Discovering Eris, Chapter Two

Le Grice traces the connection between the discoveries of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, and the emergence of the archetypal forces in the collective which the planets came to represent (Uranus – the power of the individual to establish autonomy; Neptune – the power of the individual to access the spiritual world; and Pluto – the power of the individual to control the masses, and to delve within to tap into the unconscious). When Eris was discovered in 2005, he writes, the issues dominating our consciousness were global terrorism and the potential for ecological disaster. There were ongoing wars stemming from the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, with other vast natural disasters to follow. At the root of both forces was globalization, he believes, which disenfranchised large numbers of the world’s population, and which increased our dependence on industrial development and fossil fuels, stressing the resources of planet Earth. At the discovery of Eris, we see those left out of development and the disregarded planet itself fighting back against the forces of “progress.”