By Len Wallick
Shortly before 8:00 am EDT this morning, Ceres entered Aries where it will occupy the first degree of the zodiac for the next month. You read that correctly. The object designated by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) as Number One — technically, (1) Ceres, because it’s the first minor planet ever discovered — will sit on the Aries Point until Aug. 10, after which it will return to Pisces until next year. That is amazing all by itself. Concurrent circumstances surrounding the ingress are equally astonishing. But none of that beats the evident message we will now proceed to derive: For each and all of us, sharing the one thing we love most with the rest of the world is the one thing we most need to do right now.
Ceres is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was the first object discovered in that dispersed donut, hence its singular MPC distinction. The discovery date was January 1, 1801. That’s the first day, of the first month, of the first year of a new century. But it gets better.
Ceres is also the largest object in the asteroid belt. It is the only one large enough to recently be classified as a dwarf planet. It is the only dwarf planet inside the orbit of Saturn. It is almost as if the entire history of our awareness of Ceres through astronomy is leading to this one day. Then there is the myth, and beyond that, the timing.
Ceres was among the divine dozen gods and goddesses that founded the Greco-Roman Pantheon. She was the first to become estranged from it. Associated with traditions and ceremonies well developed long before that legendary alliance, she might even be the oldest deity of western civilization. The core of her defining myth is thus at the core of humanity. That would be how she responded to her greatest pain.
When her daughter, Persephone, was abducted, Ceres stood up to the power by standing firmly in her own. Yet it was ultimately her compassion alone that provided a solution. Negotiating to share what she cherished above all yielded more than our seasonal cycles and their derivative — tropical astrology. It also saved our butts.