, thy head is blue {like} lapis-lazuli, and the greenness of the turquoise is on both sides of thee, O thou god An of millions of years, whose form and whose beauty of face are all-pervading in Ta-tchesert (i.e., the Underworld)." --Book of the Dead

These two bodies transit in opposition at the end of December and are exact at 16 degrees of Scorpio on the 27th. Here we have the Divine Egyptian god merging with the god of love. From Encyclopedia Mythica:

"Osiris was the Egyptian god of the underworld, although he was also worshipped as a fertility, resurrection, and vegetation god. He was married to Isis, a sky goddess. He was father to Horus, the god of sky, and protector of the dead.

Osiris was killed by his brother Seth, who shut his body in a chest and threw it into the Nile, where it washed up onto the shore and was trapped in a huge tree. The King Byblos turned it into a pillar in his palace. Isis (who had been searching for her husband) discovered the trunk, and retrieved the trunk and the body. While Isis was away, Seth found the body, and chopped it up into many pieces, and scattered them throughout Egypt. Isis and her sister, Nephthys, found the pieces and made wax models of them to give to priests to be worshipped. When they found all of his pieces, they were so sad they wailed loudly enough for Re, the father god, to have pity on them. He sent Anubis and Thoth to help. They mummified Osiris, and put his body in a lion headed pier. Isis changed into a kite and fanned breath into Osiris.

He was not allowed to stay in the land of the living, and was sent to the underworld to serve as king, and to judge the souls of the dead."

What isn't mentioned here is that Isis made love to her resurrected husband and gave birth to Horus. The themes around Osiris are those of death, resurrection and love, not unlike Dionysus and Christ. With Eros in conjunction there can be a reunion with 'divine love', a feeling of any of the thematic images of Osiris and Isis: love, union, separation, dismemberment, longing, searching, and creative outcomes (Horus). If you have a personal planet or point between 14 and 19 Taurus-Scorpio, this is a time to be alert to messages from the 'underworld' (unconscious) and from the great king Osiris.

Please feel free to share your view about this opposition on the forum.

Eros & Bast

If this Chapter be known by the deceased upon earth, he shall become like unto Thoth, and he shall be adored by those who live. He shall not fall headlong at the moment of the intensity of the royal flame of the goddess Bast, and the Great Prince shall make him to advance happily. -Book of the Dead, Spells

Daughter of Ra, the goddess Bast, also known as Ubasti, Bastet and Ailuros, rules over both the Sun and Moon, cats, women and secrets. At the end of December, Eros will beconjunct this asteroid deity at 16 degrees of Scorpio bringing to gether the potency of the god of love with the regal souvenirs of Bast. The urge to unite and transform will meet in the wild eyes of this feline, inflaming the spirits of all they touch. This is a festive energy, fiery, erotic, wild and fecund. Those looking to conceive may have luck during this time and those looking for transcendent experiences of a creative or sexual nature may find this time uniquely conducive as well. Consider this account by Herodotus of the 'Festival of Bast'.

When the people are on their way to Bubastis, they go by river, a great number in every boat, men and women together. Some of the women make a noise with rattles, others play flutes all the way, while the rest of the women, and the men, sing and clap their hands. As they travel by river to Bubastis, whenever they come near any other town they bring their boat near the bank; then some of the women do as I have said, while some shout mockery of the women of the town; others dance, and others stand up and lift their skirts. They do this whenever they come alongside any riverside town. But when they have reached Bubastis, they make a festival with great sacrifices, and more wine is drunk at this feast than in the whole year besides. It is customary for men and women (but not children) to assemble there to the number of seven hundred thousand, as the people of the place say. -- Herodotus, Histories Book II Chap 60

Bast is uniquely linked to both Sun and Moon. As the warrior daughter, the eye of Ra, her principle is solar--assertive, distinct, creative, but when the Greeks arrived in Egypt, they associated her with, rightly, the goddess of the hunt/Moon Artemis. In this way Bast now embodies also the instinctual and dark feminine as well as the masculine strength of Ra.

It is important to remember that the cat was an exotic, extraordinary creature to those new to the Egyptian culture and the rulership of Bast was held sacred as the protector of the feline species. This conjunction with Eros may bring about like exotic experiences, if one is open to such things.

Please feel free to share your view about this conjunction on the forum.

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Eros & Neptune

Perfume, magic & love spells! --Mystic Medusa

So the lively force of his mind has broken down all the barriers, and he has past far beyond the fiery walls of the world, and in mind and spirit has traversed the boundless universe. --Lucretius

On the 29th of December, Eros and Neptune will be square by aspect at 18 degrees of Scorpio-Aquarius.

When the god of numinous spirit and the god of love land on a personal planet, generally one is a goner. If this transit manifests at all in the conscious awareness, it drowns us in a sea of unity with the divine, lifting us so far above the mundane matters of the world we can see only the immortal beloved. Usually we feel rather romantically incline, if not helplessly head over heals in love.

What may be going on is a reminder call about the spiritual world, about the inner experience of the ineffable. This can rarely be processed in any rational or personal way but is readily scooped up into a projection of longing for the usually unobtainable other. Hopelessly impossible relationships dangle between people who have little or no chance of being with each other in any conventional sense of the word. The mystery of it all is that this does not seem to matter.

What matters are the feelings evoked. Quite possibly, there will be times when these feelings far surpass any sensation ever experienced before, defying translation into rational forms of communiqué. The awakening may seem based on tremendous sensual and sexual attraction yet the results can be a peak or religious experience. With this contact, the spirits leave the bodies and mingle together in a world impossible to 'know'.. The relationship takes place in that ‘other realm’ where everything merges into one continuum of energy and light. This is not an ordinary infatuation, this is communion with the god.

Of course, the 'other' will be mortal and in that sense, ordinary. The odds of disappointment are very high and along with the enrapture of this contact comes the concurrent pain, disappointment and grief. If we are willing to have the whole experience, without skimping on the accompanying sense of loss and disconnection, the results can be magnificent. What can eventuate is a very real contact with the inner divinity and when that is offered through the beloved, who would say no?

Via Combust   

“…to ignore the Via Combusta is a mistake." Barbara Watters

Eros will be crossing the Via Combust between November 19th and the 26th of December. In the tropical zodiac, the area between 15 Libra and 15 Scorpio is called the “Via Combusta” or Fiery Way. It is considered hazardous in horary charts, especially if the Sun, Moon or Ascendant is found there. The only safe place, the only protected degrees, are the fixed star Spica at 23 Libra and the fixed star Arcturus at 24 Libra. These beneficial stars negate the deleterious effects of the Via Combusta.

This is not to say that having a natal planet or point in the Via Combust Way always equates with disaster. Of course it does not. It is a point to watch with transits, being mindful more of the “tricky” than difficult, more of the disruptive than the out and out dangerous. It can be like an area of sudden surprise, insight and sometimes disruption. With Eros traversing this part of the zodiac, (and Jupiter there too) it is good to keep our eyes open if a planet or point is activated.

Eros Ephemeris From Swiss Ephemeris Positions of Eros Date Long Decl ------------------------------------- 06 Dec 2006 29 li 33 -16°53 07 Dec 2006 0 sc 23 -17°16 08 Dec 2006 1 sc 13 -17°38 09 Dec 2006 2 sc 2 -18° 0 10 Dec 2006 2 sc 52 -18°22 11 Dec 2006 3 sc 41 -18°43 12 Dec 2006 4 sc 30 -19° 5 13 Dec 2006 5 sc 19 -19°26 14 Dec 2006 6 sc 8 -19°47 15 Dec 2006 6 sc 57 -20° 7 16 Dec 2006 7 sc 45 -20°28 17 Dec 2006 8 sc 34 -20°48 18 Dec 2006 9 sc 22 -21° 8 19 Dec 2006 10 sc 10 -21°28 20 Dec 2006 10 sc 58 -21°47 21 Dec 2006 11 sc 46 -22° 7 22 Dec 2006 12 sc 34 -22°26 23 Dec 2006 13 sc 21 -22°44 24 Dec 2006 14 sc 8 -23° 3 25 Dec 2006 14 sc 55 -23°21 26 Dec 2006 15 sc 42 -23°39 27 Dec 2006 16 sc 29 -23°57 28 Dec 2006 17 sc 16 -24°14 29 Dec 2006 18 sc 2 -24°31 30 Dec 2006 18 sc 49 -24°48 31 Dec 2006 19 sc 35 -25° 5 01 Jan 2007 20 sc 21 -25°21 02 Jan 2007 21 sc 7 -25°37 03 Jan 2007 21 sc 52 -25°53 04 Jan 2007 22 sc 38 -26° 9 05 Jan 2007 23 sc 23 -26°24 06 Jan 2007 24 sc 8 -26°39 07 Jan 2007 24 sc 53 -26°54 08 Jan 2007 25 sc 38 -27° 9 09 Jan 2007 26 sc 22 -27°23 10 Jan 2007 27 sc 7 -27°37 11 Jan 2007 27 sc 51 -27°51 12 Jan 2007 28 sc 35 -28° 4 13 Jan 2007 29 sc 19 -28°17 14 Jan 2007 0 sa 3 -28°30 Eros Astrology Reports by Kim Falconer Go straight to the heart! The personalized Natal Eros Report takes a fresh look YOUR astrology Chart, delineating asteroid 344 Eros by house, sign and aspect. The current transits and progressions are discussed, shedding new light on old and sometimes troublesome feelings and emotions. Looking to find out more about a current, past or potential relationship? Choose the Composite Eros Report if you want to investigate the chemistry between you and another. Click here to ask some of the 250 forum members what they thought of there Eros Report!     © Copyright Kim Falconer 2006

Scorpio The constellation of Scorpio has roots in Mesopotamia where it was viewed as a symbol of darkness and resilience. An emblem of autumn, it is found on Babylonian boundary stones dating to the 12th century BC and for later dwellers on the Euphrates it became symbolic of the decline of the Sun's power after the autumnal equinox, then located within its stars. As far as we can tell, before the Christian Era Scorpio was the largest of the zodiacal images. Its claws - the chelae - extended over the area now designated for Libra. It is even possible that the earliest zodiac contained only six great constellations, of which Scorpio was one. Aratus referred to the constellation of Scorpio as 'the Great Beast' and 'the Great Sign', indicating its massive size. Of all the traditional zodiac figures, Scorpio looks most like what it is named for, with or without those front pinchers! In classical myth the Scorpion killed Orion, the powerful warrior who made the mistake of boasting that his strength was so great he was invincible to the mightiest creatures of the earth. Orion's vulnerability was proven by the Scorpion. Another story tells that Orion fled the scorpion by swimming the sea to the island of Delos to see his lover, Athena. Apollo, (Athena's brother) joined her before Orion neared the shore and challenged her hunting skills, daring her to shoot the black dot that approached in the water. Athena won the challenge, unknowingly killing Orion in the process. Yet another myth tells of Scorpio's infamous behavior when, upon command of the gods, he spring from the earth to surprise Orion, and sent the able hunter to his death. Even the God of Healing, Asclepius, was unable to reverse the fatal effects of The Scorpion’s poison. Scorpius is also remembered for his disastrous intervention when the mortal man, Phaeton, attempted to drive the chariot of Apollo, God of the Sun. Here, Scorpius stung Apollo's horses, causing the creatures to rear and bolt. Out of control, Phaeton drove the sun-bearing chariot wildly through the heavens, drying up many rivers and burning the earth below. Whichever myth you like the most, Scorpio and Orion remain directly opposite each other in the sky, so that Orion is said to flee in the west whenever his murderer rises in the east. It is also thought that they were placed that way by Zeus to keep them from eternal, and disruptive, battle. Astrology & Aptitude How to Become What You Are Meant to Be. By Kim Falconer 2nd edition New Release! Joseph Campbell advised everyone to live authentically by “following their bliss,” but how many of us do? Somewhere along the way, we lose site of our aims. We forget the myths that guide us, and end up lost in the dark. This book is a light in that darkness, a guide to our own natural talents, aptitudes and potential.