The library · The other points and bodies

Ceres in Taurus

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

What the tradition reads

Ceres is read in modern Western practice as the chart's picture of nurture given and nurture wanted, and Taurus is the sign where both delineations consulted make that picture the most literal. Bob Marks reads Ceres in Taurus in one instruction: feed them, and generously; he adds sustained physical comfort, a long and firm massage of the shoulders and the back of the neck, as the other thing that registers here. Astrology Club calls this the earth mother figure at full strength, nurturing by protecting and keeping safe and by building solid, supportive shelter around the people and things held dear, minded toward nature and in tune with living things in all their forms; the same page ties self regard to how strongly and securely that world has been built, and reads growth where loyalty, sensuality and love hold steady. Cafe Astrology, which sorts Ceres by element rather than by twelve separate sign readings, has the earth signs nurturing through food, sustenance and practical help, which matches both accounts closely. The reading belongs to modern asteroid astrology, and Cafe Astrology notes that Ceres is an additional point rather than a standard body of a natal reading.

The story

Sicily stands behind both the goddess and the body. Wikipedia's article on the goddess records that much of Rome's grain was imported from Sicily, which later Roman mythographers described as Ceres's earthly home, and that Enna on the island held her most ancient sanctuary and was acknowledged from the end of the third century BC as her oldest and most authoritative cult centre. Her attributes listed there are the sickle, torches, the wheat sheaf, the crown of wheat stalks and the cornucopia, and the old astronomical symbol that astrology still uses is a sickle. Piazzi, observing from Palermo, chose the name for the goddess of agriculture whose earthly home and oldest temple lay in Sicily. Darkstar Astrology adds a detail from the discovery itself, reporting that Piazzi's notes put the new body on the shoulder of the bull, in Taurus, and that at discovery it stood in exact alignment with the fixed star Algol. The Taurus delineations keep to the grain and the sickle rather than the torch: fed well, sheltered solidly, and nourished by what can be touched and kept.

Written from

• Bob Marks, Ceres, Astrology Lesson 21.1, archived copy
• Astrology Club, Ceres in the Signs
• Cafe Astrology, Ceres
• Darkstar Astrology, Ceres Astrology Meaning
• Wikipedia, Ceres (mythology)
• Wikipedia, Ceres (dwarf planet)

Corpus key point:Ceres:sign:Taurus.