Eris in the 1st solar house. Spiral Door aspect, Quaoar and Ixion in the 9th solar house. Pluto working toward the 10th solar house. Saturn in the 5th solar house. Chiron-Nessus conjunct in the 11th solar house. Later in the year, Mars will be retrograde in the 4th solar house and Venus will be retrograde in the 6th and 5th solar houses.   Aries is the relationship house for Libra, the career house for Cancer, and the house of home and security for Capricorn. This interpretation works for Aries rising as well.

HOW WE MORPH from one stage of life, or one version of our existence, into another, is mysterious -- and easy to miss when it's happening. Many people talk about reincarnation, but I have noticed that whether we intend it or not, one incarnation is an experience of multiple lifetimes, and I think that on one level the whole theme of supposedly multiple incarnations is a metaphor for change in current lifetimes.
 
It may actually be that we're a different person every day despite the intention, quite often, to remain the same. Self-continuity is a kind of illusion, in part based on belief, in part on memory, and partly on the fact that we wake up in the same body with the same name. Yet we are continuously different, constantly in motion, and often in some degree of crisis to handle the changes. We also wake up in a different world. But something about the human mind so often tries to plaster that over.
 
I've also noticed that often we seem to have concurrent incarnations -- facets of who we are that are so vastly different from one another, incongruent, contradictory and seemingly impossible to reconcile, that we are in essence many different people contained within one. That in itself is not so strange, but one odd effect of this is when you appear in one of those forms, but cannot imagine being any other one from the viewpoint of any other. There are things we will do in our fantasies, in certain states of mind, under specific circumstances or with certain people, that we would not vaguely imagine doing at other moments, and would not want known outside those environments. When we're in fully revved mode, it's nearly impossible to feel the self that resists or denies.
 
The real issue of continuity, if you ask me, is that of opening our various compartments and integrating the many people we contain within us at once, rather than in sequence. This is called integration. That would go a long way toward addressing the alienation we feel in the world, because alienation is in truth alienation from oneself. The more we compartmentalize ourselves, the more we feel like aliens in a hostile world. And, ironically, usually the idea of compartmentalizing is to adapt to different situations without actually having to change.
 
I bring up the subject thanks to Eris, based on some research I have done on this planet that was discovered in 2005, and which has rearranged how we think about the solar system. After many thousands of discoveries, something was found that was larger than Pluto. Though the logic seems somewhat male in nature, something bigger finally got everyone's attention. It was named Xena unofficially in 05 and, after last summer's meeting of astronomers in Prague (the International Astronomical Union or IAU), it was named Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord. At the end of it all, Eris, and the earlier discoveries, Pluto and Ceres, were included in a new class of planets, and a phase of scientific, indeed, of cosmic history, began.
 
As those who work with astrology, we know the cosmic model mirrors the psyche and vice versa. Eris was discovered in your sign, and this can give you a new way to think about yourself. Imagine that there is a vortex in your mind, through which any self is possible to reach at once, or through which any may reach out toward you. Time, space, inner compartments, how you felt yesterday, who you were in a past life -- they're all mobile; all available, all equally meaningful and/or irrelevant.
 
You can go into yourself, and somehow come out anywhere, any time.
 
As long as you stay away from the opening, you can safely feel that you are the same person as you were yesterday. As you shift your awareness toward your center and allow yourself to be drawn toward that place that feels like an intense, perhaps difficult, perhaps frightening point of inner focus, you have your freedom. It's a place where any potential is available now, from which you can in a sense reach through all your selves to find the one entity they have in common. This is the being at the core of who you are who is the one doing the supposed reincarnating, changing, compartmentalizing, or whatever the case is.
 
Here is another image. Imagine your consciousness is a ball swirling down a gradually inclined cone-shaped vortex, around and around, slowly accelerating its momentum as it reaches toward the center. As the position of the ball changes, you experience yourself differently. It's all a matter of perspective, and that perspective is changing at an increasing pace. Because the process of acceleration has been gradual, and because it always looks like a long way through the chute, you may have missed the fact that it's even happening, or you did for a while. The changes within you now are too amazing to overlook, and they are starting to have some distinct effects in the physical world.
 
For one thing, a sense of mission is starting to coalesce in your life like never before. For another, you are starting to let go of your exterior identities and are relating to the world from an evermore centered place.
 
At this point you may not have the feeling that you're making actual decisions that are taking you through this experience, only taking a ride pulled by some strange form of gravity that is compelling you to transform in a particular direction -- though I trust that at a certain point not too far from now, you will recognize that you are, in fact, the one whose awareness and intelligence are guiding the process. The gravity you feel, the compelling force drawing you in spirals through the Spiral Door, is your own soul's inclination not only to grow and become, but to fully express yourself in the physical world and in ordinary consciousness.
 


Something at the core of your transition involves your original instructions. Usually on this planet, particularly in the Western world, the expression of mission supposedly takes the form of a career, but we both know that in real life, one's job and one's actual calling often have too little in common. It is the precious few who find their calling, but it's not difficult to find out why. Too many adults were trying to influence us when we were young, and we were told too many lies about how or whether we would or would not make money if we went a certain way. Jealousy often plays a factor; parents who are jealous of their children need to find a therapist, but unfortunately, they don't and we are the ones who need the help.
 
Curiosity, the most powerful force of the psyche, is usually extinguished young. That can block any natural process of discovery that would have otherwise ensued, and it eviscerates us of a potent primal force that could easily guide us forward. Then, once attachments are formed (i.e., you start doing something you don't like but at least you can eat), and patterns established, they often prove to be difficult to escape. But it happens, and it will happen for you, no matter how daunting the prospect may seem today. The result will indeed be small in contrast to the inner force that is compelling it. Eris is a reminder to allow your curiosity to burn like a hot torch, and to let the heat and light of that torch guide you.
 
You are being summoned to a new role in the world, not by outer circumstances just yet, but by a process of change so deep and so interior that there will arrive the day when you either cannot go on as you are now, or you will move effortlessly, fully, with both feet, plus heart, mind and soul, into whatever is next. You will know that point when you get there, and I can assure you that the decision will seem smaller in reality than it does when you project into the future from where you stand today. For now, your sense of mission may bear little resemblance to what you wake up and do every day.
 
That's supposed to matter, and the refreshing news is how little it does. On this point, looking at some images from the astrology will be helpful. Pluto has been transiting your 9th solar house, Sagittarius, for many years. The transition from Scorpio, your 8th solar house, occurred between 1994 and 1995, and in the years since, your sense of your own presence in the world has gradually faded into view. Gone were the confrontations, obsessions and power struggles that characterized the phase before 94/95, which indeed may have one day vanished inexplicably. Then came a long quest, what most astrologers would describe as a spiritual quest, or the slow attunement to your soul's existence.
 
The problem with becoming aware of soul is that we also become aware of something called shadow. Pluto will call attention to the shadow, and then once we see that, we get the light at the core. This can work quickly or not, consciously or not: today, we have options.
 
At first as Pluto worked its way across Sagittarius, this was going on in the background, but at a certain point, I am going to estimate around 2001, it became clear that you were definitely in touch with yourself on another level entirely, and that you existed in striking contrast to the world around you, in particular, to your parents, your family and your employer. You may have noticed you had nothing in common with your culture except that you like French fries. At that stage, the Saturn-Pluto opposition, you may have discovered that your faith could shape your life.
 
Today, Pluto is reaching the peak of its 13-year journey across Sagittarius, climaxing with its current trek across the Galactic Core. This rare and dramatic astrology, the likes of which has not been seen by humanity in centuries, changed humanity irrevocably when it occurred the last time. Education, science, revolution, the notion of human equality, basic freedoms, the defanging of the Holy Roman church: all were in their formative moments when Pluto was last on the Galactic Core. Today this event is taking place in one of the most sensitive angles of your solar chart: where the 9th solar house (ideas, soul, your concept of yourself at your most evolved, education, your sense of the wide world) meets the 10th (your outer mission, role, reputation, influence and sense of your effectiveness in the world).
 
One of my old astrology teachers, Barbara Hand Clow, commented once in a workshop that a big problem with the world as we know it is that people try to jump to the 10th house without doing the work of the 9th house. I am not talking about the ones who drop out of high school and become remarkable successes, mainly because they understand themselves and have a sense of how the world works. They probably have the 9th house down to an art. I mean the ones who skip over their inner growth and promptly set about conquering the planet; the ones who skip over ethics and take power. The ones who use morality as a weapon against the weak. Currently they are the ones in charge, and it's going to take a busload of faith, moxie and intelligence to make the world any different.
 
By early 2008, when Pluto ingresses your 10th house for the first time, your sense of movement, progress and initiative will be impossible to miss. Before then, what you are experiencing is the impulse to reach out toward a deeper reality, in a sense, your own source. If Pluto represents the soul and the Galactic Core represents something that resides 'at the core' of all existence, the result is that you are personally having this encounter on a level so deep it would normally defy all awareness: but your whole life has been building toward this for a long time.
 
Therefore, I would not suggest pushing your professional ambitions or desires, but rather, let them follow the rare process that you're going through now, and allow the mission aspect of your life to develop as a consequence of your growth and awareness.
 

Retrogrades of both Venus and Mars indicate that you and partners, or potential partners, are objects in motion, and that on the physical plane you will be going through many reshufflings of your affairs. In times of deep inner change and challenge, this is often a natural result; outer stability tends to follow inner stability (though not always). In any event, the worldly level of things suggested by Venus and Mars coincides with the awesome movements you're experiencing internally.
 
In practical terms, be open to change in your relationships, and also how you express yourself in them. The personal qualities you take for granted, whether you feel you can assert yourself, whether you expect your needs to be met, who 'makes' you feel secure, and all the rules that surround sexual desire -- all are up for rearrangement. Take none of it for granted, and be aware that behavior patterns that once seemed deep and intractable may suddenly seem superficial and completely open to change.
 
At the end of all of this, you will be ready for an entirely different kind of partner, and the seasons ahead are a time of transition from one reality to the other. In that time, it may not be good to try to settle into situations with any expectation of their being permanent. They may be, but if so, it won't be the result of your plans.
 
Mars retrograde later in the year suggests that you need to work consciously at being the source of your own security. If you are involved in a live-in relationship, or indeed any emotionally close relationship, prepare to each take responsibility for your own fears. That will not only take away the power they hold over you, it will also give you awareness that you can summon your strength by recognizing yourself as the author of your own feelings, and as the person who must be the mediator with your own past.
 
If living a life dedicated to truth and growth brings tests, this is one of them. It is true that themes like confronting the injuries and fears that we carry from the past, feeling safe and secure, and taking responsibility for our feelings are often the most meaningful. If you're willing to do that, you will likely notice that you have strikingly useful resources that help you in the process. You will discover you have talents and gifts you had never dreamed of, and that as you apply your willingness rather than your will, the cosmic forces conspire to help you on your way.
 
Usually in life, we look back and see how far we've come and gain perspective that way. We may look ahead and see how far we have to go, but often that comes with a sense of apprehension. I suggest you look forward to these four seasons with a sense of adventure, ready to let go of all that is not true and embrace all that truly is.


ARIES
For more information about your relationships, please see Libra. This will give you an idea what is happening for those closest to you, and how they may experience you. For more information about your career, please see Capricorn. You can consider this an alternative take on your professional life, as it's an assessment of your 10th house. For more information about the home and security angle of your chart, please see Cancer. This will give you greater detail on themes just covered in this horoscope that relate to home and security. For an explanation of the houses, please see this article.