Focus On: (1) Ceres

Basics

Class: C-type dwarf planet
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.60 years
Discovered: 1st January 1801, 19:49 UTC, from Palermo, Sicily, by Giuseppe Piazzi
Events at time of discovery:

• January 1 – Legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland is completed under the Act of Union 1800.
• January 3 – Toussaint Louverture triumphantly enters Santo Domingo.
• – Birth of Gijsbert Haan, Dutch-American religious reformer

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Naming information

Name origin: Roman goddess of agriculture, grain, abundance, fertility and mothers. Name means "to feed".
Mythology: The Roman version of Demeter, who oversaw the turn of the seasons.

A portion of the northern hemisphere of Ceres with neutron counting data acquired by the gamma ray and neutron detector (GRaND) instrument on NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/UCLA/ASI/INAF.

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Astrological data

Discovery degree: 23+ Taurus
Discovery nodal signature: Gemini-Sagittarius
Estimated orbital resonances: Mercury 1:19, Venus 2:15, Mars 6:13, Jupiter 13:5, Saturn 19:3, Chiron 11:1
Discovery chart details: Full lunar phase, suiting a major discovery, and Moon-Eris opposition suggestive of disruption. Ceres was within 3' of a square to Saturn retrograde in Leo. Sun trine Mars, the latter on the MC; Venus in Aquarius on the Descendant; Uranus at 1+ Libra, close to cardinal points. Lots of fixed energy about this chart, despite the Sun and Moon in cardinal signs.

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Summary and references

May relate to grain, agriculture, and food^[1]; nurturance, self-care and care for others, motherhood^[2]; receptivity to others' physical and emotional needs, nursing the sick or injured, and the details of caring for babies^[3]; growing things, plants, animals, herbs and grains^[4]; unconditional and selfless love, concern, over-protectiveness, domestic responsibilities^[5]; procreative sexuality, parental relationships, childcare and children's education, labour and productivity, adaptation and species survival^[6].

Note: Eleusis d'Urrell adds the following thoughts: "Can you imagine conquest ideology of Rome trying to encompass the round, fertile, regenerative message of the Mysteria?...Ceres did not have a Mysteria such as was enacted at Eleusis, cf Eleusinian Mysteries. That was Demeter's province. De'Meter. Dione/Meter syncretism. Ceres was certainly observed as the Plentiful, the goddess of grain. But that, in the Roman context, meant that She provided for those long, conquering marches. Rome was much more interested in the Mysteries of Mithras (bull sacrifice)."

References:
1) Amanda Painter: Food for Body and Soul
2) Alex Miller: Ceres
3) Amable: (1) Ceres
4) Martha Lang-Wescott: Basic Resources
5) TAKE Astrology: Asteroids in Astrology
6) Demetra George & Douglas Bloch: Asteroid Goddesses (Ibis Press, 2003)

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Discovery chart for (1) Ceres: 1st January 1801, 19:49 UTC, Palermo, Sicily.