The library · The other points and bodies

Ceres in Pisces

the dwarf planet Ceres in tropical Pisces, in modern Western asteroid astrology

What the tradition reads

Ceres is read in modern Western practice as the shape nurture takes, and in Pisces the delineations consulted read it as imagination and as unconditional welcome. Bob Marks gives imagination and fantasy as the keywords here: this placement is read as nurtured by anything imaginative, and by nearness to the sea, the sound of the surf and the smell of salt air, and he names it the placement to look for when what is wanted is an uncritical and sympathetic ear. Astrology Club calls this the figure of enchantment among the twelve, supporting others by giving them permission to hold on to their dreams, loving without conditions, and bringing new visions gently into the world; the same page has it encouraging artistic talent, harbouring a love it calls universal, taking its own nourishment from those who help it trust its own thoughts, and restored by romance, reverie and hope. Cafe Astrology, which sorts Ceres by element rather than giving twelve sign readings, has the water signs reaching first for emotional support. Cafe Astrology also notes that Ceres is an additional point some astrologers consider rather than a standard body of a reading.

The story

The rites behind this body were kept out of sight, which is the Piscean part of the history. Wikipedia's article on Proserpina records that the cult of Mother and Maiden included secret initiations and nocturnal processions by torchlight, with cult objects concealed from anyone not initiated, and that its framework of myths turned on the agricultural cycle, on seasonal death and rebirth, and on motherly care. The same page notes that in the Greek Eleusinian mysteries the daughter and the god of the underworld form a divine couple who rule there together and who receive initiates into some form of better afterlife, and that her forcible abduction, her mother's search and her temporary restoration to the world above became the subject of Roman and later art and literature. Concealment, dissolution and a promised return belong to the sign the tradition reads through the same things, and they stand behind a Ceres delineation in which the nourishment offered is imagination, patience and an ear that does not judge.

Written from

Corpus key point:Ceres:sign:Pisces.