I have heard over the years that the number ten is ruled by the Sun. If you use Tarot as I do, then ten is the Wheel Of Fortune and that card is seen by some as being ruled by Saturn. Or Uranus. Or Pluto. It’s going to depend on which deck you are using if it’s been worked into the art or which author you are reading. A lot of numerology books stumble through the tens because of the zero so they mumble something about the meaning being “more spiritual” or something else that reeks of “I don’t know, now let’s get through this number quickly to move on to Master 11”
After several years of half-arsed thinking about it and almost a year of full-arse thinking on the subject, I am starting to look at the 10/1 energy pattern as being ruled by Eris.
Let’s look at some of the things that the 10/1 vibration (and The Wheel Of Fortune) symbolizes:
- Breaking ties, especially old ties
- Breaking with tradition
- Upheaval
- Sudden rise or fall of fortune – fortune not necessarily being money but most definitely luck or success
- Events coming out of left field, whether good or bad
- Unconventional ideas that can bring breakthroughs or open a can of worms
- Discord in the environment whether by events or people
- Situations or people that come from out of nowhere, happen too quickly or forcefully to be stopped, leaving chaos and mess in their wake, and ending/disappearing just as soon as they came.
- Unexpected choices that no one wants to make, conversations no one wants to have – uncomfortable and discordant stuff that just shows up at your door that needs to be dealt with NOW
Let’s look at Eris. For those of you who don’t who Eris/Discordia is, she is Aries/Mars’s sister/companion and she is as much a bag of kittens as her brother. In mythology, Eris is best known for having the last laugh when she was not invited to a wedding feast to celebrate the marriage of Thetis and Peleus. For some reason, they didn’t want the goddess of strife and chaos there. Hmmmm. Being a deity she was really mature and thoughtful in her response to this social faux pas. She threw a golden apple on the dining table and announced that it was for the most beautiful goddess there. Naturally, three of the goddesses felt it was for them. Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera all wanted the apple. Some poor mortal named Paris was brought forward to decide.
Each of the goddesses made him the promise of a gift if he picked them:
- Hera promised to make him lord of Europe and Asia.
- Athena promised to make him a great military leader and let him storm and plunder all over Greece.
- Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful woman in the world for a wife.
In the end, he picked Aphrodite because her promise appealed to him the most. The woman in question happened to be Helen of Troy and this choice caused the Trojan War because her husband Menelaus, King of Sparta, wasn’t at all pleased about his wife being given out as a door prize. No matter how Paris chose, the outcome would have been awful because he would have disappointed two goddesses.
The story about this terrible choice was the image chosen for The Lovers card in The Mythic Tarot, and I have pictured it here. I wouldn’t have wanted to be him in that moment. I’m sure Eris thought it was funny as hell.
Eris the planet only entered our collective consciousness in 2005. When she was discovered, scientists initially dubbed her Xena and when she was found to have a tiny moon, they called it Gabrielle. She was renamed Eris, though, and her moon was called Dysnomia. This is Eris’ daughter in mythology. Dysnomia is the demon goddess of lawlessness. They’re a fun family at summer cookouts, just ask Helen and Paris.
Eris is new to astrology and it will probably be another decade or two before she starts showing up in the regular lexicon. It took a while for astrologers to warm up to Pluto when he was discovered. Eris moves slowly and takes about 560 years to make a full revolution around the Sun. She entered the constellation of Aries in 1926 and will be there until 2048. Like Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus her influence is currently seen as largely cultural. Where it becomes personal is if she is conjunct with another planet in the natal chart or if the transits form an aspect.
Eris represents tremendous cosmic energy. She brings disruption, transformation, and chaos to certain areas of life. Regardless of where she is placed in a chart, Eris challenges traditional views on identity and self-expression. She encourages people to embrace standing out. Make it weird. It may well lead to a “journey” of self-discovery. This is a euphemistic term for identity crisis. This is a goddess of chaos. She’s not going to lead you down the path laden with rose quartz, cute festival outfits, and oracle cards. That’s not her awakening. You’re thinking of Fashionistia, Goddess of the Galleria.
Eris’s aspects will disrupt your happy relationship in progress, She leaves events lying around for you to step in and you end up questioning the societal expectations of your relationships. All of them. Not just the naked ones. You may find yourself suddenly yearning for something extremely unconventional. You may start stripping away layers and come to the realization that you’ve been living a lie. Cry it out. Blow some snot bubbles. I’ll be here when you’re done.
Like the 10/1 vibration and The Wheel Of Fortune, Eris brings unexpected and sometimes sweeping shifts to your life. They don’t just have to be to self-identity or relationships. Your career. Your education track. Where you live. Your money. All of your life can be disrupted by this energy pattern and what you’ll find is that one change begets another and another and another. Trying to stop the changes initiated by a transiting 10/1 energy pattern is like pissing in the wind. Discord will happen to you whether you like it or not. None of us can escape the turning of the wheel.
I don’t mean to make it sound negative, because it certainly doesn’t have to be. Despite legions of White Lady Life Coaches handing out infographics full of well-meaning tips on how to smile our way through a “shift”, it doesn’t change the fact that we are wired by nature to see things negatively or suspiciously. It keeps us safe. We don’t like change for a reason. We like what we know which is why when the 10/1 pattern shows up it can carry hesitation. Like a drop of water quivering on the edge of a tap, we try to stay where we are, where the normal is, but eventually, gravity takes over and that drop of water falls into the drain, just like we have to jump headlong into whatever life brings us.
While the sort of change brought on by the 10/1 vibration and The Wheel Of Fortune can feel terrible at the moment, these events generally set us free from things that have run their course. I know it sounds like a tired old cliche but we really are better for it when we come out the other side of discord and the turning of the wheel.
