Recently there was a thread by Ami titled 'When Planets Rule Two Signs'. This is my response to it and I felt this merited it’s very own thread. So Taurus and Libra are both ruled by Venus, and Virgo and Gemini are both ruled by Mercury, and there was a massive discussion about whether two of these signs (especially Taurus and Virgo) really have there own rulers and what they might be if the did.
Here are some top contenders... (From Wikipedia) The IAU recognizes five bodies as dwarf planets: Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake. Ceres and Pluto are known to be dwarf planets through direct observation. Eris is generally accepted as a dwarf planet because it is more massive than Pluto, whereas Haumea and Makemake qualified to be assigned names as dwarf planets based on their absolute magnitudes (End Wikipedia quote).
Ceres is the only dwarf planet in the asteroid belt. All the rest are transneptunians (beyond Neptune). Pluto and Eris are the largest transneptunians. Ceres is a very small dwarf planet but it’s closer to Earth then the others. Not much is yet understood about Haurmea and Makemake, at least in popular astrology.
Actually, some astrologers recently have been speculating on whether the Dwarf Planet Eris actually co-rules Libra along with Venus.
MORE ON ERIS AND LIBRA...
A couple of years ago I started a thread discussing weather or not the new planet Eris rules or co-rules Libra... After all Eris has themes tied in with a beauty contest gone wrong, and is said to be associated with discord, controversy, and hiccups in interpersonal relations and social politics (Things Libra may not like, and yet they are constantly prevailed upon to solve or negotiate through these things with their diplomatic skill).
According to myth Eris was not invited to a wedding. Feeling slighted, she chucked an apple marked “To the fairest” into party for the vainest goddesses to fight over. The resulting beauty contest, and negotiations surrounding it, lead to the Trojan War. Eris seems to function like a spanner in the works, or troublesome issue, that pops up to create disagreement so new solutions can be found. Each party wants their own point-of-view, and sense of justice satisfied, so serious squabbles and drama can result. It takes true diplomatic skill to resolve these issues. In theory, if someone had been considerate and invited Eris to the wedding in the first place the Trojan War would not have happened.
So here’s the post I started the thread with…
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I picked up a new Astrology encyclopedia at Barnes and Noble some weeks ago and when I looked up Eris there was a paragraph about how Eris is likely to wind up being the new ruler or co-ruler or Libra. This surprised me as I’d never considered the possibility before. Since then the notion that Eris may rule Libra has been running through my mind, and I think in a lot of ways it does make sense.
Although I’d still keep Venus as co-ruler of Libra, as Libra no doubt has some strong Venus-like qualities, like an easy-going sweet nature, and a fascination with beauty and the arts. The Venus part of Libra is that part that just wants to get along with everyone, and fill their relationships with warmth and affection. It is the soft part of Libra….
But there’s another side to the sign of the scales. Libra also has an firm preoccupation justice and objectivity. They insist on fairness in any situation in which they are involved and may even stir up controversy and debate, in order to see that justice is served, and that all parties concerned have a chance to air their viewpoints and be taken into consideration. Libras are excellent social mediators in any disagreement. When they are angered instead of rushing in with fiery rage like an Aries, they take a civilized approach involving rational thinking and strategy in order to tackle their advisories. This seems to me to be the strong Eris ruled side of Libra that will actually start a conflict in order to insure fair outcomes. Eris may be the cool headed warrior as opposed to Aries the hot headed warrior.
Anyway, I copied and pasted an excerpt from an astrologers blog below, which goes into much more detail on the subject.
Disclaimer: The article below is not mine.
AstrologyandPsychicPredictions.com weblog
Daily Archives: August 9, 2010
Eris – Rulership and Rehabilitation
After an astrologer friend suggested the notion that Eris was the true ruler of Libra I thought about it (for a very long time – about a year now). It was her opinion that Venus didn’t seem to be the true ruler of Libra but rather Taurus and we talked at length over the course of this year about the legend of Eris and some of the qualities that really don’t fit Libra. First of all there are more Libra generals than pretty much any other sign, they are amazing tacticians and well-known for being fierce competitors, and in my experience they are the most competitive of all signs. They are creative and visual, no doubt which is why they fell under the purview of Venus for so long. However they are not sensual like Venus, Taurus however is. Taurus loves great food, fine wine, beautiful things, and has a curvy sensuality that Libra is missing. Libras are more intellectual, more in their head and often disconnected from their bodies. While it is true that they like nice things as long as they are intellectually stimulated they can do without them. Taurus however needs to eat a great meal no matter how little money they have they will use what little they have on the perfect gourmet spice or amazing wine. They are also willing to work for other people without taking this on as their identity. They can separate work, seeing it as a means to an end – the end being a nice lifestyle where as a Libra would rather be a pauper who works for himself doing what he loves than a rich man who works for a paycheck just to support himself in a luxurious lifestyle. Now I’m not saying all Taurus people live a life of luxury, I’m just saying that work is work and their lives are not defined by it in the same way – it’s just a job. To a Libra its time wasted when they could be busy daydreaming or working on something of value to them personally.
At first I resisted the idea that Eris was the ruler of Libra after all she isn’t really considered a very “nice” Goddess and Libras are generally thought to be very nice – they avoid conflict, they don’t like disharmony and I have Mars in Libra and have many Libra friends so I felt sort of bad thrusting this sort of odd ball Goddess on them. However after much thought I think my friend’s observation is correct. Eris is the sister of Aries. Aries is the other side of the astrological coin to Libra. And in many ways she fits the Libra traits if we strip away some of the judgment put upon her by the ancients.
The legend or myth basically tells the story of a wedding in which all the Gods were invited except Eris (due to her association with disharmony). She was upset by this and came up with a strategy to get even in a very clever and covert way, she threw a golden apple into the proceedings which read: To the fairest. Of course all the egotistical Goddesses thought it was for them, Hera, Aphrodite and Athena. The three women fought over it and then asked Zeus to judge who the apple was for, being the father and husband he decided it wasn’t a good move to judge such a competition and asked Paris to do the honors. Each of the Goddesses offered him a bribe. Aphrodite’s won out and he was given the most beautiful mortal woman in the world to take as his wife Helen of Troy. This of course caused the Trojan war.
Now on the surface this is kind of a nasty thing to do, however one must admit that Eris was prejudged and instead of internalizing the hurt she turned it around in a clever way to make a point. She waged a war against those who had castigated her. If she had been a man, this would have been a sign of strength – she was in fact a warrior. Her strategy used psychology and surprise – very modern war methodology, in fact it very much resembles the Trojan horse that was to come in the wake of this supposed event. She used her enemies vanity and megalomania against them and in fact they are the ones who chose to respond with bribery and promises in order to win this imaginary and empty competition. She used her understanding of psychology to manipulate those who had hurt her, in order to teach them a lesson – after all they had been unfair to her.
Now her strategic genius would make sense in relationship with Libra. It would explain why there are so many generals who have been Libras and (I believe famous chess players as well). It would also explain the competitive spirit Libras have – the challenge they find and need to fuel them in their work, whether it is competing with themselves to do better, or with a rival they want to show up.
I was told by a prominent astrologer I studied with early on (many, many, many years ago) that there were more people born with Libra rising in the US than any other sign. He said it was something close to 50 percent (or something of that nature) totally out of balance with what one would expect, due to the fact that we are far north, and Libra rises for the longest period of time during most of the year. And we are by far the most competitive people on the planet, we take great pride in our work and love being entrepreneurs and working for ourselves.
In many ways Libras have much in common with Aries people, except Libras, instead of being direct and straightforward, work behind the scenes, get their ducks in a row and then strike. They don’t like being in the center of an arguments especially prolonged ones. They prefer to plan their attack and then let nature take its course. This can upset the apple cart, but that’s OK as long as they aren’t there when it turns over (much like Eris).
So instead of seeing Eris as the Goddess of Discord I prefer to take her back to what I imagine was probably her proper place – before her power was taken away due to the change from a matriarchal society into a patriarchal, and think of her as a supreme warrior and brilliant strategist capable of winning even when all the odds and all the Gods were against her!
I’ll dissect how it affects people as individuals and what it means in people’s charts in the next post on her.
Best wishes and many blessings,
Denise
THE END
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Here's a link to the rest of the thread.
http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum24/HTML/206752.html
Yeah, I was thinking it’s possible that Eris could co-rule Libra along with Venus. With Venus representing the sweet agreeable side of Libra that loves affection…. And Eris representing the part of Libra the crusades for justice, and will even start an argument or a debate for the sake of insuring a fair outcome to an issue.
Yes, Libra’s like to get along with everybody, but sometimes they can be argumentative or contrary on purpose if they are trying to make a point. Libra can be a bit like Aquarius at times, in that they have an obsession with objectivity and hate any kind of bias… However when Libra goes into debate/renegotiation mode they are often able to do it with Venus’ sweet tact glazed over the top of their reasoning. They will use charm and logic to try and win over or overcome their adversaries, in a calm and collected type of way. That’s why I think of Libra as the cool headed warrior as opposed to Aries, the hot-headed, spontaneous, thinks on their feet type warrior. Libra plans a strategy and carefully thinks things through before taking action… Aries jumps right in there in the passion of the moment and lets the chips fall where they may…