Eris: The New Addition to our Solar System
Eris!Back in July 29 of 2005 when apparently our solar system’s 10th planet was discovered by Michael Brown, I was excited and full of anticipation. Since reading Zecharia Sitchen I had been waiting for the day when our solar system would have 12 recognized planets. Well, I’ve had to soften my views a bit, but the discovery and official naming of the (now classified) dwarf planet to Eris (pronounced Eeris) is still full of promise. Originally nicknamed Xena for the TV warrior princess seemed perfect. So I was a little disappointed when it lost that name to Eris, but it was just a Hollywood character after all (and a bad one at that!) Eris and Xena also had the same vibration in my mind. Eris is the Greek Goddess of strife and war, discord and chaos. The planet has an orbit of 556.65 days, is about 70 miles wider than Pluto, and has a moon named Dysnomia, (who was the daughter of Eris and known as the spirit of lawlessness!). 
Artist rendering of Eris by A. Schaller / STScI.The sorted myth that Eris is most well known for is that of having caused the Trojan War. Bullfinch's Mythology states: "At the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis all the gods were invited with the exception of Eris, or Discord. Enraged at her exclusion, the goddess threw a golden apple among the guests, with the inscription, 'For the fairest'. Thereupon Juno, Venus, and Minerva each claimed the apple. Jupiter, not willing to decide in so delicate a matter, sent the goddesses to Mount Ida, where the beautiful shepherd Paris was tending his flocks, and to him was committed the decision. The goddesses accordingly appeared before him. Juno promised him power and riches, Minerva glory and renown in war, and Venus the fairest of women for his wife, each attempting to bias his decision in her own favour. Paris decided in favour of Venus and gave her the golden apple, thus making the two other goddesses his enemies. Under the protection of Venus, Paris sailed to Greece, and was hospitably received by Menelaus, king of Sparta. Now Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was the very woman whom Venus had destined for Paris, the fairest of her sex. She had been sought as a bride by numerous suitors, and before her decision was made known, they all, at the suggestion of Ulysses, one of their number, took an oath that they would defend her from all injury and avenge her cause if necessary. She chose Menelaus, and was living with him happily when Paris became their guest. Paris, aided by Venus, persuaded her to elope with him, and carried her to Troy, whence arose the famous Trojan war."Interestingly, Aphrodite was the lover of Ares, who was the twin bother of Eris. She loved to go into battle with him. When planets are named, there seems to be a mysterious, synchronistic (a la Carl Jung) correlation that mirrors its symbolism in the world and our lives. For example, when Uranus was discovered, there was also the discovery of electricity, the French and American Revolutions, both of which deeply connect into the Uranian archetype and forever changed our lives. With Pluto’s discovery, the world fairly soon was in World Wars, atomic bombs, Hitler and all of those wonderfully dark Hades Plutonian energies. With Chiron, the archetype of “the wounded healer” we have a strong appearance of mind/body healing, homeopathy and other divinatory and multidimensional perceptual skills, which are represented within the Chiron archetype. Chiron (Llewellyn)  Time and a bit of hindsight will make things clear, but for now one can’t help noticing that the Goddess of Strife and chaos certainly seems to reflect the state of the world today. We live in a very bloody and chaotic world. Just as Eris was said to take delight in stirring up discord, many of our world leaders seem to be her embodiment. As
Philip Sedgwick
recently pointed out, one of the etymological references for Eris is “Things You Know Not Of”. Eris is a trans-plutonian entity!! Very hidden, very deep. Perhaps part of our current chaos is the deep and hidden brewings that need to come into our consciousness now so that we can more creatively and positively work with conflict. In the Aug/Sept issue of Mountain Astrologer 2006,
Maurice Fernandez
wrote in his article Crazy Wisdom that "The bottom line for the latter half of 2006 is that anarchy may be necessary; Neptune is such an overwhelming and humbling force that it often paralyzes egocentric control. Since Neptune represents mass effect, collective consciousness, and the forces of nature, it does not leave much scope for power trippers or control freaks...These transits suggest a fantastic opportunity to clear out many obsolete concepts and restrictive approaches...Creation will occur through chaos....” This is an interesting correlation to Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s The Illuminatus! Trilogy 
where the goddess Eris plays a minor role within the anarchist faction and “good guys”…if I’m remembering correctly. I am going back to read it, but here is a TEXT POPUP for Illuminatus!:And, behold, thusly was the Law formulated: Imposition of Order = Escalation of Chaos! -The Gospel According to Fred 
After this (according to Timothy Leary “seminal work”) there came the subsequent Discordia philosophical spin-offs, who worship Eris as their embodiment of anarchy and chaos. A positive manifestation of the Eris Principia Discordia concept might be:
The Eris Society
This cloth patch has some connection with NASA, is rare, 3.5 inches in diameter, and clearly intended to be placed on the arm of a uniform. That's all we know…. It’s very early and possibly hard to grok the meaning in an individual chart at this point, but both the hermetic principle and spiritual teachings remind us that we all have a piece of whatever is going on outside, we all have some responsibility at some level. An aspect (there are others) of the violence in the world is self-hatred projected outward. I’ve been thinking about Eris’s placement in my chart. Everyone born after 1930 has Eris in Aries, so the house placement will be the pivotal factor. I have Eris in my second house. This is also the house of self worth, and self love. These have been big issues in my life, and I have worked on them in my way, hopefully passing on any progress I’ve made into the collective memes. Philip Sedgwick also provides these preliminary key words: Positive - liberation from addictions to success or status, clear priorities regarding matters of love and money, finally getting you can't take it with you and applying full resourcefulness in life, recognition of the potency of one's energy and life force, clear sense of the sacred marriages: spirit to body, self to Creator, between soulful companions, personal sense of emergence. Negative - greed, workaholism, believe that you must take over for God, general sense of being forsaken, condemned or abandoned, lack of spiritual regard for life, superficial, status oriented. Again, looking at my own chart and to give you some possible ideas on how to begin your own exploration, I have Eris at 8 degrees 56 minutes in the second house....sextiling Sun/Gemini/4th on one side and Chiron/Aquarius/12 on the other. My initial and instinctive response to that was “no wonder I feel so comfortable with the idea of chaos, uncertainty and even conflict”. There is also the theme repeated with Chiron/12 of the general sense of being forsaken by God or to having lost my connection to the Universal Source (early on in my life), condemned and abandoned. However, in matters of money I am not only extremely comfortable with uncertainty, feast and famine, but also very resourceful. I am at the tail end of the Chiron return transit, and am now deeply integrating the idea of the power and potency each of us is, and also beginning to feel deeply the idea of the sacred marriage to self and creator, spirit to body, mind to emotions. My sense of security welcomes chaos and uncertainty. One of my favourite books as a teen was (and is) Alan Watt's The Wisdom of Insecurity. At the same time, the perfection and order of the universe is not lost to
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