Asteroid Goddesses

in the natal chart of

Michael Jackson

 

by Demetra George and Douglas Bloch

with Patricia White

 

 

Prepared by:

Awakenings, Inc.

PO Box 10155

Prescott, AZ 86304-0155

800-551-3121

 

 

 

Asteroid Positions

Planet Sign Longitude Declination

O Ceres is in h Virgo 16` 00' 05" +12` 35' 00"

P Pallas is in g Leo 24` 57' 11" - 0` 26' 00"

{ Juno is in h Virgo 6` 30' 35" + 7` 01' 00"

} Vesta is in f Cancer 17` 24' 57" +20` 57' 00"

 

Other Positions

Planet Sign Longitude Declination

q Sun is in h Virgo 5` 50' 44" + 9` 22' 00"

w Moon is in n Pisces 11` 08' 52" - 4` 13' 00"

e Mercury is in g Leo 25` 33' 14" +10` 17' 00"

r Venus is in g Leo 16` 41' 31" +16` 38' 00"

t Mars is in s Taurus 21` 53' 53" +16` 02' 00"

y Jupiter is in z Libra 28` 29' 09" - 9` 57' 00"

u Saturn is in c Sagittarius 19` 07' 19" -21` 47' 00"

i Uranus is in g Leo 13` 29' 12" +17` 23' 00"

o Neptune is in x Scorpio 2` 34' 12" -10` 45' 00"

p Pluto is in h Virgo 2` 09' 29" +21` 18' 00"

l N. Node is in z Libra 24` 38' 05" - 9` 33' 00"

j Ascendant is in x Scorpio 14` 45' 39" -16` 16' 00"

k Midheaven is in g Leo 25` 01' 54" +13` 11' 00"

$ Chiron is in b Aquarius 19` 19' 04" - 8` 29' 00"

 

Software Copyright © 1998 Astrolabe, Inc.

Text Copyright © 1998 Demetra George and Douglas Bloch.

All rights reserved.

Planetary Aspects

Sun is Conjunct Juno The orb is 0` 40'

Moon is Opposite Ceres The orb is 4` 51'

Moon is Opposite Juno The orb is 4` 38'

Mercury is Conjunct Pallas The orb is 0` 36'

Venus is Semisextile Ceres The orb is 0` 41'

Venus is Semisextile Vesta The orb is 0` 43'

Mars is Trine Ceres The orb is 5` 54'

Mars is Square Pallas The orb is 3` 03'

Mars is Sextile Vesta The orb is 4` 29'

Jupiter is Sextile Pallas The orb is 3` 32'

Saturn is Square Ceres The orb is 3` 07'

Saturn is Trine Pallas The orb is 5` 50'

Saturn is Quincunx Vesta The orb is 1` 42'

Neptune is Semisquare Ceres The orb is 1` 34'

Neptune is Sextile Juno The orb is 3` 56'

Pluto is Conjunct Juno The orb is 4` 21'

Pluto is Semisquare Vesta The orb is 0` 15'

N. Node is Sextile Pallas The orb is 0` 19'

Ceres is Sextile Ascendant The orb is 1` 14'

Vesta is Trine Ascendant The orb is 2` 39'

Pallas is Conjunct Midheaven The orb is 0` 05'

Ceres is Sextile Vesta The orb is 1` 25'

Pallas is Opposite Chiron The orb is 5` 38'

Vesta is Quincunx Chiron The orb is 1` 54'

 

Introduction:

The Asteroid Goddesses

The Discovery of the Asteroids
The asteroids are small planet-like bodies that orbit the Sun in a belt that lies mostly between Mars and Jupiter. They first dawned on human consciousness in the early 1800s. The first four asteroids to be sighted were given the names of four of the great goddesses of classical antiquity: Ceres (discovered in 1801), Pallas Athene (discovered in 1802), Juno (discovered in 1804) and Vesta (discovered in 1807).

Many more asteroids were soon discovered, so that by the end of the 19th century, over a thousand were known. The first asteroid ephemeris (a table listing planetary positions) was made available to astrologers in 1973 by Eleanor Bach, and it covered only the original four. Today astrologers have computer software that tracks the placements of over five thousand.

What the Asteroids Mean for the World
Astrologers have often observed the tendency for the sighting and naming of new bodies in the solar system to come at the same time in history as the activation of new centers of consciousness in the collective human psyche. Overall, the rapid discovery of so many new celestial bodies in such a short time mirrors the modern acceleration of human brain potential, and the recent exponential growth of information that has yielded so many thousands of new facts.

As to uncovering a more particular meaning for the asteroids, the names that become attached to newly discovered bodies always seem to be significant. Though many asteroids were given the names of gods, people, places, concepts and things, over three-quarters of the first thousand to be discovered were named after goddesses from various mythological traditions.

The naming of so many asteroids after female deities paralleled an awakening of a feminine-defined principle in women, men and society. Around 1973, when the first astrological asteroid ephemeris was published and astrologers began extensive consideration of asteroids, the women's movement emerged, and new aspects of feminine expression began to awaken in human consciousness. Women became imbued with the seed possibilities of feminine creativity and intelligence that expanded and transcended the traditional roles of wife and mother. This period also marked the rediscovery of women's ancient history, the growth of women's culture in creative and professional areas, and the rebirth of the Goddess in women's spirituality. The lives of men and that of society in general have also been affected by the activation and growing influence of a right-brain, feminine-polarity, holistic way of perceiving the world.

In the symbolic language of astrology, the goddess asteroids provided new archetypes that specifically addressed the current psychological and social issues that arose from this activation of the feminine principle. Only two of the usual planets, the Moon and Venus, represent feminine archetypes, and these are of the mother and the wife. Until the asteroids, astrology had to fit all other women's experiences into masculine- defined archetypes. What was needed was a set of symbols by which to describe the other avenues of feminine expression that exist today. During the years since 1972 when astrologers have observed the significance of asteroids in birth charts, they have uncovered a wealth of information that adds insight and understanding above and beyond that gained from the usual ten planets.

Astrology's Use of Asteroids
Clearly, it is impossible to include all the thousands of asteroids in a birth chart and then make sense of them. To select asteroids to look at, some astrologers note only the asteroids that are very closely conjunct important points in the chart such as the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Midheaven or a particular planet that is being considered. Alternatively, they look for asteroid names that suggest people, places or themes in a person's life, and then see where these asteroids fall in the chart. Using these approaches, astrologers such as Zipporah Dobyns, Jacob Schwartz, J. Lee Lehman, Nona Gwyn Press and Batya Stark (as well as myself) have come up with an amazing number of startling (and often amusing) synchronicities. Playing the asteroid name game is great fun, and it gives yet another comforting manifestation of the interconnectedness of all things.

Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta
Among the thousands of asteroids known, Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta have a special place. While these are not necessarily the largest asteroids, they were the first to be discovered, and as such they have imprinted themselves on human consciousness in a major way.

They also complete the female pantheon of goddesses, rounding out the system of symbols begun in the usual ten planets. Of the six great goddesses of Olympus, only Aphrodite (Venus) and Artemis (the Moon) are represented in the conventional astrological symbol system. The other four great goddesses of Graeco-Roman mythology, Demeter (Ceres), Athene (Pallas), Hera (Juno) and Hestia (Vesta), were missing from astrology until they were re-invoked by their discovery in the early 1800s.

The Mandala of the Asteroid Goddesses
Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta represent four very basic feminine archetypes which amplify and particularize the more general energies of the Moon and Venus. Their relation to the regular planets and to each other becomes clear in a mandala.

The large circle in the mandala represents the Moon, the fundamental feminine principle that contains all the potential expressions of the feminine nature. Behind the Moon resides the Sun, the embodiment of the fundamental masculine principle. The union of the masculine and feminine, of the Sun God and Moon Goddess, give rise to what mystics have described as Oneness.

In the center of the mandala is Venus. As the essence of the feminine nature in her activated form, Venus embodies the feminine creative, magnetic, sexual, reproductive, vital life force. Venus is surrounded by Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta. Each of the four in its unique way uses the creative sexual energy of Venus to express the various functions and activities of the feminine principle as it operates in both women and men.

astgod2.gif (6929 bytes)

 

Note that these asteroids are placed at the four cardinal directions of the mandala. These correspond to the four "angles" of the astrological chart: the Ascendant and Descendant to the left and right along the horizon, and the MC (Medium Coeli or Midheaven) and IC (Imum Coeli or Lowest Heaven), at the top and bottom of the vertical meridian line. The basic symbolism of these four great goddesses is as follows:

OCeres, the archetypal Mother and the Goddess of Agriculture, gives birth to the world of physical form, bearing children and providing food for their survival. As the Mother archetype, she stands for the principle of unconditional love and nurturing support in both women and men. In the above mandala she is placed at the IC, the very bottom of the horoscope wheel, which in astrology is related to the foundation, the roots, and the family.

PPallas Athene, the daughter of Zeus, is the Goddess of Wisdom who generates mental and artistic creations from her mind. Sprung from the head of her father, she represents the principle of creative intelligence. Her place in the mandala is at the MC, the "head" of the chart, the uppermost point, which symbolizes one's ambitions and one's visible, socially useful accomplishments.

{Juno, or Hera, was the wife of Zeus. As such, she is the Goddess of Marriage who fosters and sustains union with a partner. More generally, she symbolizes the principle of relatedness and commitment to another over time. In the mandala, she is placed at the Descendant, which in the horoscope wheel is the point that signifies reaching out from the Self to another in order to complete oneself in a one-to-one relationship.

}Vesta, or Hestia, was Zeus's elder sister who never married. In mythology she became the protectress of the hearth and the sacred altar flame. The archetypal Temple Priestess, she is a virgin in the original sense of being whole and complete in oneself. In the system of goddess symbols, she represents the principle of spiritual focus and of devotion to following one's calling. Placed in the mandala at the Ascendant, Vesta corresponds to the Self.

These asteroids represent the primary relationships of a woman's life: that of mother, daughter, wife and sister. The fertile sexual energy of Venus is used by Ceres to birth children of the body, by Pallas to birth children of the mind, by Juno to build relationships with others, and by Vesta to deepen a relationship with the Self or with the Divine.

The Asteroid Goddesses in the Charts of Men
Just as the planets named after male gods pertain to the lives of women, these asteroids named for female goddesses are also important in the lives of men. The recognition and honoring of one's contrasexual side completes and strengthens the personality, embracing the unintegrated energies that are often sources of trouble.

OCeres expands on the Moon's symbolism by further illuminating the relationship of a man to his mother and also to women and other nurturing figures in his adult life. In addition, Ceres signifies a man's own tender, caregiving side and the ways in which this part of his nature can find expression. Typical manifestations of Ceres energies in a man are teaching and mentoring, pediatrics and pedagogy, farming and gardening, cooking and nutrition, medicine and therapy, ecology and environmental protection, and, of course, his part in helping his own children thrive and grow.

PPallas, for a man as well as a woman, can symbolize his capacity for strategy, his quest for clarity and truth, his sense of justice, the acquisition of skill and ingenuity in useful arts, and the ability to channel life energy for healing. Just as she can in women, Pallas can signify either a man's rejection of the feminine within himself, or the drive to integrate the opposite sexual polarity into his psyche. The placement of Pallas can also suggest how a man perceives the strong, independent women in his life. This usually has to do with his sense of his own competence.

{Juno can signify a man's style of dealing with marriage and other forms of partnership, including, in some cases, business partnerships. Her placement determines how the struggle between the self and the other plays out, and whether the partnerships a man enters into are likely to be equal or unequal. Juno may also show the sort of wife a man is likely to pick, and his attitude toward married women in general. This asteroid has to do with the man in his procreative role as husband and father, and, by extension, in any joint venture for the production of a new entity. Just as she does for a woman, Juno may also show how a man deals with the infidelity of a partner.

}Vesta signifies a man's relationship to himself as a complete being, apart from relationships with others. Her placement can suggest to a man how he can best become still, look within, and tend to Deity or his inner spirit. Just as she does in women, Vesta can also signify a man's urge to conserve and preserve the home, the state, the culture and its institutions.

The Asteroids as Developmental Stages
When you combine the above basic symbolism of the first four asteroids with the order in which they were discovered, the four great goddess asteroids form yet another self-contained symbol system, one that defines four stages of human, and most particularly feminine, lives:

OCeres, the first asteroid to be discovered, governs the first stage of life, when the person's primary focus is the mother. This is the stage of the Child.

PPallas, the second to be discovered, suggests the time of life when the child starts looking toward the father to be initiated into the rules of the world outside the home. This period starts when many girls become tomboys and dream of their future careers. It continues into the period when young people are out in the world studying or working or pursuing a career but are not yet parents. In a woman's life this pre-reproductive stage is that of the Maiden.

{Juno, the third asteroid to be discovered, was the archetypal wife on Olympus and was also a protectress of childbirth. She suggests the one stage of a person's life that is commonly devoted to marriage and reproduction. In a woman, this is the stage of the Matron.

}Vesta, the last-discovered of the four, represents the final stage of life when a woman's focus commonly turns away from child-bearing and child-rearing, and she turns toward cultivating herself as a separate individual, apart from her family relationships. In women, this post-reproductive period is the stage of the Crone. This supplements the pre-reproductive or self-contained Virgin symbolism already mentioned in connection with Vesta.

Arranging the asteroids in this way gives further clues to their meaning. Naturally, however, a woman may embody the symbolism of any of these asteroids at any time in her life.

These life stages pertain to a woman's life in particular, something that has until recently been largely neglected. They of course have their analogies in the lives of men, but in a slightly modified form, since reproduction does not tend to be so central to men's lives and many men can reproduce well into old age. Like women, men typically have a Ceres stage in which their primary attachment is to their mother, a Pallas stage where they are initiated by the father into the outside world, a Juno stage when they are husbands and fathers working to sustain a family, and a Vesta stage when they are free to retire and cultivate their inner lives.

How to Use This Report
You could think of your birth chart as a play. The planets and asteroids are the actors, harmonizing with, clashing against, or ignoring one another, depending on the aspects that they do or do not make with the other points in the chart. The sign of the zodiac that the asteroid or planet is in shows where the actor is "coming from": whether he or she is at home or in foreign territory, and his or her style of operation. The house that a planet or asteroid falls into is like the scenery, showing the area of life in which that archetype is most likely to operate.

The house cusps, and the Ascendant, Imum Coeli, Descendant and Midheaven (which in most systems of house division are the cusps of the First, Fourth, Seventh and Tenth houses) are the fastest-moving points in the chart. Moving about one degree along the zodiac during every four minutes of time, they travel all the way around the zodiac every twenty-four hours.

These are what make your chart different from the charts of other people born the same day. They deliver the most personal, particular information in your chart, but for them to do so, your birth time must be given as accurately as possible, preferably within a half-hour of time. If you are uncertain of your birth time, it is best to ignore the paragraphs that deal with houses, or with conjunctions to the Ascendant, Imum Coeli, Descendant or Midheaven. If necessary, you can probably get your birth time from your birth certificate, obtainable from the Bureau of Vital Records in the state where you were born.

When You're Reading This Report
When you read about the sign and house placements of each asteroid, it is best not to draw any conclusions about that asteroid until you after you've read about the asteroid's aspects. For example, if you had Ceres in Cancer conjunct the planet Uranus, Ceres's Cancerian need for emotional security would be offset by Uranus's desire for freedom and change. Both indications may apply, but in different areas of life, or you may feel an ongoing sense of contradiction and tension between the two. Conversely, if several indications reinforce each other, their manifestation in your life will most likely be strong and obvious.

Also remember that when a planet is at the end of a house within a degree or two of the cusp of the next house, it starts to take on the meanings of the next house as well.

An Important Note about Aspects
The authors do not consider the "hard" aspects (squares, oppositions, semisquares and sesquiquadrates) and other traditionally difficult aspects (like quincunxes and sometimes semisextiles) as uniformly bad. Neither do they consider the so-called "soft" or "easy" aspects (trine and sextile) as always good. Practicing astrology from a mythic and psychological point of view, they find that the nature of the two archetypal principles being connected is more important than the nature of the aspect. Regardless of the type of aspect being made, most people experience the entire range of interactions between two planets (or between a planet and an asteroid).

We believe that people grow by integrating opposing polarities in the psyche (represented by the opposition aspect) and by resolving inner conflicts (represented by the square). We do not wish to give you the limiting suggestion that the issues depicted by difficult aspects are impossible to resolve, or give you a false sense of security that the so-called good aspects require no awareness and effort on your part. You will therefore find that the interpretations in this report cover a wide range of both positive and negative possibilities for each aspect.

Aspects do, however, differ in strength. Major aspects (particularly the conjunction and opposition) and aspects involving the Sun or Moon tend to speak louder than others. To help you spot the more important aspects in your chart, you'll see notations ranging from "Very strong influence" to "Slight influence."

You can get an even more precise idea of the strength of an aspect by looking at the aspect table at the beginning of this report. The values in the "The orb is" column show how far the aspect is from being exact. If you see an aspect with an orb of zero (that is, less than one degree), you can mentally "bump up" the aspect's rating a notch (for example, from "Strong" to "Very strong"). Conversely, if you see an orb greater than eight degrees, you can consider the aspect's importance diminished.

With this said, let us now explore the role that each of these four asteroid goddesses plays in your astrological chart.

 

Part One:

Ceres, the Mother


Appropriately, the first asteroid to be discovered was named after the Olympian goddess who most exemplifies the mother - the first human being with whom most of us have contact, the first relationship that we encounter in life. Ceres, the Mother, deals with all sorts of mother-child issues. Of the four stages in a person's life, she signifies the Child.

The glyph or written symbol for Ceres takes the form of a scythe. Besides signifying the goddess of agriculture, this tool for harvesting suggests both the roundness of a breast and the themes of separation and death that run through the legend of Ceres. As the mother, she brings us into life, and, like the Christian Mary who grieves over her crucified Son, she also lets us go into death, thus starting another cycle. For this reason she is associated with the IC of the horoscope, the very bottom of the day cycle, where, in the system of astrological houses, life begins and ends.

The Myth of Ceres
Known to the Greeks as Demeter, Ceres was the goddess of agriculture who worked unceasingly to bring food and nourishment to the people of the earth. One of the great classical myths tells of her daughter Persephone's ravishment and abduction by Pluto, lord of the underworld. Grieving, Ceres wandered over the earth in search of her missing child. In her grief, depression and anger, she caused a famine, withholding production of all food until her daughter was returned.

Persephone meanwhile had eaten pomegranate seeds, a symbol of sexual awareness, thus giving Pluto a claim over her so that she could not be returned permanently to her mother. A compromise was reached whereby Persephone would spend part of each year in the underworld with Pluto caring for the souls of the dead, but each spring would be reunited with her mother in the upper world as she initiated the dead into the rites of rebirth. For over two thousand years, this drama was celebrated regularly in ancient Greece as the initiation rites of the Eleusinian mysteries.

Ceres Within Us
Ceres represents the part of our nature that longs to give birth and then to nourish and sustain the new life. She represents the essential bonding or lack thereof that occurs between mother and child. She is the impulse not just to nurture, but also to be nurtured by others through the giving and receiving of acceptance and unconditional love.

The story of Ceres and Persephone speaks to the complex mother-child relationship, emphasizing the interplay of closeness and separation, of nurturing and eventual letting-go as the child becomes an adult able to function on her or his own. Once the letting-go is accomplished, the child is free to reestablish the bond in a different key by becoming a friend to the parent and by producing grandchildren.

The Ceres myth also contains the themes of major physical or emotional loss, separation, abandonment, rejection, and estrangement that occur between parents and children, and later in life with other loved ones. One example of this is the anguish we face in cases of divorce or adoption when we need to share our children with their other parent. Ceres symbolizes attachment to whatever we have given birth to or created, and also the agony of losing it. If her myth is one of loss, however, it is also one of return, of death but also rebirth. Reminding us that loss makes way for new birth, Ceres can teach us the lesson of letting go.

A central part of Ceres bonding is the giving of food as an expression of love. In our early experiences as children, this food and love may be freely given. In other instances, however, it is conditionally awarded, withheld as a form of punishment, pushed upon us, or simply neglected. Then the self-love and self-worth of the child are undermined and underdeveloped, causing a host of psychological problems.

The mythological Ceres withheld food in the midst of her grief and depression. Correspondingly, one typical kind of Ceres wound is an obsessive relationship with food, including the whole range of eating disorders and food-related illnesses. Related to this, there can also be problems with a poor body image.

In her grief, Ceres became immobilized. Thus another Ceres problem manifests as being plunged into depths of depression or despair, making us incapable of daily functioning, work, and all other forms of productivity. To the extent that depression is associated with incomplete mourning, working through the stages of grief (shock, anger, bargaining, depression, and ultimately acceptance) can help to promote healing in times of loss.

An additional theme comes from Ceres's daughter Persephone being raped by Pluto, her mother's brother. This points to fears that parents may have in protecting their children from similar harm. Certain Ceres placements in the chart may also point to one's having oneself experienced incest or other sexual abuse as a child.

In a desire to keep their children safe, parents with strong Ceres placements can become overly controlling and restrictive. In order to establish their own identity, their children may then struggle against the parental attachment. This, in turn, can bring up the Ceres theme of loss of the child.

On a transpersonal level, Ceres as the Mother of the World moves us to care about the homeless and hungry, and also about the destruction of the earth's resources. She urges us to take compassionate action to provide for fundamental human needs, and to care for the body of the earth which supports and sustains us.

Ceres not only gave birth to the living, but in her aspect as Persephone she received the souls of the dead back into her womb to prepare them for rebirth. Thus Ceres can also express as a vocation for either midwifery or hospice work, facilitating the transition from death to life and back again on either the physical or the psychological level.

Ceres embodies the great truth of transformation, that from death comes new life. This comes not just from the Persephone part of her story, but also from the nature of food, which always requires the taking of plant or animal life in order to sustain our own lives.

Ceres also teaches the wisdom that over-attachment and possessiveness can eventually bring loss, whereas sharing and letting go lead ultimately to reunion.

Ceres in Your Chart

Ceres's Zodiacal Sign
The zodiacal sign of Ceres shows the particular quality of nurturing that you experienced as a child. This sets the stage for how you presently nurture the child within yourself, and ultimately determines how you nurture others. The sign position of Ceres can alert you to possible problems with nurturing, and can direct you to the kinds of experience that you need to feel unconditionally loved and accepted.

These indications may be reinforced or contradicted by other factors in the chart such as aspects and (if you have given an accurate birth time) houses. Therefore, to get a rounded picture, be sure to read through the whole section on each asteroid.

Ceres in Virgo
When you were born, Ceres was traveling through the sign Virgo. When you were a child you identified nurturance with being raised in a clean, orderly, healthy living environment. Also, you wanted your parents to teach you skills and competence, thus equipping you to function in the everyday world.

If these needs were not met in an ideal manner, you may have been told that you were not good enough, no matter how hard you tried. You may have reacted (and still be reacting) to this criticism by having an obsessive need to be perfect and by finding fault with other people or with your circumstances.

As an adult, you still desire to have these needs met by whomever you turn to for nurturing - whether it be a parent, partner or other loved one. You can nurture yourself or the child within you by creating a clean and orderly living environment, by mastering a skill or technique that reinforces a sense of competency, by cultivating good health and hygiene habits, and by finding ways to be useful. In turn, your natural style of nurturing children or other loved ones is to create order in their surroundings and habits, to teach them to achieve excellence by the right application of skills. You have a strong desire to be of service, and may be especially drawn to the areas of health and nutrition.

The House that Ceres Occupies
Assuming that the birth time that you have given is accurate within an hour or so, the houses of the horoscope give more particular information about the way the asteroids and planets operate in your chart.

Besides the Fourth House, which shows your earliest upbringing, the house that Ceres falls into shows where or in what department of life you may most directly feel the need for mothering and nurturing. The house that Ceres is in also suggests the areas in which you are likely to feel your profoundest losses. In addition, it can give a key as to what kinds of experiences will either foster feelings of self-love, or feelings of self-criticism and rejection.

Ceres in the Tenth House
With Ceres moving through the Tenth House at the hour of your birth, you tend to nurture yourself and others through your profession or social role. Your vocation provides you with a public outlet for Ceres's desire to care for and provide for others. You may be drawn to careers or volunteer work that involve fostering others through teaching, child-care, children's services, health care, food-related businesses or hospices.

Alternatively, this position of Ceres can simply make you over-identify with your career no matter what it is. This may happen if, when you were a child, love was given based upon your performance or achievement. If you failed to live up to parental or societal expectations, you felt rejected or abandoned. To compensate, you may have put extraordinary energy into building a career, and you may make your reputation your primary concern.

Among the many forms of loss that people are likely to experience, for you one of the most poignant can be the loss of your fame or reputation. If you have placed overemphasis on your public image, such a loss can ultimately be freeing. Stripped of the public image that you thought was an absolute necessity, you may be forced to find your sense of worth in who you are, not what you do. In this way you will find real happiness.

The Aspects that Ceres Makes
The aspects that Ceres makes with other planets and asteroids show how her nurturing energies interact with the concerns of the other gods and goddesses in your chart. If her aspects reinforce the themes suggested by her sign and house, these themes are bound to be obvious in your life. If the aspects in some way contradict the themes of the sign and house, they may give rise to interesting tensions that take some creativity and practice to resolve. If an asteroid makes an aspect with the Sun or Moon, her importance for you is greatly magnified.

Ceres opposition the Moon. Very strong influence.
The nurturance and protection of Ceres combines with lunar matters such as your emotions, feelings and habit patterns.


Your aspect between Ceres and the Moon brings together the two mother archetypes in the chart. The Moon is the all-encompassing symbol for all that is yin or female in the chart, of all that gives form or contains, and of the earth itself. Ceres is a particular facet of lunar energies. Ceres deals specifically with motherhood, nourishment, and attachment, or the lack of it, to a loved one. When the Moon and Ceres are connected as they are in your chart, the more general lunar function takes on a Ceres-like character so that lunar issues in your life tend to assume Ceres's particular qualities.

As a Ceres-Moon person you have a deep longing to be needed by others and to bond with them. You may become intensely involved with your family, specifically parenting your own children or taking care of other people's. This could also manifest as taking care of your parents. By extension, you may be drawn to activities like growing or preparing food, feeding the homeless and hungry, protecting Mother Earth through environmental activism, or working with the dying.

Adelle Davis, who had Ceres opposition the Moon, is a classic example of one who lived out the Ceres-Moon archetype. A nutritionist and author of cookbooks which showed how to add maximum nutritional value to every meal, she produced many books, including Let's Eat Right and Let's Have Healthy Children.

With your Ceres-Moon aspect comes a strong degree of compassion, empathy and sensitivity. This sensitivity may cause you to become overly involved and identified with the problems of those for whom you care. If you become too enmeshed, you will inappropriately take on their pain. This will make you suffer, and will prevent them from having the opportunity to work out their own difficulties. Also, if you feel unneeded or that your efforts are unappreciated, you may become depressed.

Other problems that may arise with a Ceres-Moon aspect include experiencing a conflict between taking care of your loved ones and meeting your own personal needs. It is well to remember that when your own needs go unmet long enough, your ability to help others becomes impaired. You may think you are expending all your efforts taking care of their physical and emotional needs, when what they really want from you is an equal kind of companionship, or a role model that teaches them how to become happy, autonomous human beings themselves.

With this aspect you need to be on guard against smothering your children or other loved ones with over-protectiveness. Were you yourself overwhelmed by a domineering, controlling parent who eclipsed your own sense of individuality? If so, mentally putting yourself in the shoes of your child can help you refrain from this temptation. When an unconscious pattern becomes conscious, you are freed from repeating it.

Your protectiveness may, of course, stem from real-life concerns. In these times, we see the Ceres myth playing itself out through a child actually disappearing for a time into a kind of underworld: running away, being abducted by a stranger or the other parent, getting involved with drugs or other unsavory circumstances, or perhaps being confined in a hospital. It may be hard to find any solace for this heartache, but following in the footsteps of Ceres and giving oneself permission to grieve can help, as can the knowledge that in the myth the loss was followed by a return.

Refraining from too much protectiveness and giving children more freedom to go off on their own can often enable the Ceres-Persephone drama to play out on a less disastrous level. In order to grow up into autonomous individuals, during the teen years children need to leave their parents in some way. When this need is honored, they can accomplish the necessary distancing from their parents without straying too far into dangerous territory.

There is also a possibility that you guard your children out of an underlying fear that they may be sexually violated. In this case, you need to determine whether your fears are a projection or arise from a real situation. If the latter, your natural Ceres protectiveness is well-placed.

Because Ceres rules the mother-child bond and the Moon governs early childhood, this combination may suggest that your basic needs for emotional nurturing and love were not met as a child. You could be harboring separation anxieties, with fears (or actual experiences) of rejection and abandonment by your caretakers. This emotional isolation and alienation can lead to periods of depression. If you are feeling needy and unloved, it helps to extend love and nurture to others who are likewise in need. By being of service to others you can heal your own sense of emotional isolation.

A lack of early nurturing could also result in an inner emptiness that you try to fill up with drugs, alcohol, work, sex or other addictions. Part of this "filling up" process can involve an obsessive relationship with food which may turn into an eating disorder. Ultimately the void can only be filled with unconditional love that you receive from the Divine Mother and give to yourself.

To further understand this important aspect, we suggest that you re-read the story of Ceres. As you do so, you may find that many of the themes we discussed are reflected in your life experience.

Ceres semisextile Venus. Slight influence.
Ceres's capacity to nurture and protect combines with Venus's urge to attract people and things that you love and value.


The goddess of love, beauty and sexuality can both reinforce and conflict with your nurturing instincts. With this aspect, you tend to care for others with a sensual tenderness that borders on the erotic. This can lead to extremely nurturing and emotionally fertile love relationships for you and your partner.

This is also an extremely beneficial aspect for physical and artistic creativity. Ceres's fertile productivity when linked with Venus's aesthetic nature enables you to create nurturing, life-promoting environments that are luxuriant, harmonious and pleasing to the senses. You may prepare beautiful meals, or turn other aspects of nurture into art. For you, nurturing may also mean introducing your loved ones to beautiful things or cultivating their artistic talents. Or you may nurture yourself with your own artistic endeavors or by appreciating art.

While these two energies reinforce each other to produce great fertility, the combination of the Great Nurturer with the goddess of sexual love can also produce problems. While love and beauty can add to the nurturing of children, when a parent's feeling of nurturing inappropriately combines with sexual attraction, seduction or incest can result.

This aspect may also mean a role conflict between being the nurturer of your family and being your partner's lover, or in your relationship with your lover playing the parental role too strongly. If this happens, the unconscious incest taboo may lead to a crippling of sexual intimacy. One danger of this is in children being substituted as the objects of one's erotic feelings. Or one of the partners may tend to project unmet nurturing needs onto the other, resulting in conflicts stemming from a perceived lack of nurturing.

Another way that this aspect could play out is simply in a conflict between your artistic endeavors and your family obligations.

Ceres-Venus problems can also include complexes that arise from the relationship you had with your nurturer over food. You may have been denied food, rewarded with it, or force-fed, such that in adulthood you may deny yourself food or overindulge. In extreme cases this can lead to anorexia or bulimia. The resultant shame around body image can lead to feelings of not being attractive or desirable to others, and can inhibit you in the expression in your sexuality. You could use food as a substitute for love and acceptance, or use being overweight as a protective mechanism to avoid intimacy. This situation is especially painful for those with a Ceres-Venus contact, because these are the people who most link their own self-esteem with being attractive and sexually desirable.

After Ceres's daughter, Persephone, was raped and violated, both mother and daughter starved themselves as a way of coping with the trauma. This connection can be seen in the fact that people with eating disorders often have a history of sexual abuse.

In all of the above cases, healing the wounds of your inner feminine can help you to magnetize nurturing and supportive sexual interactions.

Ceres trine Mars. Moderate influence.
Ceres's capacity to nurture and protect combines with Mars's masculine principle of action and assertion.


Mars is the archetypal warrior, representing one who defends and protects boundaries. Ceres was also highly protective of her daughter. Therefore this combination indicates that your drive and energy can be channeled into defending and protecting your loved ones, or teaching them how to defend and take care of themselves. Because of Ceres's concern for the earth, this protective energy can also be channeled into ecological or environmental causes.

When these energies are not harmoniously combined, your need for independence and autonomy may have felt thwarted by a dominating or smothering parent. As an adult, you may find it difficult to act and be effective in the outer world, and may have feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, and powerlessness. With men, particularly, power is often connected to sexuality, so that in men with Ceres-Mars contacts, sexual inhibitions and complexes may arise. When you have this aspect, you should give attention to transforming your subconscious self-image and replacing thoughts of fear and inadequacy with those of confidence, courage, and self-reliance.

You may have been raised by an angry parent. If your parent repressed his or her anger, you may be carrying that unconscious rage in your own psyche and body. Getting in touch with and releasing this hostility is essential so that it will not be displaced onto spouses, children and other innocent victims.

Another possibility is that your personal ambitions and desires conflict with the needs of your family. If this causes strong feelings of anger to erupt, it is important that you and your loved ones learn the skills of conflict resolution so that Mars's anger does not lead to domestic violence or abuse.

Ceres square Saturn. Moderate influence.
Ceres's capacity to nurture and protect combines with Saturn's urge to create structure, limit and form.


When it works optimally, this aspect shows that your primary caregivers provided a stable, orderly and structured environment for you. They strove to impart the virtues of discipline and self-responsibility, so that as an adult you are responsible, loyal and dedicated to members of your own family. Your nurturing relationships will then be characterized by respect, depth and enduring bonds.

On the other hand, since Saturn rules the concept of limits and scarcity, you may have experienced a lack of love and validation from your primary caregivers. Excessive punishment, rigidity or harsh discipline may have been administered. In your home setting you may have felt restricted and confined. Your caregivers may have been absent, or cold, or have demanded certain behaviors or expected you to live up to high standards in exchange for their approval. The result is that you may still feel that in order to be loved you have to perform.

Whatever the details, you did not feel unconditionally loved. Because you didn't get what you needed, it may be difficult for you to offer and express emotional support to your own loved ones. To break the pattern of feeling deprived and resentful, you may have to let go of blaming your parents and learn to give yourself the love you that were previously denied.

In other cases, your parents may have been overly responsible, doing everything for you and not allowing you to discover your own strength. In this case, as an adult the most nurturing thing you can do for yourself is to learn to be strong your own. This means developing self-discipline and independence.

Another scenario is that you may have had to take on the responsibility of parenting your siblings, or even your parents in some cases, if they were physically or emotionally debilitated. In your current role as provider, also, you may feel overly obligated and constrained by the responsibilities of caring for your children or elderly parents. Although taking responsibility can be a source of satisfaction and self- development and a way to express love, it should not be allowed to fill up your whole field of view. You may have to discipline your self to take time off to give yourself the nurture and pleasure that you need.

Ceres semisquare Neptune. Slight influence.
Ceres's capacity to nurture and protect combines with Neptune's urge to transcend the finite self and merge with a greater whole.


A combination of Ceres and Neptune like this can indicate a sensitizing of the nurturing impulse to create a depth of compassion and empathy for all beings.

The unconditional love you experience through your connection to Spirit inspires you to give selflessly to others. You may be involved in work to alleviate suffering in the world. Your psychic sensitivity to the emotions of others fits you well to serve as a healer and helper, or to nourish others through artistic creations.

Your primary caregivers may have been spiritual, artistic, psychic or involved in healing pursuits, and this may reflect in your own style of caregiving later in life. Alternatively, one or both of your parents may have had emotional problems, played the role of martyr, been involved in substance abuse, or had difficulty in coping with the material world. To the extent that you took on the pain of your parents, you may be struggling with the same issues yourself.

You may have been raised in an environment where the chaos of the family system made it difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality. You may have idealized one or both parents and may therefore have unrealistic expectations of the type of nurturing that you can receive from others. When your needs are not met, you may feel disillusioned and let down. Your resulting emotional neediness may predispose you to seek nurturing by playing the victim. Or, unable to bear your emotional pain and isolation, you may seek refuge in some form of escapism such as drugs, alcohol or overeating.

To resolve such Ceres-Neptune challenges, you ultimately need to find your nourishment through Spirit, through experiencing the oneness that connects all beings. You can fulfill your innate longing for wholeness by ministering to the wounds of others, but you must guard against indiscriminately trying to rescue people in the hopes of fixing or rehabilitating them. Truly to help others, you must first find nourishment for yourself by contacting the Spirit within.

Ceres sextile Vesta. Moderate influence.
Ceres's capacity to nurture and give unconditional love combines with Vesta's urge to deepen one's relationship to one's true Self, explore one's spirituality and find a true vocation or path of service.


This connection in your chart between Ceres and Vesta suggests a special devotion to your family, and also a special ability to experience or give nurturing through your work, vision quest, or spiritual practice. Whether it is to children or other loved ones, one of the principal ways you nurture is by providing spiritual guidance. In some instances, you may become inspired to dedicate your life to serving and nurturing others. Another appropriate way to combine these archetypes is to focus on your own self-care and self-nurturing.

You may follow a spiritual path that worships the Divine Mother or Mother Earth; or you may play a parental role in your spiritual community - for example, being the mother superior of a convent. Because of Ceres's connection with the death/rebirth mysteries, you may become involved with hospice work.

Sexuality can be another way you nurture yourself or others. At the same time, sexual inhibitions or complexes may make it difficult for you to get your sexual needs met. In your family of origin, there may have been either inappropriate sexual acting- out or total sexual repression. Emotional or physical incest may have also been part of your early childhood experience. Based on Vesta's mythology, you may have fears of giving birth. These fears may manifest as problems in conceiving or carrying a child to term.

There is an inherent conflict between Ceres's desire to tend to family demands and Vesta's need to seek solitude or to be engrossed in work. You will want to find creative ways to balance these competing needs. If you are not able to do this, you may feel alienated from the parenting role or from the family system. Thus, you may periodically want to withdraw from your familial responsibilities in order to nourish yourself and your soul.

 

Part Two:

Pallas, the Daughter


Pallas, the second asteroid to be discovered, was named for the goddess who, instead of being born from the womb, sprang from the head of her father and in her later actions exemplified strengths that are often thought of as masculine. Befittingly, this second asteroid to be discovered represents a second developmental stage in people's lives, when they look to their fathers to provide them with the firmness and independence to leave the home and go forth into the world. This is the time of life when one acquires skills and a sense of competence, and starts to formulate oneself as an independent person. In societies where female children were expected to marry at the earliest possible age, this stage was largely neglected in a woman's development, but it is a stage as important for women as it is for men. For either sex, only when this stage is successfully mastered is one truly ready to embark on the next stage, wherein one becomes a partner in a relationship of equals.

The astrological glyph for Pallas pictures the spear that is carried by the goddess in many depictions. The spear points upward and outward toward the world at large. Like the suit of swords in the Tarot, the spear suggests the intellect, which probes and severs, seeking knowledge and separating one idea from another to achieve clarity. The glyph also suggests a head upon a body; signifying the goddess's origin, her associations with the intellect, and the movement from the womb center to the head, or from the bottom, or IC, of the horoscope wheel to the top, or Midheaven.

The Myth of Pallas Athene
Pallas was better known to the Greeks as Athene, the Goddess of Wisdom. She is said to have sprung full-grown, clad in a suit of gleaming war armor, from the crown of the head of her father, Zeus (Jupiter), and to have immediately taken her place at his right-hand side.

As patroness of Athens, she presided over military strategies during wartime and over justice in peacetime. She also fostered useful arts, including spinning and weaving, pottery, healing and other areas in which human skill and ingenuity improve the quality of life for all. Another art that she fostered was horse-taming (an interesting association in light of the "horse-crazy" stage that many girls go through in early adolescence).

Among all the goddesses, the classical Greeks held Pallas Athene in a unique position of power and respect. She walked easily and freely through the world of gods, heroes, and men as their colleague, advisor, equal, and friend.

She was idealized as Athene Parthenia, the virgin warrior queen, and took neither lovers nor consorts. In the myths she denied her matriarchal origins, claiming that no mother gave her life, as she arranged for the death of her sister Medusa. In all things except marriage, she upheld male supremacy.

The price that was extracted from her was the denial of her femininity. She severed her connection from her mother (Metis), her sisters, the community of women, and her sexuality, and lost touch with her feminine qualities of sensitivity, softness, and vulnerability.

Pallas Athene is mythologically related to an ancient lineage of goddesses from the Near East, North Africa and Crete who were associated with the serpent as a symbol of wisdom and healing. She affirmed this connection by placing the head of her dark sister, Medusa, the serpent-haired queen of wisdom, in the center of her breastplate. In the yogic tradition, kundalini energy is depicted as a serpent that is coiled at the base of the spine ready to rise through the spinal canal and emerge from the top of the head as cosmic illumination. This has similarities to the wisdom of Pallas Athene, who emerged from the head of Jupiter.

Pallas Within Us
Pallas Athene's association with both the serpent and the taming of horses suggests that her basic theme has to do with reason civilizing the forces of nature for the benefit of humankind. As a woman, she represents the force of nature that brings new life into being, the raw energy that underlies aliveness. As her father's daughter, she executes his will, using that force for the good of society. Administering justice, she is able to discern the truth amid tumultuous emotions. Healing illness, she diverts the life force back into the proper channels. As a weaver and potter, she uses cleverness and dexterity to turn raw materials into useful objects.

Through the ages, women have been major contributors to these arts of civilization. However, in some eras such as the one we are emerging from, many of the civilized arts including the law, medicine and manufacturing were largely taken over by men while the role of most women was limited to handmaiden and reproducer of the race.

In our culture still, women who are smart, powerful, strong, and accomplished are like Pallas in that they may not be considered "real women." They are often pressured to make a choice between career and creative self-expression on the one hand, and relationship and family on the other. We see Pallas Athene all over again in the high-school girl who is applauded for her victory on the debate team, but who is not asked to the prom.

The danger of the Pallas Athene archetype is one of severing our feminine side and encasing the wounds in armor. This may lead us to further our ambitions with a kind of cold, ruthless, calculating, expedient strategy.

To heal ourselves, we must remember that even though the Greek myths had Athene denying her female origins, they still made her not a god but a goddess, one whose unique strength has its roots in the feminine powers of nature. Her story enlarges the possibilities for women, telling women everywhere that they, too, are free, if they wish, to channel their womanly life-creating Venus energy not only through their procreative powers but also through their intellects. This is the Pallas way of enriching and enhancing life. Pallas Athene, that productive and powerful goddess, shows that women do not have to be men to be effective in the world. As women, they are able to impart a special kind of life-promoting energy to intellectual and professional pursuits.

As Zeus's favorite daughter, the archetypal "daddy's girl," Pallas Athene points to another issue, our relationships to our own fathers. In our birth charts she reveals the ways in which we emulate them, seek their approval, want to interact in their world, and give them power over our lives. A strong, well-placed Pallas in a woman's chart usually shows a girl who was cultivated by her father and who has learned valuable life skills from him.

As a woman dressed in the garb of a warrior, Pallas speaks to calling up and expressing the masculine within women, and the feminine within men. This movement toward androgyny balances and integrates polarities within the self and brings wholeness through reclaiming our contrasexual identity.

Pallas Athene's serpent symbolism also connects her to the healing arts. In one of her guises she was called Hygeia, goddess of miraculous cures. Her armor and shield can be likened to our immune system warding off attacks. She especially represents the power of our minds in curing disease.

To sum up, Pallas represents the part of you that wants to channel creative energy to give birth to mental and artistic progeny, children of the mind. She represents your capacity for creative wisdom and clear thinking, and speaks to your desire to strive for excellence and accomplishment in your chosen field of expression. The model of the strong, courageous, ingenious, artistically creative and intelligent woman, Pallas shows how you use your intelligence to seek truth; how you achieve in practical, mental or artistic fields; and how you work to attain worldly power.

Insofar as Pallas is the military strategist and the administerer of justice, her placement in the horoscope shows how you apply your intelligence to warding off attack and preserving balance and integrity in your body, mind and social interactions. This is not only a matter of self-defense, it is also a fundamental principle of healing. The placement of Pallas in your chart shows the healing modalities that are likely to work best for you, either when applied to yourself, or by you to others.

In addition, the placement of Pallas may suggest how you relate to your father and to what fathers stand for, and how you incorporate the qualities of the opposite sex into your own makeup. It may also suggest what life was like for you when you were deciding upon a career and setting out for yourself in the world.

Pallas in Your Chart

Pallas's Zodiacal Sign
The zodiacal sign in which Pallas was placed at your birth shows the style of perception through which your creative mind operates, and also your style of applying your creative intelligence and ingenuity to the affairs of life. It can therefore have a lot to do with your career and hobbies. It also shows the special kind of wisdom and skill that you offer to the world. In a sense, the placement of Pallas shows how you carry out the will of the Deity (or the light within you), and make it materialize here on Earth.

Pallas in Leo
Pallas is particularly at home in Leo because, of all the signs, Leo most governs creative self-expression. With Pallas here, your creative intelligence is best expressed through projects that impress your own unique vision upon the world. You are likely to have great charisma, and an ability to stand up in the public eye. If other factors in the chart support it, you may be drawn to positions of leadership - the sort of leadership where your presence attracts and gives energy to those around you.

For you, natural forms of expression include performing arts such as drama, acting, music and dance. Work with children either as a teacher or a counselor may also be especially satisfying, as you will instinctively understand how to help others express themselves, especially through their creative, playful side. Your healing talents would be best expressed through play modalities such as art therapy, music therapy or psychodrama. With your magnetic, theatrical way of doing things, you are likely to be an attention-getting public speaker and a skillful promoter of causes.

The House that Pallas Occupies
The house in which Pallas is found shows what departments of life are most likely to provide the outlet for your creative intelligence and ingenuity. Taken along with the Tenth and Sixth houses, which are the traditional significators of your calling and your daily work, the house that Pallas occupies can be an indicator of your career. Along with the Fifth house, the house in which Pallas is found can also indicate your hobbies.

Pallas in the Ninth House
Pallas Athene in the Ninth House indicates that your creative intelligence and ingenuity may be drawn to all-embracing systems of thought such as philosophy, social theories or political ideologies, toward the dissemination of knowledge, or toward broadening experiences such as travel.

If your leanings are philosophical, you will probably publish writings about your subject. If you are politically minded, this placement of Pallas could indicate legal involvement and activism, or you could be a legal scholar or theorist.

You could also be involved in publishing books, magazines or newspapers, in broadcasting, or even in newer ways of putting out information such as the Internet. Since the Ninth House rules higher education, you may engage in learning or teaching in higher educational institutions.

You may also be drawn to foreign travel and learning about other cultures. In some instances, you may decide to live in another country in order to broaden your horizons and understanding of the world. Joining the Peace Corps, the Foreign Service or a multinational corporation is a possible way to accomplish this. You might also study abroad, or engage in cross-cultural studies such as anthropology, or combine publishing with foreign travel and become a foreign correspondent for a news organization.

Pallas has special prominence in your chart.
Assuming that the birth time you have given is accurate, Pallas is near the Midheaven, the highest point in your chart. Being next to any of the four "angles" of the chart throws any planet or asteroid into the foreground of one's life. Here, in addition, the symbolic themes of the Midheaven reinforce those of Pallas Athene.

As for your reputation and public image, you are likely to be well known for your competence, mental powers, skill or creativity. Your calling, the main thing that you are striving for in life, will probably involve a field suggested by the Pallas myth: for example, military or political strategy, law or mediation, crafts or manufacturing, the visual arts, education, medicine or science. Just which of the particular Pallas occupations emerges depends on the sign that Pallas and your Midheaven are in, and on the aspects that they make with other planets and asteroids.

Because Pallas is so prominent in your chart, you may find that even the minor themes in her story are echoed in your life.

The Aspects that Pallas Makes
The aspects that link Pallas to other planets and asteroids in your chart show how her intelligence and skill become connected with other drives such as your urge to nurture, to communicate, to create and to assert yourself.

Pallas conjunct Mercury. Strong influence.
Pallas's wisdom combines with Mercury's urge to communicate and share ideas.


Any combination with Mercury especially highlights the creative intelligence symbolized by Pallas Athene. When this contact goes well, you possess strong creative-intellectual capacities and can often display power and skill in using words and the communications media to make your point. You can be a good orator and can be adept in the arts of mediation and negotiation. You can use the power of thought in a creative way through visualization, affirmations and positive thinking. You can also use logic and the written or spoken word as a means of protecting or defending yourself or in persuading others to take action. In addition, you may communicate a certain wisdom or understanding that goes beyond the mere intellect.

A prime example of this contact is Marie Curie, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in both chemistry and physics. She has Pallas conjunct Mercury at her Midheaven, the point of the chart signifying career and status. Yet, as brilliant as her intellect was, following the Pallas Athene archetype she was never admitted to the Academy of Sciences because she was a woman.

Stressful Pallas-Mercury interactions can signify potential blockages in your ability to reason, create, and verbally express your ideas. Perhaps intelligence and/or creativity were not encouraged or valued when you were a child and thus you lack confidence in your mental or creative abilities. Feeling inadequate and insufficient, you may feel hampered in your ability to express yourself clearly and coherently. This aspect may point to learning problems or to perceptual, auditory, or mental dysfunction. At times, your thinking may be scattered or clouded, and you may have difficulty defending yourself against other people's criticisms.

Sometimes a Pallas-Mercury contact can make you overly mental. There may be periods when you have difficulty giving voice to your creativity. At times your rational mind may overpower your wisdom nature so that you may talk yourself out of an idea that you intuitively know is right. You may also be caught up in details and not see the big picture. At other times your creative visions may overlook key facts and thus be impractical. The resolution of these challenges involves bringing together the needs of the mind and heart, so that you can successfully integrate knowledge with real wisdom.

Pallas square Mars. Moderate influence.
Pallas's creative wisdom combines with Mars's masculine principle of action and assertion.


Here, Mars heightens the valor and activism of Pallas Athene and enhances her tendency to execute well-thought-out plans with strategic skill and confidence. This gives you the capacity to fight for cherished ideas and emerge victorious.

One of the functions of both Mars and Pallas is to defend boundaries. For example, with Pallas conjunct Mars in Pisces, consumer crusader Ralph Nader has been true to his calling of protecting consumers. However, when these two principles are not well integrated, you may have difficulty in mobilizing your "inner armies" to protect and defend yourself or that which is important to you.

Some astrologers suggest that Pallas's shield of armor that wards off attacks corresponds to the immune system in the human body. Similarly, Mars rules the vital life force and the blood that carries the antibodies that ward off invading microbes. Both these energies are vital in creating a strong physical and psychological immune system.

When Pallas and Mars are related stressfully, there may be difficulty in putting your creative ideas into action. This is because Mars signifies the ability to take action to get what you want. With this aspect you may be presented with lessons that challenge you to develop your inner strength and courage.

Pallas was a virgin goddess who had no interest in sexual liaisons, and some astrologers consider Mars to signify the masculine sexual drive. Thus, if you are a man, this contact may show a frustration in the expression of your sexuality. This frustration can lead to feelings of sexual inadequacy and fantasies or acts of sexual aggression and violence.

Pallas's asexualization could also be interpreted as a movement toward androgyny. People of both sexes may find themselves more than usually in touch with their contrasexual natures. This sometimes causes confusion over one's sexual identity, but ultimately, feeling equally comfortable with both one's male and female sides can impart a feeling of wholeness and integration.

Pallas sextile Jupiter. Moderate influence.
Pallas's creative intelligence combines with Jupiter's urge to search for meaning, truth and ethical values.


This astrological combination of Pallas Athene with Jupiter recalls the myth in which Athene sprang from the head of her father to bring the gifts of intelligence and skill to human society. Jupiter, known as the supreme ruler of all the Gods, is astrologically connected with the principle of wisdom, and Pallas carried out his will.

A Pallas-Jupiter combination can indicate exceptional intelligence. More specifically, it means a broad, far-seeing vision that grasps the implications of the larger whole. It bestows a holistic mind that sees how the parts of any system interweave and interconnect. From this, Pallas can take this process one step further and create altogether new and original understandings, theories and formulations.

In keeping with the Jupiter symbolism, you will probably be drawn to philosophical, judicial, or educational pursuits, or become involved in fighting for justice or defending the truth. An example of this is Winston Churchill, Primer Minister of England, who was born with Pallas in opposition to Jupiter.

If the Jupiter-Pallas relationship is a stressful one, however, it can mean mental blocks in expressing or understanding concepts and ideas.

As her father's daughter, Pallas served the patriarchal state and upheld traditional masculine values. She considered Jupiter to be her only parent and denied that she had a mother. Pallas was the first goddess to initiate women into the rites of the father-daughter relationship, and as such, symbolizes all the complexes that women have with their fathers.

Pallas can signify a woman who has a strong relationship with her father. She may want to please him by emulating him and moving out of the domestic scene to function in the outer world. In wanting to be like her father, she may over-identify with the masculine and see the feminine, perhaps symbolized by her own mother, as being ineffectual or unimportant. This signifies the ways in which women devalue and reject their own feminine nature. It can also point to an idealization of the father and a disappointment with other men who cannot live up to one's unrealistically high expectations.

In an earlier matriarchal myth, however, long before the arrival of the god Jupiter into Greece, Pallas Athene was a queen in Northern Africa who exemplified both wisdom and warriorship on her own. This theme suggests the importance of acknowledging your own wisdom nature as opposed to projecting it onto an outside male authority.

Pallas trine Saturn. Moderate influence.
Pallas's creative intelligence combines with Saturn's urge to create structure, limits and form.


Saturn in combination with Pallas Athene can give you a high degree of self- discipline and systematic thinking to manifest your creative ideas. You have the potential for great mental concentration and focus, which can make you extremely productive and enable you realize your plans. Especially in business activities, you can make wise decisions resulting in recognition and rewards.

You may, however, need to face the issue of whether to measure your success as defined by the traditional order or by your own values. Your parents may have had unrealistic expectations for success which you could not live up to; or societal definitions of success may not equate with your own. To remain true to Pallas and do her creative work, you may have to listen to your own inner promptings.

Another difficulty you may have with this combination is a conflict between pragmatism and your need for artistic expression. You may have been told by your parents or teachers, "It's okay to write (or paint, sculpt, etc.), but don't try to make a living from it." Comments like this can lead you to doubt your creative talent, devalue its worth, or not even try for fear of failing. You may thus experience a sense of frustration or delay about externalizing your creative projects. To fully express your creativity, you will need to challenge and release whatever negative beliefs are blocking your creative process.

When connected with Saturn, Pallas, the archetypal daughter, can also signify a range of father-daughter complexes. You may have strongly identified with a stern father (or other parent who embodied austere masculine values) who may have had a strong control over you. You may have seen the feminine as being weak and ineffectual and not worthy of emulation. Internally, you may devalue and reject your own feminine qualities, thus cutting off a valuable, life-giving energy.

On the constructive side, this aspect emphasizes the law-giving activities of Pallas Athene and may signify work in upholding the law and the criminal justice system.

 

Part Three:

Juno, the Wife


Juno, the third asteroid to be discovered, represents a third stage of life. After the Pallas stage of going out into the world, possibly to have a career, one is ready to encounter one's equal and embark upon the journey of partnership that usually takes the form of marriage.

The glyph for Juno suggests a scepter, befitting the queen of the gods, and a flower, befitting her femininity. In general form, the glyph for Juno resembles that for Venus; but instead of the circle denoting Venus's mirror, there are outward-pointing rays, indicating that the seductive femininity of Venus is about to turn outward, bearing fruit in marriage and children.

The Myth of Juno
In classical mythology, Juno, known to the Greeks as Hera, was wedded to Jupiter (Greek Zeus), supreme king of heaven and earth. As such, she became his queen and the Goddess of Marriage. In the myths of an earlier time, however, long before her meeting with Jupiter Juno was one of the primary great goddesses in her own right. As the only one who was his equal, Juno was chosen by Jupiter to initiate with him the rites of legal, monogamous, patriarchally defined marriage. As his queen, she became but a figurehead and was repeatedly deceived, betrayed, and humiliated by her husband's many infidelities. In the myths Juno was portrayed as a jealous, manipulative, vindictive, revengeful, and malcontent wife who, after tempestuous fights, would periodically leave her husband. However, she always returned to try to work things out one more time.

Juno Within Us
In the human psyche, Juno represents that aspect of each person's nature which feels the urge to unite with another person to build a future together in a committed relationship. This partnership is sustained over time through a formal and binding commitment, whether it be a worldly or a spiritual bond. Juno speaks to our desire to connect with a mate who is our true equal on all levels - psychologically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

When we do not receive intimacy, depth, equality, honesty, respect and fulfillment in our unions, Juno speaks to our emotions of disappointment, despair, anger and rage, which can overwhelm us. This is especially true when we have given up a great deal, such as a career, family, home, or religion, to enter the relationship. The Juno in us makes us confront the issues of submission and domination, fidelity and infidelity, trust and deception, forgiveness and revenge. In her realm we find ourselves in power struggles for equality as we attempt to balance and integrate ourselves with another person and learn to transform selfish desires into cooperative union.

Within a context of separation and return, Juno encourages us to take the vow of "for better or worse, in sickness and health, till death us do part." She brings the wisdom that conscious relationship is a path to spiritual enlightenment, and the knowledge that relationships allow us to perfect and complete ourselves.

In today's world, Juno is also a symbol for the plight of battered and powerless wives and minorities; for the psychological complexes of love-addiction and codependency; for the rise in divorce rates as people are driven to release unmeaningful relationships; and for the re-definition of traditional relationships in the face of feminism and of gay and lesbian coupling.

To sum up, Juno is the archetype of the wife and partner who maintains her marital commitment to her husband in the face of conflict and struggle. In the birth chart she, along with other chart factors such as the Seventh House, represents your capacity for meaningful committed relationships, your attitude toward such relationships, and the type of relationship experiences that you need in order to feel fulfilled. She represents both what you need and what you attract, and she also signifies the ways in which you act out your disappointment over broken unions. These relationships are usually romantic in nature, but may sometimes assume other forms such as business, professional or creative partnerships.

If you are in a relationship, you may want also to determine the element of your partner's Juno. In general, fire signs are most compatible with air signs, while earth and water seem to form a harmonious pair. However, if you and your partner's Juno's are placed in challenging elements (for example, fire and water), the relationship is still workable. It simply means that you will have to make more of an effort to understand each other's needs.

Juno in Your Chart

Juno's Zodiacal Sign
The sign that Juno was in when you were born describes what you are seeking in a long-term sexual partnership such as marriage, or, by extension, in a business partnership or enduring friendship. It can give clues about your most likely relationship problems, and can suggest ways to make your style of relating work more harmoniously for you.

Juno in Virgo
Your one-to-one partnerships tend to have a lot to do with work, responsibility and daily functioning the world. You and your partner very likely work as a team, cooperating on the practical matters of life. Each of you has clearly defined duties, and analyzing day-to day functioning and adjusting daily habit patterns with your partner contribute to your sense of a working relationship. The result can be a tidy domesticity that brings prosperity and contentment.

Alternatively, you may see your relationship as primarily one of service to your partner. This could lead to an unsatisfying master-slave relationship rather than the partnership of equals that is the proper expression of Juno. Being a servant to your partner can bring happiness, however, if there is a loving reciprocity of service and your partner is also in some way a servant to you. Whenever you find yourself subordinating your needs to those of your partner, remember that the partnership will not be truly satisfying to either of you if your own needs go unsatisfied. Asserting your needs in a quiet and dignified way is actually a higher form of service, one that brings more truth and purity into your relationship. Being a servant in the truest sense means not just taking care of your partner's practical needs, but offering up to your partner a self that is happy, whole and fully alive.

As in the case of Juno in Pisces, you seek perfection and purity in your relationships and have high standards in your interactions with others. When you feel that your standards are not being met, you may become critical, faultfinding, and compulsive with your partner. Remember that relationships, like the people who form them, are by necessity flawed and imperfect, and it is the imperfections that give the opportunities for growth. Fortunately, this placement of Juno gives you the patience and diligence to do work on your relationship, and thereby approach the simple and unassuming perfection and purity that are the special gifts of the highly developed Virgo.

You might think that Juno, the asteroid of relationships, would be restricted in this sign of the Virgin. True, some with Juno in Virgo may feel quite complete without a long-term relationship, or may be so choosy that no potential partner seems good enough. Remember, however, that though the term "virgin" today means unmarried, originally it meant simply "whole and complete in oneself." When Juno in Virgo joins two people in partnership, they must still remain very much separate and distinct individuals. When those with this placement work to achieve wholeness and completeness in themselves, they can relate to another in the truly equal partnership that is Juno's ideal.

The House that Juno Occupies
In the birth chart, Juno's house position shows where or in what department of life you will experience your most significant relationship interactions.

Juno in the Tenth House
Your most important committed relationships tend to focus on career, professional activities, and status. You and your partner may work together professionally, or the relationship may further your or your partner's career. Through the partnership, one of you may gain social status, or you may become well-known as a couple. Your relationship may even be on public display, providing a role-model for others to emulate. A prime example of this is the political couple.

This placement can also signify the person who "marries" his or her career. Because Juno rules those who are disempowered, the career may be involved in defending the rights of the oppressed: for example, battered women, abused children, minorities, and the disabled. It's also possible that you have a professional connection with Juno-ruled areas like childbirth or making yourself or others charming and glamorous.

The Aspects that Juno Makes
Juno's aspects to other planets and asteroids indicate how her issues of attracting and keeping long-term relationships fit in with your other drives, as, for example, for self-expression, communication, creativity or the search for meaning in life.

Juno conjunct the Sun. Very strong influence.
Juno, archetype of the wife and partner, unites with the symbol of your basic identity and conscious purpose.


An important part of your life revolves around developing meaningful, committed long-term partnerships. Depending on other factors, such relationships may be easy or difficult, but they are an inescapable part of your life.

When Juno and the Sun are relating harmoniously, your partnerships tend to enhance the fulfillment of your life goals. Committed to your significant other, you feel merged or joined. You have a gift for developing intimacy and rapport in your relationship, and feel that together you make a team. Your partnership is able to stay in balance because you know how to maintain a sense of your own individuality.

Marie Curie provides an example of what someone with this aspect can accomplish. With Juno conjunct the Sun in Scorpio in the Eighth House, she had a fruitful collaboration with her husband, Pierre, to do important scientific work, which included the discovery of radioactivity.

When Juno and the Sun are relating stressfully, your life may instead revolve around a conflict between your need for a long-term committed relationship on the one hand, and your need for individuality and creative self-expression on the other. Getting stuck at one pole, you may feel that you are nothing without a partner, and may base your whole identity on having a relationship. Getting stuck at the other pole, you may expend much energy trying to push the relationship away. With this aspect, relationship is central to your life purpose. To achieve harmony in it, you may need to overcome obstacles such as jealousy, mistrust, infidelity, betrayal, and power struggles with the partner.

While your relationship may sometimes seem opposed to your own needs, it offers an essential experience that will make you a more complete and whole individual. Just as Juno took periodic retreats from her husband, you may feel the ebb and flow of separation and coming back together as you make a renewed effort to solve your problems. Even if a significant relationship does not work out in the end, you will most likely attract a new partner with whom to continue your learning process.

Juno-Sun individuals often select partners who embody the solar archetype. You may experience your partner as strong, self-assured, magnetic and magnanimous, a center of energy whose light shines forth on others. If these energies are not well- integrated within you, however, the telling symptom may be your attracting a partner who is egocentric, grandiose, and dominating. To experience the bright side of a solar partner, you need to look at how Juno and Sun energies combine within yourself.

To further understand this important aspect, we suggest that you re-read the story of Juno. As you do so, you may find that some of its other themes are also reflected in your life experience.

Juno opposition the Moon. Very strong influence.
Juno, the archetype of the wife or partner, combines with the symbol of emotional responsiveness.


This aspect mixes Juno's concern for meaningful relationships on the one hand with lunar matters such as feelings, daily habit patterns, and your most basic sense of security and belonging. The fulfillment of your emotional needs is more than usually intertwined with having a meaningful long-term relationship. More than most people, you want a partnership in which you feel a secure sense of belonging. Creating a home and family may be an important way of meeting this need.

Once you feel emotionally safe, you are able to express an unusual degree of sensitivity and empathy toward your significant other. In the course of understanding, supporting and nurturing your partner, you may find yourself tuning into his or her unconscious, and fulfilling needs of which your partner may not even be consciously aware.

More than for most people, your partnerships tend to become identified with the early relationship that you had with your mother. Very likely, you will pair off with a partner who resembles your mother, and this initial imprint may affect your approach to, and beliefs about, all human relationships.

When Juno and the Moon are relating stressfully, your need for a long-term committed relationship may come into conflict with your need for nurturing and emotional security. There may be a tendency to project unmet childhood needs onto your partner, or to have your partner do this with you. Feelings of insecurity in either of you may bring out possessiveness, jealousy, dependency, or emotional manipulation. Either or both of you may feel emotionally needy, and a fear of being engulfed may lead a partner to withdraw as a strategy for emotional self-protection.

One Juno issue that is at odds with the Moon is that of equality in a relationship. With your strong Juno-Moon connection, there is a danger that dependency issues could compromise the equality needed in a truly adult partnership. To achieve the strong partnership that is so essential to your emotional well-being, you will need to face up to these dependency issues and move beyond them.

Besides yourself being lunar in your Juno-type relationships, you tend to seek long-term partners who have a lunar quality. These are strongly feeling types who may have the Moon or the sign Cancer or some other water sign prominent in their charts. You may experience such a partner as sympathetic, sensitive or nurturing, or in some way parental. This can feel sometimes smothering and sometimes comforting.

At other times you may find yourself playing the parent to a partner. You may find your partner dependent or moody or otherwise childish, but may also be nourished by a partner's strong emotional energies.

Since Juno-type relationships are such a strong factor in your emotional makeup, still other themes from the Juno myth may well repeat themselves in your life. We suggest that you re-read the story of Juno. As you do so, you may find that many of the themes discussed there are reflected in your life experience.

Juno sextile Neptune. Moderate influence.
Juno's capacity for meaningful relationships combines with Neptune's urge to transcend individual boundaries and merge with the greater whole.


Neptune's psychic sensitivity gives you the potential to relate to your partner with empathy, compassion, and even telepathic rapport. Highly idealistic about marriage, you wish to have a mystical union with your partner and may want to dedicate this union to a cause. It's also possible that you will work with a long-term partner in spiritual, healing or artistic pursuits.

Before the modern age, people sought to fulfill their spiritual need through a relationship to Deity. Now many ask human relationships to fill this need. With this Juno- Neptune tie, you may be one of those who see romantic love as a path to salvation. The problem with this is that human partners are not God or the Goddess. They can neither save us nor make us happy. When you place unrealistic expectations on your partner, you invite disillusionment. The way to be happy with your all-too-human partner is to look to the Infinite to fulfill your spiritual hunger.

A similar Juno-Neptune way of relating is to try to save or rescue the partner. You may attract partners who are addicted, have been victimized, or who have emotional or physical problems. Helping others in need may do real good and bring you a sense of fulfillment, but if you take on a long-term partnership to do so, you need to ask yourself why you are doing it. Do you feel truly strong and capable yourself? Are you projecting your own sense of weakness onto another? To continue feeling needed, do you have an unconscious investment in prolonging your partner's dependency on you? If you embark on a savior-victim relationship, you run the risk of disappointment when your partner rejects your efforts or does not improve in the way that you want. At some point you will realize that you are actually draining your own energies and only perpetuating your partner's problem. If you find yourself in the savior-victim trap, you are not alone. There is a whole co-dependency support movement out there to help.

There have of course been successful, fulfilling and really noble partnerships where one partner helps the other who is disabled in some way. In these cases the disability is usually some physical one and not an addiction. The important thing in a partnership that is truly a marriage of human beings is that there be some kind of equality. If one partner is unable to contribute in some area, he or she makes up for it in another, so that both partners are bringing roughly the same amount of energy to the relationship.

With a Juno-Neptune aspect it's also possible that you are legally married, but your relationship is not psychologically a marriage. For example, your partner could be disabled to the point where there can be no equality, or you could have a heterosexual marriage to someone who is gay, or some other sort of union that is not what it seems on the outside. Such relationships are not necessarily emotionally disastrous. Some Juno-Neptune people do not need an egalitarian marriage. As long as they are not deceiving themselves, they may actually find that such unions suit them and that they are quite content.

Yet another possibility is that you project your fantasies onto your partner, expecting him or her to fulfill your desire for the white knight or golden princess. In time, when it becomes clear that your partner is not what you wished him or her to be, you become disillusioned. Though you may feel you were deceived, it was your lack of clear perception that set up the fall.

You may also attract a genuinely deceptive partner. Developing your powers of discrimination will keep you from forming deep unions with these people and playing the role of victim.

With a Juno Neptune aspect, you may attract Neptunian mystical or artistic types, or your partner may see you in this way. When all goes well, the Neptunian partner will be seen as refined, sensitive, empathetic and spiritual. If the Neptunian energies are misdirected, however, the partner can be seen as victimized, confused, helpless, or deceitful.

Juno conjunct Pluto. Strong influence.
Juno's capacity for committed relationship combines with Pluto's urge to bring about profound transformations.


Pluto's intensity means that committed partnerships tend to bring out your deepest emotions. A passionate emotional and sexual intimacy with a long-term partner may well lead you to a peak experience.

The dark side of this is that Pluto rules the underworld, and with this aspect your relationship may bring you face-to-face with the deep, unconscious, destructive parts of the psyche. Emotions such as jealousy, rage, hatred and the urge for revenge have the potential to blow your relationship apart. The best way to deal with these emotions is to accept them, forgive yourself for having them, and simply feel them fully as they arise. It helps to breathe easily and deeply, and to try to pin down their exact quality and the images that arise, possibly by dancing or painting them. It's best not to turn them into imaginary dialogues, or locate the source of blame, or solidify them into theories. If you have been wronged, that is in the past. All you can do now is figure out what your rights really are, and take action to protect them so that they are not violated again. If you can simply let your ugliest emotions be without denying them or venting them on others, they will eventually lead you to a place of compassion and forgiveness. When treated with respect, the enormous power of these demons from below becomes a source of healing and renewal. In this way, your relationships become a vehicle for profound personal transformation. With Pluto, the depth of darkness to which you can descend is an exact measure of the heights of ecstasy to which you can reach.

The issues that provoke these storms are often ones of power and control. Pluto is the god who carried Persephone off by force. You may experience violent or compulsive power struggles with your partner that lead to abuse and domination. Deep-seated resentments may exist in the relationship and continue long after the relationship has ended. Other problems may include intense jealousy or sexual frustration.

Pluto also speaks to the fear of loss, and the compulsive attachment that results. Since such fears may be based on past losses or betrayals, you may have a deep-seated mistrust of your partner, leading to intense jealousy. The way out of this trap is to remember that the tighter you hang on, the more likely you are to lose. It's really the clinging, not the loss, that causes the pain. The lesson of Pluto is that nothing is permanent, and clinging only brings suffering and sorrow. As discussed earlier, the message of the Ceres-Persephone-Pluto story is that letting go of the old enables a new and vibrant life to begin.

With a Juno Pluto aspect, you may attract intense, powerful types, or your partner may experience you in this way. When Pluto energies are working well, the other partner may be seen as fascinating and magnetic; but if they are not working well, the partner may seem suspicious, dictatorial, obsessive, or abusive.

 

Part Four:

Vesta, the Sister


After one has been nurtured, gone out into the world, found one's life partner and borne children, the time comes to turn inward to reconnect with one's spirit. In women, the Matron becomes the Crone; in the culture of India, the householder sets out on his final spiritual journey as a monk-like wanderer; and in Jungian psychology, the active person of affairs embarks on an inward journey to find the Self.

Vesta, the fourth and final of the major Olympian goddesses to give her name to an asteroid, relates to this final stage of life. Although renowned for her shining beauty, she is in fact the eldest of the Olympian gods.

Like Pallas Athene, Vesta was known as a virgin. If Pallas Athene was the pre-reproductive Maiden, Vesta could be thought of as the post-reproductive Crone. After their thirty-year term of office was up, the Vestal Virgins of Rome were allowed to marry, but they were then often beyond childbearing age. In pre-classical times, the cult of the goddess who later became Vesta included sex as a sacrament. Thus Vesta, insofar as she is sexual, represents a rarefied form of sex that transcends the procreative function and aims to achieve spiritual union rather than physical children.

Vesta was related to Jupiter as his sister. This, too, expresses her non- procreative way of relating, and the fact that she is often thought of as the prototype of the nun, whom we also call "Sister."

Besides suggesting the letter V, which points downward and inward, the astrological glyph for Vesta represents a flame burning on either a hearth or an altar. This signifies Vesta's function as keeper of the hearth fire and the temple flame, but it also points to the cultivation of the pure spark of spirit within us. Fittingly, Vesta is the brightest object in the asteroid belt.

The Myth of Vesta
To the ancient Greeks, Vesta was known as Hestia, a name derived from the word for hearth, and it appears that she had to do with the domestication of fire for human use in the home and in sacrificial offerings. As the eldest of the Olympian gods, she was the most venerated, and was always given the first sacrifices and libations. There are few stories about her deeds, and the few depictions of her show her in repose, indicating an inward, contemplative nature. She refused the marriage offers of Apollo and Poseidon, and under Zeus's protection vowed to remain a virgin forever.

In Roman mythology, Hestia became Vesta, always veiled, but known as the most beautiful of the deities. In the home she was venerated as the protectress of the hearth and its flame. In public life, she was thought of as the protectress of the state, and her priestesses were the six Vestal Virgins of Rome. Dedicated to spiritual service, the Vestals were responsible for keeping the sacred flame burning which was thought to ensure the safety of Rome. They enjoyed great prestige, but if they let the flame go out, they were whipped, and if they violated their oath of chastity during their term of office, they were punished by a public whipping, and then buried alive.

Vesta became the prototype of the medieval nun. However, several thousand years earlier in the ancient Near East, the predecessors of the Vestals tended a temple flame but also engaged in sacred sexual rites in order to bring healing and fertility to the people and the land.

The original meaning of the word "virgin" meant not "chaste," but simply "unmarried." Whereas Ceres and Juno required relationship to complete themselves, Vesta's priestesses represent an aspect of the feminine nature that is whole and complete in itself.

When the old goddess religions gave way to those of the solar gods, sexuality became divorced from spirituality, such that a woman desiring to follow a spiritual path had to remain chaste. Earlier, however, a priestess, representing the Goddess, could enter into a state of spiritual transcendence through sexual union with an partner in a manner that did not call for marriage or commitment. In the later patriarchal culture, ecstatic illumination was experienced as the descent of the spirit of the god into oneself, and the now-chaste Greek priestesses became the brides of the god Apollo in the sense that the Christian nuns became the brides of Christ.

Vesta Within Us
In the human psyche, Vesta represents the part of each person's nature that feels the urge to experience the sexual energy of Venus in a sacred manner. This may occur in several different ways.

If we are a typical product of our culture's mores, we will most likely internalize this sexual energy. We may devote ourselves to following a spiritual, religious, or meditational path, even following in priestly or monastic footsteps. Or, in our lifelong therapeutic work, we may experience this union with the Self as the process of psychological integration. In one way or another, we turn inward to attain clarity, and in this way we energize ourselves. The vision that arises when we reach the whole and self-contained core of our being then enables us to follow a vocation in which we can be of service in the world.

Vesta the virgin speaks to us of the importance of the relationship we have with ourselves. This may lead to a single lifestyle. If we are married, we may not be comfortable with the total surrender asked for in the merging with another. In Vesta's realm we may find our most satisfactory sexual encounters in being our own best lover.

Alternatively, we may hark back to the earlier cults of priestesses in the Ancient Near East, and periodically find ourselves in sexual encounters with those who pass briefly through our lives or to whom we are not married or committed. These couplings are often marked by a sense that something special, healing and sacred has occurred. To the extent that our society has no context in which to validate sexual unions that do not lead to becoming mated, we may be left with a sense of shame, guilt, and incompleteness. To free ourselves from this burden, we must understand the inherent nature of Vesta's virgins and how they unified sexuality and spirituality.

Vesta protects not only the inner flame of spirituality and sexual energy, but also other precious things that ensure the continuation of human life. As "keeper of the flame" she preserved the state and the institutions of society. She also guarded the home and hearth, including kitchens and the preparation and purity of food. Today she could be seen as a librarian, museum curator, or other sort of worker who preserves the sparks of human culture. She could also express herself in an occupation that deals with housing or food.

Through Vesta, you integrate and regenerate on inner levels so that you can then focus and dedicate yourself to work in the outer world. In the human psyche, Vesta represents the process of spiritual focus that can lead to personal integration. In a broader sense, she signifies the ability to focus on and dedicate ourselves to a particular area of life. When our focus becomes too narrow, we can sometimes feel limited and hemmed in. When our capacity to focus is obstructed, we can feel scattered. This, too, may cause us to experience limitation in the area of life represented by Vesta's sign or house position.

To sum up, Vesta is the archetype of the Sister and the Temple Priestess, whose virginity signifies her wholeness and completeness within herself. Her sign, house and aspect placements in your birth chart show how you use the basic sexual energy of Venus to deepen your relationship to yourself.

Vesta in Your Chart

Vesta's Zodiacal Sign
The zodiacal sign of Vesta in your chart suggests how you can best cultivate the spiritual flame within, and then use it in service to others. It can alert you to ways in which the intense focusing quality of Vesta can become too narrow and hence counterproductive, and it can also provide a key to exploring the spiritual qualities of sexual energy.

Vesta in Cancer
Your path of self-integration involves exploring and learning to feel comfortable with your emotions. Once you nurture yourself in this way, your path of service can be to nurture and care for others.

Fortunately, in processing emotions and feelings, you have great power to engage in long-term, concentrated focus. Just beware of this concentration becoming too single-minded, for if overdone it can lead to too much subjectivity and to becoming hypersensitive and needy.

For you, service tends to take the form of being devoted to family members, or to the human family at large. In nourishing and protecting another being, you come home to yourself and feel whole. If you have not first tended to your own emotional needs, however, you may experience a conflict between taking care of yourself and meeting the needs of your family or calling.

In your spiritual life, you may be attracted goddess-based religions that embrace the feminine side of deity, or to religions such as Judaism which emphasize devotional acts in the home. If you do church or charitable work, it may have to do with fostering children or with feeding, clothing and sheltering the poor.

To bring the sacred dimension into your sexual or other intimate relationships, you will want to feel a deep emotional bond with your partner and have him or her understand and accept the wide range of your feelings. Rituals having to do with food may also enhance this sense of sacred sharing.

The House that Vesta Occupies
Vesta's house position shows the areas of life where you are most likely to experience your desire for self-integration and your dedication to a calling. This can be a place of dedication and commitment, and also a place where you experience limitation of some sort in order to realize that commitment.

Regardless of the house where your Vesta is placed, you might also like to look at other houses that have to do with Vesta themes. The Fourth and Twelfth houses show how you withdraw into yourself to do inner work. The Tenth House signifies your dedication and your calling. The Sixth House deals with service, the Twelfth House with where you experience limitation and blockages, and the Eighth House with inner transformation and your attitudes toward sex.

Vesta in the Eighth House
With Vesta in the Eighth, you are dedicated to penetrating the great mystery of life, the source from which all energy comes and to which it returns. This may surface as an interest in psychic research, depth psychology, the occult, near-death experiences, death and dying, or sexuality.

More fundamentally, this placement of Vesta has to do with engaging your own emotional energy. You may initially feel a painful sense of emotional constriction or limitation. In doing something about it, you embark on your spiritual path. You may have intense highs and lows, causing you to master your emotions so that they do not control or overwhelm you. You are fortunate, for this placement of Vesta gives you great power to focus on these hidden realms. Once they are identified, truly felt and accepted, you will find that your emotions bring you to the Divine. In doing so, they become an immense source of power for creativity and change.

Another avenue for spiritual development and service is through deep, transformative interactions with others. This could include therapy or other institutionalized ways to help people change. In its personal form, it could mean sex. Initially feeling sexually constricted and limited, you may dedicate yourself to penetrating its mysteries. Sex becomes sacred to you, and you eventually find it a means of approaching Divine.

The Eighth House rules joint resources, and with this very self-contained asteroid here you may find it initially difficult to combine your resources with those of your partner. To keep your relationship healthy, you and your partner may find that it helps to keep at least part of your money in separate bank accounts.

The conflicts that you have over both money and sex can eventually lead to spiritual growth as you learn to let go of personal desire. Once you have contacted the inexhaustible wellsprings of energy within you, you can more easily trust life's abundance and more willingly share with others.

The Aspects that Vesta Makes
Vesta's aspects to other bodies in the solar system show how her drive to go inward and search for higher meaning either clashes with or finds an outlet through the other functions of your chart.

Vesta semisextile Venus. Slight influence.
Vesta's urge toward spirituality combines with the feminine principle of love and sexuality.


In ancient times, when sexual rites were an expression of one's spiritual devotion, the temple priestesses we associate with Vesta were one and the same with Venus's priestesses of love. One of the difficulties that people with this aspect now have is that today sexuality tends to be divorced from spirituality. Because of the negative moral and religious attitudes our culture has toward sex, you may believe that you cannot be sexual and spiritual at the same time. You may therefore repress the natural expression of your sexual urges.

It's also possible that you may have freely expressed your sexuality outside the boundaries of conventional standards and then been made to feel ashamed about it. This, too, can cause confusion over the appropriate expression of your sexuality. Or, because of prior-life memories concerning the higher purposes of sexuality, you may find it difficult or unsatisfying to participate in sexual interactions that do not include the sacred dimension.

While both goddesses in their way are concerned with sex, neither Vesta nor Venus are particularly interested in committed partnerships. The Vestal temple priestesses were not allowed to marry during their term of office, and Venus simply didn't want to. A Vesta-Venus aspect thus tends to produce sexual expression outside of legal marriage. If you are married, containing your sexuality within the marital structure may be a struggle, but to the extent that the marriage is based on spiritual foundations, fidelity will be far easier. Also, preferring to keep a sense of separateness and self-containment, you may find it difficult to surrender all of yourself to a partner. An example of this kind of Vesta-Venus interaction is Bill Clinton, who has Venus and Mars conjunct Vesta on the Ascendant.

In fact, some people with this aspect prefer to have their primary intimate relationship with the god or goddess within, as do nuns who take vows as the bride of Christ. Alternatively, as described in Jungian psychology, a woman may simply relate to the inner male known as the animus, and a man to the inner female known as the anima.

If you have given your sexuality freely, with a Vesta-Venus aspect it may be an expression of your spiritual service. Another possibility with this aspect is sublimating your sexual expression into a dedication to the arts, the creation of beauty, or a spiritual path.

This aspect can also give you a sensitive understanding of feminine psychology that leads you to work with women or participate in women's spirituality or healing groups. An example of this is Anais Nin, who had Venus conjuncts Vesta and wrote psychologically perceptive novels on the nature of women and their sexuality.

With this aspect, Vesta's desire for personal integration is linked to accepting, enjoying, and feeling comfortable with Venus's femininity. Strongly focused on the cultivation of your feminine nature, you may enjoy making yourself beautiful, not primarily for another, but for yourself.

When Vesta and Venus are in a tense relationship, dedicating yourself to your career or engaging in your spiritual practice may seem at odds with sustaining an intimate personal relationship. In the course of your life you may try one and then the other, and through trial and error eventually find the path that is right for you.

Vesta sextile Mars. Moderate influence.
Vesta's urge toward spirituality combines with Mars's masculine principle of action and assertion.


This aspect indicates that your path to self-integration involves getting in touch with and expressing the full range of your masculine energies. It enables you to use the energy and drive associated with Mars in the pursuit of your vocation and the realization of your spiritual purpose.

The combination of Mars's masculine principle and Vesta's spirituality can produce the priest who functions in traditional religious institutions. Because of the patriarchal split between spirituality and sexuality, many modern-day priests and gurus are celibate, sublimating their sexual energy into religious devotion. In like manner, you may tend to sublimate your sexual drive.

Alternatively, this combination of Mars, the warrior, and Vesta, the priestess, may produce the spiritual warrior who fights for a cause or accomplishes an important work. You may also find a spiritual path or vocation in martial arts, competitive sports, physical fitness programs or the cultivation of the physical body as in the more active and dynamic schools of yoga. An example of a Vesta-Mars conjunction is the tennis champion Billie Jean King, who crusaded for women's equality in the athletic world.

If Vesta, the virgin goddess, rules sacred sexuality, Mars rules male sexuality. Their combination brings up the image of the male priest who participated in the Goddess's sacred sexual rites. Echoing this ancient memory, you may be in tune with the sacred dimensions of sex that is not necessarily carried on within marriage. If such sexual rites are your path, you may find yourself judged by a society that does not have a context in which to place them.

Since Mars and Vesta are both associated with sexuality, this combination indicates that your sexual desires are probably strong. If the Mars energy is neither expressed nor sublimated into work or sacred sexuality, the blocked and frustrated libido may produce psychological and physical problems. These could manifest as physical or psychological impotence, lethargy, depression, the inappropriate expression of anger, sexual violence, or difficulty in taking action and following through on commitments. When you are able to use the fiery energies of Mars to propel yourself along a spiritual or vocational path, however, the results are awesome.

Vesta quincunx Saturn. Slight influence.
Vesta's urge toward spirituality combines with Saturn's urge to create order, form and discipline.


Your path to personal integration is a highly disciplined and practical one that involves tapping into the spiritual and bringing it into form.

When pursuing your spiritual path and your vocation, you show self-discipline and seriousness of purpose, and can actualize your goals and aspirations through dedication and hard work. Diligent in your efforts, you also have the patience to wait for the results. Once realized, your aspirations will be grounded in a solid and secure foundation.

You are dutiful and take your obligations seriously. You have the capacity to honor long-term commitments and follow through on them, regardless of how you are feeling personally. There may be times when your obligations to others seem to conflict with your focus on your own inner work. When your vocation and spiritual awareness are strong, however, the burdens of Saturn are lightened. When you know that discipline and hard work are part of your spiritual service, this awareness can transform mundane obligations into opportunities for discipleship.

As temple priestess, Vesta has a primary connection to the spiritual or divine. Saturn, on the other hand, sees material reality as all there is. When these energies are not skillfully integrated, you may doubt the existence of a higher spiritual reality and find it difficult to tap into that power to guide, inspire and uplift your life. Also, because Saturn rules limitations, you may go through many false starts and dead ends before you find your vocational path. With both Vesta and Saturn tending to concentrate your attention, you also run the danger of allowing your work to become the sole focus of your life.

The Vestal virgins in Roman times were punished by death if they broke their vow of chastity. This my be echoed in fears and inhibitions around the expression of your sexual urges. Because Saturn rules tradition and authority, your religious or societal conditioning may have convinced you that sex is sinful and immoral, and you may fear being punished if you break these taboos. This can lead to difficulties in experiencing intimacy and sexual or sensual pleasure. Healing can come through adopting new beliefs based on Vesta's pre-patriarchal nature, where sexuality was an expression of spiritual communion.

Vesta semisquare Pluto. Slight influence.
Vesta's urge to deepen your relationship to yourself and find an inner calling combines with the Plutonian urge to bring about profound change.


This Vesta-Pluto aspect emphasizes the transformative dimension of the spiritual path. For you, personal integration involves diving down into the deepest levels of your psyche and encountering anything and everything that you find there, including the most ugly and demonic parts of yourself. Intuitively, you know that within these seemingly destructive forces is enormous power for change and renewal. Facing these demons with respect, you make them your allies. In this way you release and purify the unconscious patterns and beliefs that create separation between you and the Divine.

Vesta gives you great power to engage in long-term, concentrated focus on this and related tasks. You may plumb inner realms through pure introspection, through the study of dreams, the penetrating analysis of the outward behavior and events that reflect the inner realms, or through the mirror of symbols in art and literature. Alternatively, life events may force you to deal with your inner demons, the worst parts of yourself and the most shattering fears. Again, Vesta gives you the focus and concentration to do so.

Once you have confronted your demons successfully, you are ready to follow your true calling. Having faced the worst in yourself, you are uniquely equipped to comfort others who are going through various sorts of hell. Your work may involve life- threatening diseases, major crises and catastrophes, or helping others face death or other kinds of profound loss. Triumphing over your worst inner demons also gives you great poise and power for other sorts of work, such as doing business or politics on a grand scale, dealing with people who have great power for good or evil, or creating art that has a devastating emotional effect. Whatever you do, it may affect large numbers of people. Pluto's penetrating, delving quality and Vesta's one-pointed focus could also suit you for scientific or other kinds of research.

Like Vesta's temple priestesses of old, you are able to engage in sexual practices that create regeneration, healing, and spiritual illumination. Another possibility is that you can sublimate your sexual energy and redirect it toward a variety of creative accomplishments. Sigmund Freud provides an interesting example of this. With Vesta conjunct Pluto, he focused his work on uncovering and healing the sexual complexes of his patients.

When the energies of Vesta and Pluto do not work well together, you could be subject to sexual obsessions and compulsions, or experience sex in connection with power, domination and control. Or a single-minded focus on dark and dangerous realms could lead to extreme, one-dimensional, obsessive and decidedly unwholesome thinking and actions. With great power to do good also comes great power to do evil. With Pluto involved, it is important to exercise discrimination and care when using Vesta's great capacity for focus and devotion.

 

Conclusion:

Taking This Report Further


Now that you have read all about your asteroids, you may wonder which of the four goddess archetypes predominates in your nature. Having just immersed yourself in the symbolism of these four great goddesses, you most likely have a feeling for which of the mythical themes has touched you the most deeply.

But what does your chart say about this? Looking back at the lists of chart positions and aspects at the beginning of this report can give you some idea of which asteroid has the strongest position in your chart. Roughly in order of importance, the main factors that give a planet or asteroid strength are:

1. Being in aspect to the Sun, Moon or Ascendant. If there is a tie, you can consider the aspect with the smallest orb to be the strongest. In order of importance, the aspects are the conjunction, opposition, square, trine and sextile. The "minor" aspects such as the quincunx, semisextile, semisquare and sesquiquadrate are only considered if they