Pluto Square Eris

Holy wow, everyone! What a time! And, as it goes in astrology, it is being perfectly mirrored in the cosmos. This week, on the 27th of August, the dwarf planets Pluto and Eris perfect their 4th exact square. Theirs has been an ongoing relationship, with the first square perfecting in January 2020…and we all know how the world has shifted since this time. Likely, many of you are feeling considerable intensity this week or so, and you may be experiencing significant disturbances. The moon will conjoin Eris on the 26th, picking up the square to Pluto, so this day could be, particularly, charged with the friction of this highly dynamic square.

Don’t let the term “dwarf planet” fool you…these two are MAJOR powerhouses and have immense influence on our life here on Earth. Pluto is the planet of death, emotional catharsis, depth, intensity, and the accumulation of power. It also represents the processes that must break down and decompose in order that they become renewed and reformed. Pluto is skilled in extracting that which is secretive or hidden and bringing it to the surface. It is currently traveling through the later degrees of constellation Sagittarius—the centaur/archer—who aims their flaming arrow directly towards our Galactic Center…itself a place of gargantuan potency. It contains the devouring creatrix, herself—the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way.

Pluto in Sagittarius is emphatic around beliefs, religion, and other ideologies. Sagittarius is always seeking to know the truth, whether through philosophy, various courses of study, or traveling and gaining a multicultural perspective. Pluto’s primary mission is to transform, and with Pluto, this process involves separation. This is directly connected to Pluto’s astronomy, as Pluto has a natural satellite—one of its moons, Charon—that is more like a co-planet (or dwarf-planet, rather) than a moon. Pluto and Charon share the same center of gravity, around which they orbit. Thus, the polarizing and dividing effect of Pluto can be seen in this double-planetary system. (Thank you to Michael at Oneskyastrology.com for his work on this concept and for further bringing it into my awareness.)

Eris is about 3 times farther from the sun than Pluto, though they are both within the Kuiper Belt—a region of the solar system beyond Neptune, containing MANY icy bodies. The initial discovery of Eris brought some discord to the astronomical community, as Eris was believed to be larger than Pluto (it is now believed to be about the same size). This discovery brought about a new classification of objects—dwarf planets—and a lot of heated debate around what, exactly, constitutes a body as a planet vs a dwarf planet. Pluto was “demoted” to a dwarf planet, and the debate around this has continued to this day.

It appears that the name given to Eris is appropriate, as it is named for the Greek goddess of chaos and strife. Eris’s moon—Dysnomia—is named after the goddess Eris’s daughter, who, herself, is a deity of lawlessness. Eris is the goddess who no one wants to come to the party (and her most well-known myth is about her coming to the party anyway). She is that which we would rather not acknowledge…the shadow within ourselves we’d rather ignore, repress, or project upon some scapegoated “other.” When Eris did come to the party of the Olympians, uninvited, she ended up throwing a golden apple into a group of goddesses with the phrase “The Fairest” inscribed upon its surface. This caused quite the squabble, which, in turn, catalyzed the Trojan War. The apple is a symbol of knowledge or truth. In the case of this story, what had been unacKNOWLEDGEd brought about chaos and destruction.

Eris is currently in near completion of its transit of constellation Cetus (as it began the transit around 1930 and will complete it around 2030). Cetus is the great whale or sea monster constellation, and embodies the extreme depths, the collective unconscious, the wisdom of the Ancients, as well as the murky distortions and instinctual reactions within these deep waters. Cetus is considered the mother of Medusa, and is analogous to Tiamat, Typhon, whales from the stories of both Jonah and Moby Dick, as well as other great creatures from the deep. She is the primordial mother.

Similar to the polarizing effect of Pluto, Eris brings disintegration. The urge to destroy, dissolve, and surrender to the spinning web of chaos is a signifier that Eris-energy is at play. Compounded with Pluto in Sagittarius, this aspect results in confrontations around power, emotional fury, extreme tension, and competing assertions around unequivocal “truth.” Things will break and chaos will ensue, especially when we refuse to acknowledge that which, equally, refuses to be ignored.

I imagine we all have our passionate beliefs right now. One of mine is that humanity is at a great crossroads, and the Pluto-Eris square is a major player in shaking us out of complacency around this. There is magick within every crossroads, and there is the opportunity for awakening within every perception of apocalypse. Eris’s golden apple could be the catalyzer of a great gnosis, as, similarly, Eve’s biting of the apple changed the course of all existence (and, in esoteric terms, this was not an act of sin, but of knowledge and liberation). Through destruction comes creation—the sacred balance between chaos and order is as old as the universe, itself. The final square between these two will occur this October. Thus, these next few months will, surely, be potent ones. Take care of yourselves. Commit to the practices that aid in your mental and physical health. This is an extraordinarily powerful time in history, and we will be forever changed from it.