Eris Blog Post 4: "ERIS CONJUNCTIONS" or "APRIL IS THE CRUELEST MONTH"

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 Eris Blog Post 4:


Eris Conjunctions, or 'April is the Cruellest Month'

~ Extract from the draft of The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot

Just when I thought I was out, covid pulled me back in and whooped my hirsute hippy arse. Anyway, amongst all the wailing, sweating, gnashing of teeth and night terrors, Eris kept on doing what Eris does - fucking shit up. While I was swigging black seed oil like it was single malt scotch, and munching enough mixed nuts to soak up all the painkillers, just about every planet, asteroid and centaur in the galaxy decided to dip into Aries (well, a few) while I was gone. Eris has been in Aries for the last 99 years, and won’t enter Taurus until June 2044, when I (and most probably you, dear reader, singular) will be food for worms. 

At the time of writing the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Chiron, and Pallas are ALL in Aries:

☉ 12 °♈︎ 38’ 50”
☽ 26 °♈︎ 25’ 13”
☿ 12 °♈︎ 04’
⚷ 12 °♈︎ 22’
⚴ 18 °♈︎ 09’

What does any of this mean? Well, firstly it means that everyone’s shit is Aries as fuck right now. On March 27th, just before Mercury entered Aries, I posted on twitter that I predicted “aggressive discord in the media”. It was a joke. I mean, we’re 4 years into the end of the world, and Putain de Merde is annihilating Ukraine while the rest of the world’s governments sit back, occasionally shake their heads, and do fuck all about it. “Discord in the media” is pretty much a given. However, the day after my tweet, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, and suddenly my opaque, ironic statement seemed like a little bit of a prophecy! I don’t think it makes me Nostradamus just yet (I don't think I want to be either - tbqh, having covid calling a brief hiatus to my journey with zodiacal releasing has probably been quite a healthy thing). 
Secondly, it means plenty of Eris conjunctions. For everyone! For anyone born between April 9th 1971 to January 26th 1976 the Sun and Mercury are bang on your natal Eris right now. For anyone born after that, chaotic conjunctions are on their way…

In Thomas Canfield’s 2010 book ‘Yankee Doodle Discord: A Walk With Planet Eris Through USA History’ he describes what he calls “The Eris Frenemy Principle”:

“As I studied the transits of Eris in American History, I came upon an interesting paradox. It was when Eris was in a cooperative aspect (sextile or trine) that Eris exhibited a major discordant influence. When Eris was in a challenging aspect (square, quincunx or opposition) then the other planet would minimize its influence. I refer to this as the Eris Frenemy Principle, and it fits with the mythology of Eris.”

Canfield goes on to state that the Frenemy principle works in the case of natal charts too, saying: “perhaps the best way to deal with cooperative Eris transits is to confront the discord”.

Amy Shapiro’s book ‘Inviting Eris to the Party: Our Provocateur in Unfair Affairs’ extrapolates further on Canfield’s work, and his theory of the "Frenemy Principle" (that aspects to Eris work the opposite way to any other planet). My own experience of studying Eris in natal charts, solar arcs, secondary progressions and transits all seems to confirm Canfield's theory too. And, as he said, it “fits the mythology”. How else would a planet named after the goddess of chaos and discord “work”?! The reason I’m mentioning this is that an Eris conjunction is not going to be “easy” or “soft”. It means Eris is going to be all up in our shit, and that it’s time to embrace the chaos. 

I’m not going to pretend that I’m great at Mundane Astrology, nor that I’ve studied past historical events when there have been Eris conjunctions. I will (he says), I just haven’t yet. I didn’t ask to write this blog, and I definitely didn’t ask to write this specific post. Before covid laid me out, I was working on a slightly more coherent piece about apples in mythology (working title: “Apples Are Fucking Evil”) which, Eris-willing, I’ll finish soon. This post wrote itself.

For a properly informed and informative exploration of the astrology of April, by properly informed and informative astrologers, I would recommend the most recent episode of Chris Brennan’s The Astrology Podcast; where he is joined by the magic(k)al Austin Coppack and the super-awesome Sam Reynolds; additionally, the extraordinary Alice Sparkly Kat has her April 2022 horoscopes up here. The whole reason for this post is to highlight a specific period of time: April 14th - April 18th.

On April 14th the Sun will be exactly conjunct Eris (24 °♈︎). Then, on the 15th we have a Full Moon in Libra (Eris is the “higher octave” or “modern ruler” of Libra. I know I should explain this, and I will do at some point, but for now you'll just have to trust me). Then, between the 17th - 18th Pallas is in exact conjunction with Eris. Pallas Athene is one of the four ‘goddess asteroids’ and, in a VERY crude summary, Pallas is about channeling Venusian sexual energy (kundalini-style) up the spine, and into the brain, in order to “give birth to creative projects” of all kinds. Pallas is about spontaneous creativity and war-like wisdom. Of course, Pallas Athene (or just plain Athena to her friends) was born out of Zeus/Jupiter’s head, is the Olympian goddess of wisdom and war, and was at the actual party where Eris threw the golden apple which started the Trojan War. I’m interested to see what the meeting of these two planetary energies looks like. As I said, I’m no expert on Mundane astrology (or any astrology tbqh), but I have a suspicion that shit could get, well, ‘chaotic’ around the 14th - 18th. I mentioned my brief dalliance with prediction earlier, and the whole Will Smith/Chris Rock debacle. There’s been some fascinating discourse on astro twitter, with people examining their natal charts and transits, which I would recommend having a look at. I did find it interesting that yesterday, as the Sun, Moon and Mercury all made a conjunction with Chiron, Smith announced his resignation from Hollywood’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, saying he'd “betrayed the trust of the Academy” and will accept “any further consequences”; which is a beautifully Chironic form of making amends, and attempting to “heal wounds”. 

For anyone who’s interested, my natal Eris is in my 4th, and there is chaos & discord aplenty in pretty much every 4th House area of my life right now, as a casual perusal of my previous blog posts will illustrate. I would be interested to hear from anyone who experiences any kind of discord, chaos, sense of exclusion, violation and/or polarisation in the fields of human experience related to the house position of their natal Eris during this time. My email is: zodiacalreleasing@gmail.com

Alternatively, you could just leave a comment here, or message me up on twitter:
 https://twitter.com/erisnotebooks 

I’m still testing positive and shall be bedbound and down, swigging more black seed oil (again - thank you Sara!), for at least another week or so, so would love to hear from you in between the night terrors and fever dreams.

Ramadan Mubarak.
#focl #fnord









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