ERIS THE POISONER?

I never know quite how seriously I should take my dreams. Sometimes they have a lot of meaning, and sometimes they don’t seem to have any. Certainly the strength of feeling and impression that a dream leaves can be a guide to how significant it is. Anyway, a few days ago I was dozing lightly and I was told that the new dwarf planet Eris is associated with poison.

It wasn’t a strong dream, but I can see the possible association. Eris was the goddess who mischievously threw an apple into a wedding feast to cause dissension between 3 of the goddesses there, and the resulting disharmony eventually led to the Trojan War. Having been discovered in 2003, she was recently given the status of ‘dwarf planet’, and even this process (which resulted in the demotion of Pluto) led to friction and disharmony amongst astronomers.

So she is associated with small causes, deliberately carried out, to bring about disproportionately large effects. The moment of 9/11, for example, had Eris in square to the Midheaven. And many poisons can be administered in tiny doses to bring about a person’s death. Like Polonium-210, the radioactive substance that was administered to the Russian Ivan Litvinenko in London on 1st Nov 2006, and which resulted in his death 22 days later. This poisoning didn’t just result in Litvinenko’s death, but in a major row between the UK and Russia, in which once again the Russian government’s methods and ethics are under the spotlight.

So does the astrology tell us anything? Litvinenko died at 21.21 on 23rd Nov 2006 in London UK. Eris was at 20.24 Aries, conjunct the Midheaven at 24.36 Aries. (I think that it suits Eris to be in hard angle to the Midheaven, because she does try to have a big impact.) So Eris (poison) was in the 9th House (foreign). A foreign poisoner. And square to the Russian MC at 17 Capricorn.

The chart I am using for Russia comes from Nicholas Campion’s Book of World Horoscopes. Dec 8 1991, 12.17pm, Minsk, USSR. As he says: “The formal dissolution of the Soviet Union was announced on 8 December 1991 in Minsk… This is the critical moment in the break-up of the Soviet Union, which now legally consisted only of Kazakhstan and the Kremlin. It marks the de facto end of the Soviet Union and the independence of Russia.”

This chart has Neptune (also associated with poison) at 15 Capricorn conjunct the MC at 17 Capricorn, and square to 12th House Eris (secret poisoning) at 17 Aries. The Moon is at 12 Capricorn, further strengthening the presence of Neptune-Eris in the chart. The Sun is in 8th House Sag, indicating the Russian government’s ability to engage in foreign (Sag) skulduggery (8th House). The Sun being at 15.54 Sag, Uranus (radioactivity) is moving forward by transit to square this point next year. So the transit is already active.

On the day of the poisoning, 1st Nov 2006, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter were all in Scorpio, a good placement for dirty deeds, trine to Uranus (radioactivity). More than that, Saturn, Pluto and Eris were in a Grand Trine in the Fire signs (and still are), making the poisoning an easy event to accomplish, which it seems to have been: Eris (poison), Pluto (secret, underhand), Saturn (actualisation, achievement). This Grand Trine, which has been around since September, will continue until next August, so the issue probably has a while to run yet, and we may also see further poisonings. Given the trail of evidence that radioactive poisonings leaves, the Russians would be well-advised to try another poison. However, with Saturn having recently gone retrograde, the tide is currently running against them, so it would probably be best for them to wait until April 2007, when Saturn goes Direct again, before they attempt any more foreign assassinations. Russia recently passed a law making these assassinations legal.

So the above is a case for associating Eris with poisonings. I can't say I am intuitively convinced yet, but the Eris myth and the Litvinenko affair make it seem plausible. As I wrote in my blog of 7th Oct, Eris can also be associated with assassination. And Litvinenko wasn't just poisoned, he was assassinated. So we have both meanings of the planet involved here.