Originally published in Jan. 2017 with an update Sept. 2018 - we are moving this article up to date as of March 22 2020 for easy access relating to Mark's recent AstroScope Podcast.
Special New Introduction at the Libra-Aries Full Moon on September 24, 2018: I have chosen this time – almost 20 months since I wrote this now-clearly important article on the presidential inauguration of January 20, 2017 when transiting Eris was exactly on Donald Trump’s Sedna – to restore this information to an area of primary significance on our astrology website. The main reason is that the dramatic and devastating #metoo movement materialized around a year ago and all of this appears to be culminating now with the supposed dueling testimonies of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee – assuming they actually happen. Judge Kavanaugh (born February 12, 1965) is experiencing transiting Pluto (also stationary in the sky) on his natal Juno in a once-in-a-lifetime conjunction. This pretty much says it all from the universal-macrocosm perspective – if you understand the intrinsic meanings of Pluto and Juno. [See our Astro-Business Keys section for major themes related to Pluto and Juno.] However, in addition, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford (born November 28, 1966, according to a professional astrologer’s website) has her natal Mars in late Virgo exactly united with Judge Kavanaugh’s Mars. As in the realm of physics, very often “likes repel,” and sometimes violently, rather than attract – especially when dealing with the themes of the Red Planet. Stay tuned to this online channel for a future feature on how all of this develops in the weeks ahead. Publisher – Mark Lerner
Dateline January 28 - 29, 2017 (based on a discovery on Thursday January 19, 2017, one day before the Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States): While taking a loved one to a Pain Specialist late Thursday afternoon January 19, 2017 and looking over a Bi-Wheel chart of president-elect Trump’s natal chart as compared to the celestial bodies at the Oath of Office for the US presidency the following day, I made a shocking discovery – a planet far beyond Pluto (Eris) was making a precise conjunction to Donald Trump’s natal Sedna (another planet far beyond Pluto). [See Bi-Wheel chart at the end of this feature and look in the eighth house to see how Donald Trump’s Sedna, with the letters Sed in the Inner Wheel, at 22 degrees and 32 minutes of Aries is exactly (within 1 minute of arc or 1/60 of 1 degree of the zodiac) where transiting Eris, with the letters Eri in the Outer Wheel, is located.]
The reason this was so stunning to me is that although I have been working with the 4 main asteroids and goddess archetypes (Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta) since becoming an astrologer 44+ years ago in 1972, and incorporating the centaur-comet like celestial body Chiron (discovered in 1977) as well as including Sedna and Eris in almost all the chart work I do, I hadn’t realized that for the souls incarnating in the 1940s and 1950s that transiting Eris now and during the next couple of years is exactly where Sedna was located back in the 1940s and 1950s.
Therefore, not only is the new president, vice-president, the entire incoming four-year executive branch of government experiencing a potent Inaugural chart – with all of its own powerful celestial energies and various alignments, favorable and unfavorable from 2017 to January 2021 – but there is the added possibly “explosive condition” of the solar system’s current Eris placement precisely energizing-triggering-activating the Sedna archetypes-themes within the consciousness of now President Donald Trump.
And, in an extraordinary example of synchronicity, and because of the shock to tens of millions of Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine for president and vice-president in 2016, hoping to see the first female president ever for our 240-year-old nation, on the day after the Inauguration there was an incredible outpouring of millions of people (organized particularly by women) marching and demonstrating around the world to oppose Donald Trump’s rise to presidential power and to reassert the importance of the feminine principle throughout modern societies, cultures and civilizations.
As I see it, there is a five-fold reason why transiting Eris conjunct natal Sedna in the birth charts for hundreds of millions of people born in the 1940s and 1950s at the present time is so important:
1. These are far-away celestial bodies that represent Collective Forces which have always been influencing human beings for eons, but their archetypes and meanings have been kept largely hidden and often distorted.
2. The conjunction itself – Eris in the sky to Sedna in individual birth charts – is exceedingly rare due to the long orbits of these planets, with Sedna’s journey around the Sun taking over 11,000 years.
3. Eris and Sedna have only been recently discovered and to be able to even place them in charts, with accurate zodiacal positions, could only have occurred within this very brief, mathematically dynamic time-period in human evolution.
4. These two slow-moving planets usually impact generations rather than individuals, but their deeply profound and psychologically sensitive themes resonate with how Humanity and the Earth need to cope with thousands of years of repression of the Feminine Principle.
5. Finally, the conjunction between Sedna for Donald Trump and Eris at the Inauguration was precise, and anything in astrological analysis that is exact carries extra significance far beyond the event itself.
The short and recent history regarding the discovery of celestial bodies beyond Pluto is that several planets have been found – one of which was Sedna back in November 2003 and then Eris in January 2005, along with a couple of other far-away orbs as well. While some of these TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Objects, as astronomers sometimes refer to them) – like Makemake, Haumea, Orcus, Quaoar, Varuna, Ixion, et.al – can and may be just as significant as Sedna and Eris, for the moment it is the precision of Eris now and in the near future going back and forth over the Sedna zodiacal placements for everyone born in the 1940s and 1950s (not just President Trump and Vice-President Pence) that is both the concern and, potentially, a momentous transformation/revolution for America’s near-future and the entire Earth.
To understand this a little more deeply, it is important to understand the fundamental mythological story lines of Eris and Sedna. Eris was a goddess in ancient Greek mythology – considered to be the sister of Mars and representing strife and discord. A major reason she symbolized these disturbing qualities is that she was not invited to a wedding gathering of the couple who would later give birth to the great Greek hero Achilles. Because she was not invited, she took her revenge on the gathering by throwing a golden apple into the party – with some kind of note reading “…for the most beautiful.” This led to fighting by goddesses Athena (wisdom), Aphrodite (love) and Hera (marriage), and that tumult eventually caused (via a decision by Zeus, King of the Gods) Paris – the son of a Trojan king – to choose Aphrodite as “the most beautiful goddess,” leading to the wrath of Athena and Hera, and his kidnapping Helen (considered the most beautiful woman in the world) but who was also married to the Greek King Menelaus of Sparta. This led to the Trojan War – something that billions of people for millennia have read about and explored, in childhood stories and, in our modern era, through many films.
The myth of Sedna is far-less recognized, but equally crucial to understand. She is considered a goddess or maternal-ruler of the deep ocean in Inuit mythology of the indigenous people who have lived primarily in Alaska, Canada and Greenland. While a variety of myths are associated with her mighty presence, in a major version it is her father who behaved in a very stern and negative manner toward her and her desire to have a certain amount of freedom in choosing a marriage partner. Ultimately, when she disobeyed her father, he doomed her to a horrific submerged existence at the bottom of the ocean, but where she befriended wonderful sea-creatures like dolphins and seals, and became a vital emissary of the Life-Force of the universal Water Element on our planet.
While Eris and Sedna as far-away planets have long orbits (Eris has an orbit of around 562 years and Sedna’s highly anomalous orbit is around 11,400 years) , both of these bodies are strongly related to the feminine principle as it is active within the Collective Consciousness of Humanity. Since a good number of the themes associated with Eris and Sedna sound negative– mostly because they have been repressed from active expression for thousands of years on an Earth overwhelmingly run by autocratic male rulers and masculine-based governing principles – what the world witnessed at the vast marches on the day after the Donald Trump Inauguration was an amazingly timed release of both Eris and Sedna energies because of the precise link-up between where Eris is now in the sky (23 degrees of Aries) and where Sedna was in the sky in 1946 when President Trump was born (23 degrees of Aries).
It is important to realize that former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were both born in the summer of 1946 (like Donald Trump). Therefore, they are also experiencing the transit of Eris on their natal Sedna positions, and even though Hillary Clinton was born in late-October 1947, Eris is also very closely conjunct her natal Sedna at the present time.
It is fascinating to note that there is a fairly new series of APPs on the market that is quite popular with those people who enjoy playing games online and with their computers, iPads and mobile phones. The APPs are called Warframe – along with associated APPs – and the creators have both Sedna and Eris experiences within their games – but not, at the present time, other far-out planets beyond Pluto. Thus, somehow the potency of Sedna and Eris, and their mythological archetypes, are already reaching into the depths of young people playing with high-tech devices.
My hope is that Americans of all ages, as well as people worldwide, will start attempting to alter the powerful themes and qualities associated with Sedna and Eris in order to bring out more of their positive and redeeming life-meanings, so we can avoid any kind of future Armageddon-like conflicts on our fragile Earth and, particularly, to continue to recognize and diminish the perils of Global Warming as well as the assaults against universal women’s rights, children’s rights, health rights, and labor-environmental-consumer protection laws.
Ironically, and perhaps purposely from a higher/divine level of reasoning, had Hillary Clinton won the U.S. presidential election, the intense marches would have never happened, and therefore the significant awareness and release of these dynamic Sedna-Eris principles and qualities would never have occurred.
In the midst of all the mammoth transformative changes now affecting Humanity and all of Life on Spaceship Earth, it should also be noted that we are nearing the end of an approximate 180-year cycle of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions, that take place every 20 years, in earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn). These cycles began in 1841 and will end on December 21, 2020 when Jupiter and Saturn next unite at 0+ degrees of Aquarius.
Jupiter and Saturn mergers have been watched for several thousand years in recorded history, and we can find their astronomical conjunctions by going back to the Chaldean & Middle Eastern civilizations hundreds of years B.C. The entire cycle of Jupiter/Saturn every-20-year-conjunctions takes about 794 years, and once the Jupiter-Saturn union at 0+ degrees of Aquarius takes place in December 2020, the next approximately 180 years will see these two largest solar systemic planets merging their energy-fields in Aquarius, Gemini, and Libra.
Perhaps this is the reason that Sun-sign Geminis Donald Trump and Mike Pence have both come into power at this time – even though their astrological charts and life-destiny patterns reveal a lot of personality-soul conflicts within the area of “air expression” (thinking; ideas; words; language; communication and education). Thus, they are mere beginners – and troubled ones at that – in attempting to voice and express views that will need to be tempered, changed, and eventually re-adapted in major ways as humanity hopefully survives during the next two centuries.
[Note: There are several other, long and complex, cosmic and arcane cycles that are the cause of many upheavals affecting our lives – for example, the shift from the approximately 2,160-year Age of Pisces to the 2,160-year Age of Aquarius (during the next several hundred years and which includes the enormous battle in the last nearly 1500 years between Christianity and Islam); the departure of the 6th Ray of Idealism and Devotion (and, negatively, religious fanaticism and violence) – that has already begun in the last few centuries but which may take another couple of hundred years – in favor of the prominence of the 7th Ray of Order and Synthesis (as understood in Esoteric Psychology and Astrology); and – from the financial-social-educational-health realms, particularly caused by centuries of global warfare and male-control of resources, corporations, and governing bodies – the increasing disparity between the ultra-rich and everyone else, whether considered middle class, barely getting by or homeless, destitute and, especially now in the Middle East, people and families on the move via migration to escape enslavement or death by marauding mis-interpreters of ancient religious texts.]
Of course, both the new president and vice-president have mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, and women with whom they work and hopefully respect, but because of the behavior of particularly Donald Trump during his seemingly endless rallies and on-the-air public speeches – and what he said and how he said it (think Gemini here as it rules voice and thought) in a derogatory way about candidate Hillary Clinton as well as certain ethnic and religious groups of people in the USA and around the world – we are witnessing gigantic astro-psychic forces that we may be able to alter and transform for the Highest Good – with a lot of hard work over many years and decades, for the sake of saving Earth and its delicate environment, as well as keeping human life and the kingdoms of nature evolving in a positive way far into future.
Important: I plan to write more on this subject and will cover the above topic in forthcoming Podcasts on our Great Bear Enterprises website. I also strongly suggest your visiting Isha Lerner’s website to order Flower Essences related specifically to Eris uniting with Sedna (from a healing and revitalizing perspective) for millions of people born in the 1940s, 1950s, and eventually those born in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond. In addition, Isha Lerner’s Triple Goddess Tarot (book and tarot cards) can be another way for so many individuals to tune into what the goddesses Sedna and Eris want to teach all of us now that we have discovered them as planetary bodies within the consciousness and being of our solar systemic home in the universe.
Closing Notes for this Time: While the main theme of this article is Eris making an exceedingly rare conjunction with Sedna for President Trump’s Inauguration and its current and future ramifications, be aware of the following…Transiting Sedna is now going back and forth at the Midheaven (power line) of President Trump’s birth chart; Eris (which also has a moon named Dysnomia, meaning lawlessness, and whose name also refers to a learning disorder connected to memory problems) has been recently uniting with both Ceres and Uranus* in the sky (influencing everyone worldwide) and Eris was especially associated with Ceres and Uranus during the second-half of 2016 and therefore highly complicating the presidential election process and the outcome/aftermath; the year 2017 began with Eris exactly conjunct Ceres in the sky (Ceres, the largest asteroid, and being the main Mother Nature/Mother Earth celestial body discovered back on January 1, 1801); the transiting Sun in Aries will be conjunct Eris in the sky April 11 – 13, 2017 while the transiting Sun in Taurus will be conjunct Sedna in the sky May 15 – 17, 2017; Eris was stationary and therefore extra powerful at the time of the Inauguration; in late February, all of March, and into the beginning of April this year, radical-change agent, shock-inducing and surprise-bringer Uranus will re-unite with Eris in the sky at 23 degrees of Aries; plus, Sedna, Eris (as well as Haumea) are associated with feminine or goddess myths while Orcus, Makemake, Varuna, Quaoar, and Ixion (other TNOs or “dwarf planets” discovered beyond Pluto) are connected with male or god myths. [*The extraordinary scenes this weekend, January 28 - 29 – following the Aquarius New Moon at many airports around the USA regarding immigrants, foreigners and people who live here from abroad with Green Cards – is definitely associated with the close proximity of Eris and Uranus in the sky, as well as the recent rare conjunction and opposition by transiting Uranus to the USA natal Chiron-Juno polarity from July 4, 1776 at 21 degrees of Aries and Libra. Uranus rules revolutionary acts and behavior, as well as demonstrations against constraints and authoritarian policies, and everything associated with airplanes and air travel.]
The prominence of Sedna and Eris – with Eris impacting Sedna for everyone born in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and other generations in the decades ahead – relates most definitely to the vast stirring in America and Humanity of strongly feminine, nurturing, familial, healing, and holistic-type themes that are required for a new harmony and balance to arrive on Spaceship Earth and prevent the destruction of our beautiful planet because of thousands of years of authoritarian male-dominant governance.
Copyright 2017-2018 by Mark Lerner and Great Bear Enterprises, Ltd. All rights reserved.