Almagest

The library · The other points and bodies

Ceres in the seventh house

the dwarf planet Ceres in the seventh house, in modern Western asteroid astrology

What the tradition reads

Ceres is read in modern Western practice as the manner of nurture given and received, and the seventh house is the one Alan Leo gives to unions, marriage and partnerships, and to individual character and humane tendencies, the house he says denotes relation itself and holds partnerships and unions of every kind, the chapter he gives it headed marriage, partnerships and enemies. Bob Marks reads Ceres in the seventh house in two directions at once: such a person either tends their partners, in marriage and in business alike, or attracts partners who do the tending. He adds the caution the house invites, that balance is the thing to aim for, since otherwise one side carries all the work and resentment follows in time. Cafe Astrology's general delineation of the point stands behind this, reading a strong need to nurture and protect, and connecting Ceres with separation and with time sharing, an arrangement between two parties rather than a single household. Among the sources consulted, only Marks's lesson delineates Ceres through the houses, so the reading here is one astrologer's rather than a settled tradition's.

The story

The myth's central marriage was arranged by others, which is the seventh house's own material. Wikipedia's article on Proserpina summarises Claudian's version, in which the unprepossessing Dis yearns for the joys of married love and fatherhood and threatens to make war on the other gods if he is left alone in Erebus; the Fates, who determine every destiny, arrange a future marriage for him in order to prevent the war, and Jupiter orders Venus to bring love to Dis in fulfilment of the prophecy. The seizure follows, and the poem ends there. The same page records that the Roman cult of Mother and Maiden named Proserpina queen of the underworld and spouse to its king, and that in the Greek Eleusinian mysteries she and the god of the underworld form a divine couple ruling there together. A contract drawn up by third parties, and a partnership that afterwards has to be lived in, is the story standing behind this placement.

Written from

Corpus key point:Ceres:house:7.