Eris in astrology: discord and the excluded part

Eris was spotted in January 2005 by Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz, on images taken on 21 October 2003 at the Palomar Mountain observatory. She is a little smaller than Pluto (about 2,300 kilometers in diameter) but more massive. She has a moon, Dysnomia, named after Eris's daughter, a figure of lawlessness.

Her discovery forced the International Astronomical Union to define what a planet is. In August 2006, the category of dwarf planets was created: Eris, Pluto and Ceres were placed in it. Either Eris had to be counted as the tenth planet, or Pluto had to be removed from the list: the second option was chosen. Few objects have lived up to their name so well.

Eris goes around the Sun in about 560 years, on a steeply inclined orbit. She has been in Aries since the 1920s and will stay there until the 2040s: almost everyone alive today has Eris in Aries.

In the myth, all the gods are invited to the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, except Eris. She comes anyway and throws onto the table a golden apple inscribed “to the fairest”. Hera, Athena and Aphrodite fight over it. Paris, charged with deciding, chooses Aphrodite, who promises him Helen: from this gesture the Trojan War is born.

The story says the essence of the symbol. Eris does not create rivalry out of nothing: she reveals the rivalry that was smouldering, and she strikes where people wanted to pretend it did not exist. Her exclusion triggers more disorder than her presence would have caused.

Astrologers who work with Eris give her several registers:

• The excluded part: what has been put outside, in oneself or in a group, and comes back knocking at the door.
• Rivalry: comparison, competition, the need to be recognized in one's rightful place.
• Useful discord: the conflict that disturbs a false balance and forces you to look at what had been left unsaid.

Because Eris stays in the same sign for decades, her position alone describes a generation more than a person. What makes her individual is a tight link with one of your personal points: there, the question of place and recognition settles in your Sun, your Moon, your Ascendant or one of your personal planets.

Eris differs from Mars, which fights to obtain, and from Pluto, which transforms in depth: she contests a place. In contact with the Sun, she can speak of a need to be recognized for who you are, even if it means disturbing others; with the Moon, of an old feeling of having been kept apart within the intimate circle; with Venus, of rivalries in love or a difficulty feeling chosen; with the Ascendant, of a presence that unsettles without meaning to. In every case, the reading looks for what the discord signals, never for a conflict to be predicted.

AstralPro receives the position of Éris along with the rest of your chart, then applies the common rule for celestial points: a contact is only retained for a major aspect (conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition) within an orb of 2° at most with your Sun, your Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, your Ascendant or your Midheaven.

• With a contact: Éris appears in the positions table, in the “Aspects of the celestial points” grid with her orb, and the report develops her in two or three sentences in the chapter I block devoted to the point she touches (a contact to the Midheaven is read in the Ascendant block).
• Without a contact: Éris appears nowhere. No line in the table, no mention in the text, no sentence to point out her absence.

Éris is not one of the five points that can come out as a “position only”. This choice comes from an observation made while the reports were being fine-tuned: when the position of Éris was passed on without a contact, the text ended up commenting on it anyway. AstralPro therefore removed the data rather than piling up prohibitions. A point that does not speak loudly in your chart does not take the floor in your report.

For Camille Morel, AstralPro's sample chart (fictional data), the engine detects no tight contact between Éris and her seven personal points. Éris therefore appears neither in her positions table, nor in her “Aspects of the celestial points” grid, nor in her text. It is not an oversight: it is the rule.

The three contacts retained for Camille concern other points: Pholus square Mars (orb 0°11'), Hygiea sextile Mars (orb 1°47') and Chariklo trine Sun (orb 1°47'). If your own chart carries a contact from Éris, you will find it in this same grid, with its exact orb.