Eris: The Dark Goddess of the Heart
Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus sums up the contribution made by Eris:
"The unlike is joined together,
and from the differences results the most beautiful harmony,
and all things take place by strife."
A lot of astrologers today are referring to the dwarf planet Eris as a fierce warrioress who brings about disruption and contention as she stirs things up like a trickster goddess. This is partly true.
Eris, the goddess of discord, is a warrioress. She causes discord in people who do not listen to their hearts. Dis – against; cord – heart = Going against the heart.
When we don’t act on our true desires, when we go against our heart’s longing, our energy gets discordant and distorted; then we attract people that will resonant with that distortion. That’s when we make bad decisions for ourselves and create all sorts of strife and conflict in our lives.
That’s what was happening in patriarchy when this story was written. These ancient Aryan warriors weren’t interested in ‘feeling’ what they were feeling – they’d rather fight and kill and rape and pillage than admit to their feelings or their need for love. They went with the power, wealth and glory.
Patriarchy still doesn’t want to deal with the feminine, feeling side of life. That’s why American society is raging with discord. People are listening to fear rather than to love. That’s the way patriarchy works. Fear god, fear death, fear the Other.
Eris’ discord and strife came from patriarchy’s inability to abide by the laws of the heart.
When Eris threw the golden apple that said, “for the fairest’ into the wedding party, she was testing and initiating them to change their consciousness. The context was a wedding; to be precise, an unwilling wedding on the part of the bride, Thetis. So the story is about relationships – especially the marriage relationship.
Eris was challenging those patriarchal men to answer to the truth of love. Are you marrying for power, wealth or love? The gods wouldn’t choose, so they asked a young human male, (a shepherd who was of the Earth) who he would pick. Of course he picked love and beauty rather than power, wealth or glory.
But this new and emerging patriarchy would not agree to hold love as a supreme value in their society. They believed domination, control and cruelty were the values that mattered. They chose to go to war, kill their own children, abandon their spouses and waste 10 years of their lives rather than value and honor love. (Which might have been an important social value in matriarchy.)
But have you ever wondered why Eris did this. In many fairy tales, patriarchy doesn’t invite the dark feminine to the party. She comes anyway but brings a curse instead of a blessing.
Did those patriarchal men in Homer’s story see women like Eris who make a stand as conniving and contentious? Or is Eris a patriarchal parody of a more ancient, matriarchal value? I have to think she is because I am hearing echos of parody when I hear some astrologers talking about the 3 Great Goddesses in the story as silly, air-headed women who just have to win this beauty contest. This is patriarchy’s way of denigrating the real archetypal energies they symbolize.
Hera was originally a Full Moon goddess called the Perfect One, the energy of self-reflection and growing self-knowledge. Athena was the patriarchal version of feminine wisdom (her mother, Metis, goddess of wisdom, was swallowed by Zeus, who gave birth to Athena), who came to represent the energy of strategizing and planning, rather than innate life wisdom. And Aphrodite, the goddess of Love, was the goddess of connection, love, wisdom and the body’s mysteries and pleasures. These feminine gifts are due our respect.
If we want to leave our patriarchal thinking behind, we have to see that this part of Homer’s story is deadly serious. (Well obviously. It starts the whole war!)
Eris comes and issues a challenge. The Aryan gods decline it, pushing it off on a human man. When that man chooses love over power and glory, the gods and their human counterparts go to war.
They Chose Discord.
I like to imagine that this story was a challenge by the matriarchal culture that these Aryans overran; a challenge to figure out to how to get along in a marriage between a man and woman, while on a social level, how to integrate and merge two different cultures and two different sets of values. Merged as equals. Married as equal partners. It didn’t happen.
We haven’t answered this challenge yet. Isn’t it time we did?
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