Astrological Maundering 3: Ceres and the Asteroids

Demeter and Persephone drawn by Walter Crane (1914) from https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/demeter-persephone-greek-myth-motherhood/

One of my favourite Greek myths is the story of Demeter and Persephone (who were named Ceres and Proserpina in the Roman version). This is because the myth covers something rather missing in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the relationship between a mother and daughter. The Bible includes many stories about fathers and sons, and there are also fathers and daughters, including that great symbolic relationship between God as Father and his virgin daughter Israel. Mothers and sons are featured in the Bible too, not least, Mary and Jesus. However, mothers and daughters get scant treatment: the most famous close relationship between women is the story of Ruth and Naomi, but Ruth is Naomi’s daughter-in-law. Moses’ mother and sister are briefly mentioned together in his story when Miriam, his sister, contrives to get his mother employed as his nurse by Pharoah’s daughter who has adopted him after finding him in the bullrushes. But their relationship is not expanded upon in the text. One that is explored further, that between Herodias and her daughter Salome in the New Testament, is a story of murderous anti-heroes, and one in which Herodias uses Salome for her own ends.

The Demeter and Persephone myth represents nature and fertility in a symbolic narrative. Demeter was the Greek goddess of nature and agriculture; her name suggests that she was regarded as a great mother goddess (meter = mother). Her daughter was called Kore (‘maiden’) in her girlhood and Persephone as an adult. Kore/Persephone was another manifestation of nature’s cycle represented in a death and resurrection motif, one which is applied to several deities in the ancient world.

In the myth, Demeter and Kore are very close, so much so that Kore as she grows up is not much inclined to pay any attention to the many suitors that she attracts. Hades, the lord of the Underworld consults his brother Zeus, the chief god, as to whether it would be appropriate for him to take her forcibly. Zeus is no stranger to rape himself, so he consents. The other part of the myth that is unsettling consists of the fact that Zeus is Demeter's brother but he is also Kore's father. Hades is her uncle. But the Greek gods do not follow moral norms! Therefore, in a rare moment when Demeter takes her eyes off Kore as they are walking in the fields, Hades emerges from the Underworld, snatches Kore and takes her back with him as the ground closes back over them, making it impossible for Demeter to locate them. At first, she does not know what has happened, and she looks for Kore desperately.

Hades turns Kore into Persephone, his bride and thus the Queen of the Underworld. Demeter manages to find out where she has gone, and then her grief turns to fury. As goddess of nature, she prevents all vegetation from growing and a hungry winter settles upon the Earth. She presents an ultimatum: return my daughter or I will not allow anything to grow! This doesn’t affect the gods, but Zeus is very concerned about humanity and decides to command Hades to return Demeter’s daughter to her. Persephone has not eaten while in the Underworld due to her misery but, as she is about to leave Hades, he tricks her into eating pomegranate seeds. Anyone who eats in the Underworld is condemned to stay there in Hades’ power.

Therefore, Zeus has to broker a deal to avoid the destruction of the Earth in endless winter. Hades agrees that he will only claim his rights over Persephone for a portion of the year, and the rest of the time she can return to Demeter. The joy of their reunion is wonderful, and nature is restored, but during Persephone’s periods in the Underworld, Demeter reinforces her ban on the creativity of nature. Thus, the myth depicts the cycle of the seasons: the period that Persephone stays in the Underworld is wintertime. She is resurrected into the upper world with the advent of spring.

This myth was important in the ancient world. The famous Eleusinian mysteries (Eleusis is a city near to Athens) included what we would now call a ‘retreat’, usually of nine days, in the autumn. Those initiated in the mystery cult would contemplate the story of Demeter and Persephone as a way of reflecting on their own anticipation of death and the afterlife. The story was divided into three parts: descent, search, and ascent. The search part of the myth was a painful process, as Demeter scoured the Earth in vain. It was remembered in Rome, using the Roman names Ceres and Proserpina, as a night-time festival with candles in the month of February. This was a precursor to the Christian celebration of Candlemas, a feast of the Virgin Mary, which celebrates her presenting Jesus in the Temple at the end of her period of purification after the birth of a son (forty days). With the passing of the traditional Roman religion and the coming to power of Christianity, Ceres’ despair in the festival is replaced by Mary’s joy but, at the Presentation, Mary is warned that, one day, she too will experience the agony of losing a child.

And so, the myth of Demeter or Ceres complements the story of Mary the mother of Jesus. In both, the mothers lose and then regain their children, albeit under radically changed circumstances. While Demeter must accept her daughter as the Queen of the Underworld, Mary must come to terms with her Son as the King of Heaven. And in the case of Demeter, finally we hear about the sacred relationship between a mother and her daughter.

As a child of the 1950s, it surprised me as a lecturer to discover how strong and close the relationships of young students were with their parents. The idea that there has been a breakdown in the British family due to liberalism is, based on my experience, completely false. A considerable number of young women told me that their mother was their closest friend. I don’t think so many would have said that in my generation; there was a greater distance between children and parents then. This was partly due to social norms, and partly due to heavier workloads for those at home with the children, with fewer gadgets to help with the housework. Consequently, women born in the generations after mine are more likely to relate to the close Demeter and Persephone relationship than those who are older.

In the Greek and Roman myth world of patriarchal misrule where rape and abduction of women were norms, Demeter at least took control of her situation, and the gods were forced to listen. The one advantage of the Greek myths for women is that, on Olympus, women formed half of the council. There were six gods and six goddesses (in some versions, seven and five, respectively). So, Demeter had power over a portion of her world enabling her to rescue her daughter. Greek goddesses, as evidenced in this and many other stories featuring Hera, Athene, Artemis and the rest, were not so easy to keep down!

Ceres in Astronomy and Astrology

Ceres, a dwarf planet with underground oceans (from https://www.techexplorist.com/the-dwarf-planet-ceres-is-an-ocean-world/34385/#google_vignette)

In the late eighteenth century, a theory was put forward that would help to detect new planets in the solar system. It was called the Titius-Bode Law, named after the German astronomers who suggested it, and it theorised that each planet in the system orbited at a distance from the Sun about double the distance of the next planet inside its orbit (more precisely, from Earth outwards, double the previous one minus 0.4 of the distance between Earth and Sun). The law was successful at first, as it led to the discovery of Uranus in 1781 and then the first body to be detected in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in 1801. Uranus was unknown until then because it was too far from the sun to be observable by the naked eye, and the asteroids, although much nearer, were too small. But telescopes and a systematic search of the sky changed all that.

The naming of Uranus was logical, although its discoverer, the English astronomer Herschel, originally wanted it named after George III! The furthest planets from the sun that can be seen with the naked eye are Jupiter and Saturn. Saturn was the father of Jupiter in the Roman version of the Greek myth. Uranus, the next planet outwards after Saturn, was the father of Saturn. The first asteroid was called Ceres by its discoverer, the priest-astronomer Piazzi. He liked the name Ceres as the Roman version of the Demeter myth had Ceres’ daughter Proserpina vanishing in Sicily, where Piazzi lived. The cult of Ceres had therefore been strong in Sicily.

More asteroids were discovered as the nineteenth century went on, and it became the custom to name them after goddesses. At first, Roman names were used as they were with the planets, but eventually the number of asteroids meant that Greek names needed to be used too. Consequently, among the asteroids there is both a Ceres and a Demeter, despite the fact that the ancient Romans and Greeks regarded them as the same deity. Other asteroid goddess pairs like this include a Proserpina and a Persephone; a Juno and a Hera; an Aphrodite (the Greek equivalent of Venus); a Diana and an Artemis; a Minerva and a Pallas (another name for Athene); a Vesta and a Hestia. There are also many other asteroids with Roman or Greek goddess names. More recently, names from other cultures have begun to be used. Later, new large collections of asteroids were discovered nearer the sun (the Apollo group) and beyond Neptune (the Kuiper Belt).

The Titius-Bode Law broke down with the discovery of Neptune in 1846, as it is much closer to Uranus then the theory predicted. The planet was given the name Neptune as he was the brother of Jupiter, and after him even further out came Pluto, the other member of the three brother gods who ruled sky (Jupiter), sea (Neptune), and the underworld (Pluto, the Roman equivalent of Hades). The consequence of all this was that the solar system’s major planets are male dominated in their list of names, while the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is female dominated.

Pluto was discovered in 1930 (regarded as the ninth planet until downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006). The first person to suggest the name was an English schoolgirl, Venetia Burney from Oxford. One of my favourite pieces of misinformation is that she chose the name because of the cartoon dog in Disney’s Mickey Mouse cartoons: she was a schoolgirl, therefore she liked cartoons, etc. etc.! Actually, the Pluto character in Disney appeared a year after the discovery of Pluto, and Venetia Burney had been born into an academic family with astronomical connections and was well versed in the classics. The naming was logical. Pluto was a prominent Roman god and brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and he had a cap of invisibility: the dwarf planet Pluto is extremely difficult to see, being so small and far away. In 1978, it was found to have a moon large enough in relation to Pluto to lead astronomers to consider them as a binary system. The discoverer wanted the name Charon, the ferryman of the dead, pronounced ‘Sharon’ (unlike the Greek original pronunciation, which has a hard ‘ch’ as in Christmas). This was because his wife was known as ‘Char’ (short for Charlene)! He got his way although many astronomers wanted Persephone, the bride of Hades/Pluto, despite the fact that she already had an asteroid named after her (there are precedents for duplicates: Rhea is an asteroid and a moon of Saturn). Pluto is, of course, Ceres’ great opponent in the Roman version of the myth.

Ceres is by far the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, comprising about 40% of the matter there. It is round because of the gravitational forces at work during its formation, and so it has been designated as a dwarf planet, as has Pluto. Dwarf planets are round in shape, unlike the irregular asteroids, but they cannot be planets proper because they are not large enough to clear their orbit with their gravitational pull. Pluto is the sixteenth most massive body in the solar system (not including the Sun), with all eight planets and seven moons (including our own Moon) larger. Ceres is the thirty-second, with nine moons and six dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt more massive than Ceres but less massive than Pluto.

In the 1970s, the rise of feminism cast the asteroids into a new light from the point of view of astrology. Until then, astrology had been focussed on the planets, and the role of Pluto, discovered in 1930, was still debated. But feminist astrologers noted that, with the exception of Venus, all the classical goddesses had found themselves consigned to the erratic world of the asteroid belt. Therefore, it was quite reasonably asked whether they should be considered in astrological charts. After all, size is not an issue in astrology, which is not based on gravitational pull: little Mercury is just as important astrologically as the giant Jupiter. Therefore, in 1973 astrologer Eleanor Bach contributed to the publishing of a new asteroid ephemeris (book of tables of positions by date). The main asteroids which were considered worthy of investigation were Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Juno. The astrological meanings were fleshed out in several books, most notably the 1986 publication by Demetria George and Douglas Bloch, Asteroid Goddesses: The Mythology, Psychology, and Astrology of the Re-Emerging Feminine (a new edition was published in 2003). The title makes clear that the inclusion of the asteroids in astrology is regarded as part of a movement of rediscovery of the spiritual feminine.

I’m not sure how many asteroids are placed into horoscopes these days, but I’m guessing that it is still a minority practice. The traditional planets are easier to understand, and the more celestial bodies there are in a chart, the more difficult it is to interpret. Nevertheless, the main four asteroids have been included in some ephemerides for a few years now since Bach’s publication. The story of Demeter and Kore/Persephone, or Ceres and Proserpina, is particularly attractive and makes one want to find a place for it somewhere in the astrological canon.

My Interpretation

The planetary rulerships of signs (from https://cafeastrology.com/articles/sign-rulerships.html)

Where would Ceres and the bodies in the main asteroid belt fit into the traditional astrological scheme? First of all, consider the planets as rulers of the signs. These were decided in antiquity, from the Babylonians, handed on through the Greeks, to the Romans, and then into modern western astrology. The summer signs (summer in the northern hemisphere, at least), Leo and Cancer, are ruled by the Sun and the Moon, respectively. It makes sense for the hottest time of the year to be ruled by the Sun. Then the planets are placed in order of their speed (we now know that the faster the planet, the closer it is to the Sun): Mercury ruling the signs before Cancer and after Leo, that is, Gemini and Virgo. Venus goes another sign back before Gemini and forward after Virgo: Taurus and Libra. Likewise, Mars is ruler of Aries and Scorpio, Jupiter of Pisces and Sagittarius, and Saturn of Aquarius and Capricorn. Saturn, as the slowest of the observable planets, is an appropriate ruler for the winter signs. Saturn has been identified in astrological tradition as pertaining to the things that limit us, including sickness and old age; it stands at the outer limit of our ability to see planets with the naked eye. Paradoxically, Saturn (Greek name, Cronus) was also associated with a golden age when people lived in harmony. Perhaps limits are not always such a bad thing! Thus, the feast of Saturn, the Saturnalia around the time of the Winter Solstice, was a time of reversing the usual hierarchies and engaging in general jollity and generosity, activities which we now associate with Christmas, also at the Winter Solstice.

There is no extra room in the system for newly discovered planets, so Uranus was given the co-rulership of Aquarius with Saturn and Neptune the co-rulership of Pisces with Jupiter. This seemed to fit the traditional system well without subverting it; the rulerships in order of the planets from the Sun continued forwards from Capricorn through Aquarius and Pisces. It did not work the other way, however; that is, Uranus and Neptune did not become co-rulers of Capricorn and Sagittarius. But the original Greek god of the sky, Uranus (‘Ouranos’ means ‘heaven’ or ‘sky’ in Greek), discovered in 1781 at a time of immense social change and between the two great revolutions of the eighteenth century, made sense as the ruler of the independent, humane, and idealistic air sign Aquarius. Neptune as god of the sea needs no extra explanation as ruler of Pisces, the fishes.

The logic of this sequence was broken with the decision among some astrologers to make Pluto a co-ruler of Scorpio along with Mars. The association of Pluto with the water sign Scorpio was obvious: Scorpio is of all the signs the one associated with death and Pluto was the ruler of the Underworld and hence of the dead. Death has a sting in its tail just like the Scorpion. Yet the original rulerships of the planets were not chosen because of their affinity with signs; they were designated because of the order of the planets in the solar system. If Pluto were to follow the sequence in which Uranus and Neptune were fitted in as the co-rulers of Aquarius and Pisces, it would be the co-ruler of Aries with Mars, and not Scorpio. Admittedly, this does not seem such a good fit: in the northern hemisphere, Aries is the sign of the Spring Equinox and therefore of new life bursting forth, not of the Underworld which is rather associated with the winter periods in which the roots and bulbs lay hidden under the soil.

With the asteroids, the rulership system seems to have broken down further. It now seems to be the trend to associate each asteroid with whichever sign seems the most appropriate to the astrologer. George and Bloch assign Cancer, Virgo, and the Taurus-Scorpio polarity to Ceres. Each of these is plausibly argued: Cancer because Ceres is, above all, a mother; Virgo, because she was the goddess of agriculture and the Sun passes through Virgo at the height of the harvest (and Virgo itself is the only sign clearly related to a female person); Taurus-Scorpio reflecting the relationship of Ceres to the cycle of the death and resurrection of nature with its blooming as the Sun passes through Taurus and decline in Scorpio.

But this is all rather convoluted, and even more so when we go on to consider Vesta, Pallas, and Juno. I don’t like a system which is a free for all, depending on how people feel about the associations between the signs and planets! What’s more, the time of harvest (Virgo seems to be the favourite sign for Ceres to rule) is quite complex. In the Mediterranean region, harvests of various kinds begin in the Spring and go on to December. The original system of rulerships was straightforward and easy to learn. What if we applied it to Ceres? Ceres, and indeed the whole of the asteroid belt, lies between Mars and Jupiter. It should therefore rule a sign that comes between Scorpio and Sagittarius, in one direction, and between Aries and Pisces, in the other.

The space between Scorpio and Sagittarius immediately yields a candidate. While the traditional zodiac is of twelve constellations, astronomy recognises thirteen. The thirteenth is Ophiuchus the Snake Bearer, and it lies between Scorpio and Sagittarius on the Sun’s path through the heavens. The longest part of the path, through Virgo, approaches double the length of that through Scorpio and Ophiuchus put together. It makes sense for these two constellations to be represented as only one in the traditional zodiac; they are actually on top of one another, Ophiuchus in the north and Scorpio in the south. But this does not change the fact that there is a thirteenth constellation along the Sun’s path, in other words, in the zodiac.

Several books have been written about the possibility of Ophiuchus being the thirteenth sign. The Cambridge University site run by the astronomer David Asher divides up the ecliptic (Sun’s path) into the following portions for each constellation: Aries 24.7 degrees, Taurus 36.7, Gemini 27.8, Cancer 20.1, Leo 35.8, Virgo 43.9, Libra 23.2, Scorpio 6.6, Ophiuchus 18.6, Sagittarius 33.4, Capricorn 27.8, Aquarius 24.2, Pisces 37.0. What we can see from this is that the astrological zodiac, with its twelve equal signs of 30 degrees each, is a manageable representation of a much more uneven thirteen-constellation zodiac. Of course, thirteen signs are difficult to work with; twelve divides so easily into four elements and three qualities, with signs in the time-honoured relationships: opposite to one another (180 degrees), square (90), trine (120), and sextile (60). I don’t think it is feasible to suggest replacing one workable, ancient system with a new one that is much less pliable. Yet we cannot wholly ignore the fact that the zodiac is a more complicated system than the one with which we are familiar. And, additionally, one cannot help but notice that thirteen is a repressed number in our culture, associated with bad luck so much so that some streets were built without a number 13. It happens to be the average number of menstrual cycles through the year, another aspect of human life which has been repressed in European religious culture. Does the fear of thirteen relate to a patriarchal mindset? Does thirteen upset the neat, male-centred way of thinking which has been predominant? And does Ceres do exactly the same thing given that she is the goddess who refuses to accept the loss of her daughter to a patriarchal conspiracy?

So let's agree that Ceres and the asteroids rule Ophiuchus. Where is Ophiuchus in the zodiac? If it takes an equal share in a circle of thirteen, then it is the ninth sign of a zodiac beginning as usual with Aries, and it extends from 11 degrees 32 minutes of Scorpio to 9 degrees 14 minutes of Sagittarius. I have argued that it is not feasible to replace the twelve-sign zodiac, and so this thirteenth sign will have to sit alongside the traditional system. The rulership of Ceres and her asteroid sisters is not going to slot into the neat zodiac of twelve! Ophiuchus as the Snake Bearer is identified as representing the god Asklepios (or Aesculapius in the Roman pantheon). Asklepios was the son of Apollo and Coronis, the personification of the crow, and he became the god of medicine. The snakes he bears remain the symbols of medicine to this day. He sometimes practiced the art of resurrection, for which he became quite unpopular with Zeus. So, the connection between Asklepios and Ceres hinges on the theme of resurrection.

The boundary between the Ophiuchus, Scorpio, and Sagittarius constellations lies very close to the great black hole that is at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. The ancients did not know about it, but modern astronomers now know that it is there. The black hole itself as an astronomical phenomenon represents the creation of galaxies, the death of stars, but also (if the strange astrophysical theory of black holes is to be believed) resurrection as well. The sting of the Scorpion threatens the foot of the Snake Bearer, but the arrow of the Archer will strike the Scorpion and rescue the Snake Bearer. The point of the arrow is approximately where the centre of the galaxy lies.

Thirteen does have another special quality that should be mentioned. It is a number in the Fibonacci series, coming after 8 (the sequence starts with 0 and 1, and then each next number is the sum of the previous two, i.e. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc.). The division of one term in the Fibonacci series by the preceding term yields a notable result. As the Fibonacci series progresses, this division tends towards what is known as the ‘golden ratio’, known as ‘phi’ (it equals 1.618 to the first three in an infinite number of decimal places). The golden ratio is very important in the science of nature and also in art as it has been used by great masters in determining the dimensions of a painting (I will refer you elsewhere for the detail). It can be represented by the mathematical formula Phi – 1 = 1 / Phi. In other words, 1/1.618 = 0.618 (0.618 is the number towards which the series tends if you divide a term in the series by the one following rather than preceding).

Let's turn back to Ophiuchus, which as the ninth sign of thirteen begins after eight have been completed. In other words, the beginning of Ophiuchus is 8/13ths of the circle from the first point of Aries. 8 and 13 are consecutive terms of the Fibonacci series. While the ratio 13/8 has not yet reached the golden ratio of 1.618 (the series goes on infinitely before it does so), nevertheless it is already quite close at 1.625 and 8/13 is even closer to 0.618 at 0.615. If we apply the golden ratio to the zodiac with reference to the usual starting point at 0 degrees Aries (360 x either 1.618 or 0.618), it comes out as 12 degrees 30 minutes (to the nearest minute) Scorpio, which is in the area also occupied by Ophiuchus in the thirteen-sign zodiac, and within a degree of the beginning of this sign.

Therefore, Ophiuchus has special properties due to its ‘thirteen-ness’. Ceres has an interesting sign to rule if we place her here. But what about the other direction, between the rulerships of Mars in Aries and Jupiter in Pisces? There is no constellation between Aries and Pisces that lies on the ecliptic. We just have to conclude that, if Ceres is to be a ruler in that part of the zodiac, then she rules the dot that lies between Aries and Pisces. But this is a very important dot, as it is the first point of Aries, which the Sun crosses at the Spring Equinox (or Autumnal Equinox if you live in the southern hemisphere), the traditional origin and starting point of the whole zodiac.

And what of Pluto, Ceres’ enemy and son-in-law by force? We have mentioned that Pluto’s rulership of Scorpio did not fit into the traditional scheme. If we are now left with it because of nearly a hundred years of use, then at least we can see Ceres and Pluto face to face as associated with that part of Scorpio which is also Ophiuchus. But, in actual fact, I prefer to regard Pluto as having no rulerships at all. Hades/Pluto was ruler of the Underworld, whereas the zodiac is in the sky. The sky comes into contact with all aspects of the Earth, including the sea, but not the Underworld. For this reason, Hades was not included in the twelve gods on Olympus. Pluto therefore has no domain in the zodiac at all, although the planet itself is obviously there in the heavens. However, I do like the idea of portals to the Underworld; the ancient Greek and Roman civilisations identified several. In the zodiac, I propose the first point of Aries and the golden ratio point at 12.30 Scorpio as portals where Pluto's influence can be found. It makes sense for Pluto to be reckoned the ruler of the first point of Aries, which continues the sequence of Uranus ruling Aquarius and Neptune Pisces, but without giving Pluto the whole sign of Aries. And we are acknowledging the popular rulership of Pluto in Scorpio by giving him the golden ratio point, at least. At both of these ‘portals’, Pluto has to share the rulership with Ceres. Their struggle is written in the stars! At 12.30 Scorpio, Ceres loses her daughter Proserpina, who disappears beneath the Earth and winter begins. The Sun crosses this point on or about 5 November. At 0 Aries, with the Spring Equinox, she returns. As the traditional zodiac originates from the northern hemisphere, perhaps the southerners will forgive the bias in the northern direction!

It might be objected that Ceres is hardly in a strong position in the sign of Ophiuchus that she rules if, symbolically, Pluto has snatched her daughter at the beginning of the sign, through the portal to the Underworld at the golden ratio point. Yet, it is precisely at this point, while she is grieving, that Ceres is at her most powerful. It is what she does now that ensures she will see her daughter again, at least for the larger part of the year. She decides to take control by depriving the Earth of its growth, thus forcing the patriarchal gods to concede to her. So, Ceres as a (dwarf) planet in the chart has something to with the power of withholding and resisting, as well as the powerful maternal love that Ceres represents.

Where do the other asteroids fit into this? Well, by the logic of the system, they also rule Ophiuchus and the first point of Aries. These are the places where the spiritual feminine experiences an awakening.

Another way that the solar system, astrologically speaking, is becoming more feminine arises from the way that some astrologers are seeing a female side to planets with male names. This can be associated with the goddesses who were the mythical wives of the gods: Juno for Jupiter, Rhea for Saturn, and Gaia for Uranus. So, Jupiter’s female energy is Juno-energy, and so on. In this way, Proserpina is manifested as the female energy of Pluto. Its male energy is the Underworld, that is, all the hidden things in life that still have an influence, but its female energy is resurrection, which means the maintaining of hope for the inevitability of rebirth. Pluto keeps Proserpina in the Underworld for a time, but eventually she cannot be restrained any longer, and bursts into life, as represented in the zodiac by the first point of Aries, the moment (in the north, at least) when the Sun crosses the equator on its way into northern summer.

Summary

This is all quite complicated, so here is a summary!

-        The asteroids fit into the ancient rulership system as rulers of the constellation between Scorpio and Sagittarius (that is, Ophiuchus which, if placed in a thirteen-sign zodiac would extend from 11.32 Scorpio to 9.14 Sagittarius) and of the first point of Aries between Aries and Pisces (0 Aries).

-        As a minor planet and by far the largest of the bodies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres is the most important object which possesses these rulerships. However, they also pertain to smaller asteroids, such as Pallas, Vesta, and Juno.

-        The myth of Ceres (Demeter in Greek) is important for mother-daughter relationships, rather neglected in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and involves a myth of the seasons and a hostile encounter with Pluto (Hades in Greek).

-        Pluto as ruler of the Underworld does not rule any part of the zodiac, but the influence of this planet has particular force at the two points which are most related to Ceres (the golden ratio point, 12.30 Scorpio, and the origin point, 0 Aries).

-        The meaning of Ceres is still being developed in astrology but, on the basis of the myth, it has something to do with mother-daughter relationships, fertility and creativity, the withholding of creativity, resistance to patriarchy, and periods of growth through deprivation that lead to resurrection.