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Eris, the Greek goddess of discord, is often credited with starting the Trojan War. Alone among the Olympians, she was excluded from the arranged marriage of Peleus and Thetis because of her troublemaking inclinations. But exclusion was no deterrent. She tossed the Apple of Discord into the party, a golden apple inscribed καλλίστῃ (kallistei) – "to the fairest" – provoking Hera, Athena and Aphrodite to begin quarreling about the appropriate recipient. Paris, Prince of Troy, was appointed judge. Each of the three goddesses immediately attempted to bribe him. Hera offered political power; Athena promised skill in battle; and Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. While Greek culture placed a greater emphasis on prowess and power (Athena and Hera's domain), Paris chose to award the apple to Aphrodite (= Venus), thereby dooming his city, which was destroyed in the war that ensued when the Spartans demanded the return of their queen.
This is the defining mythological link between the two goddesses which, it could be argued, was already determined in advance in the choice of both the apple – apples being sacred to Aphrodite – and its inscription, Aphrodite being the goddess of beauty, truth, harmony and proportion (among other things). The golden apple encapsulates the essential resonance between Eris and Venus, highlighting the central importance of the number 5 to both energies.
Eris (strife personified) is depicted as a goddess with winged shoulders and feet. Vase painting c575-525 BCE in the collection of Antikensammlung, Berlin, Germany
Venus/Aphrodite is also associated with love, creativity, emotional processes and attitudes, how we give value and meaning to life experience, and social attitudes and behaviour. In essence, as Robert Hand points out, Venus embodies the archetype of attraction; a force which arises from within entities as an expression of their intrinsic nature, and bonds them because they are sympathetic, complementary and synergistic, not because some external containing or coercive force has brought them together.
Both the Aztecs and Babylonians saw the planet in dual aspect. As the morning star, Venus was regarded as benefic, but as the evening star, malefic, representing what we might now call the Jungian shadow. Interestingly, in medieval astrology the attribution was reversed. The morning star – Lucifer, the light-bringer (Gr. Eosphorus) – came to be seen as malefic and the evening star (Vesper Gr. Hesperus) as heralding good fortune. Lucifer, of course, has been blamed for a fair amount of mischief in his time.
In psychodynamic terms, applying the idea of complementarity and synergy to the Lucifer-Vesper duality is nothing less than the integration of the shadow elements of psyche to allow the complete and authentic creative expression of the individual. Independent, autonomous, individual – all keywords which resonate with the number 5, and with Eris.
The deeper meaning of Eris is explored in some length in another article in this section, Eristically Speaking, and highlighted in the themes underpinning the proving of Mt Roineabhal Summit Rock essence which was undertaken at the time of Eris's discovery announcement. The essence chart featured Eris conjunct the IC. The issues with individual and cultural identity which featured in the proving resonate strongly with keywords for the planet identified by astrologers such as Roy MacKinnon, Zane Stein and Philip Sedgwick.
DIS-CORD (lit. "hearts apart") is not just about strife. Fundamentally, it's about dissimilar resonance, and relates to breaking the ties of conditioning – the customs, rules and laws that bind us societally and culturally as well as individually. It's about the challenge to think for ourselves and to REAL-ise our deeper "truer" natures (ie. our genius, which relates to the 5-series aspects – the 72° angular relationship – in astrology). It's about creating the dissonances in belief systems that shake them at their foundations and wake us up to the full extent of our being and our connection to the entirety of existence.
Breaking ties, customs, rules and laws that bind us societally, culturally and individually might seem to be superficially anti-Venusian, but look closer. Mostly such ties are imposed constraints rather than growing naturally out of fundamental inner sympathy and synergy. Externalised containing and coercive forces have more to do with Mars, Saturn and Pluto than Venus-Eris. They lack the necessary inner authority and autonomy.
Or our bindings can arise out of a sea of mutual projections which, although giving a temporary appearance of genuine complementarity, are in reality no such thing. Venus has nothing to do with the idealised and romanticised projections of positive aspects of shadow so often mistaken for "true" love and connection between individuals. Her domain is the force of attraction that ensures the projection returns to its owner for integration. Eris, in her Zen-style unleashing of destabilising chaos, is consequently deeply supportive of Venus's imperative, clarifying it, refining it, elevating it above the mires of projection and counter-projection, keeping it true and truthful. If this puts an altogether different perspective on the apple of your eye, then you've these energies to thank for upsetting that particular apple cart and bringing it all back home.
Discord, dissonance, differences of opinion, are not of themselves problematic. What creates the problem is the idea that "there can be only one" which is "right" (itself a projection of the individual's urge towards integration, unification, individuation, autonomy) and that there has to be a single collective consensus interpretation, so Eris and her chaotic mischief constantly undermine this perceived need for uniformity of outlook, the hegemony of the established order, and the tyranny and preciousness of ego identity along with it. She embodies cognitive dissonance, inviting us to go beyond superficial understanding to a deeper, more fundamental, more authentic level of reality which is essentially Venusian in its integrated, harmonious and fruitful nature.
In Greek mythology Eris is closely identified with Enyo, the goddess of war and consort/female counterpart/sister of Ares/Mars. (Homer doesn't even distinguish between them.) In both Greek and Roman myth, Venus/Aphrodite is also found frequently consorting with Mars/Ares, a more natural complement to her energies than his brother, her husband, the dour, ugly and humourless god of smithing, Vulcan/Hephaestos.
