Eros in the Eleventh House

Eros in the Eleventh House

The eleventh house is traditionally associated with groups, hopes and wishes, membership in organizations, relationships to friends and advisors and goals for the future. It has been tagged as the desire to be more than what we already are, as happens when joined to a group or association. It is also the desire to be everything we can possibly be, as reflected in what we wish and hope for. This house represents a stretching beyond the individual identity that pushes out into the lager world as a whole.

When Eros is found in the eleventh house, friendships, groups and goals take on a potent and possibly passionate quality. We may experience friends as triggers for erotic feelings, transformations or creative turning points. Whether a person with an eleventh house Eros passionately merges with a friend or that friendship inspires them to experience the erotic through another person matters little. The important point is that through friendship, the god of love awakens.

Eros in the Twelfth House

The twelfth house is a place of mystery. Isabel Hickey called it the house of drawn shades, a region where we must serve or suffer.⁵⁹ Traditionally it rules secret enemies, institutions such as prisons, hospitals and asylums and other places of generalized pain and suffering, hidden activities, exile and seclusion.

Sometimes Eros here awakens through injury, suffering or confinement. The case of the doctor and patient, alcoholic and counselor, or even bereaved brother and widow come to mind. There can even be an erotic relationship between criminal and the officer of the law, as in the archetypal relationship between the brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes and his equally genius archenemy, Professor Moriarty. These kinds of unions make short work of the traditionally acceptable and they may embody an extreme bitterness, yet their potential for transform is infinite. The very taboo and suffering quality seems to make them all the more potent.

Eros in Aspect to the Natal Planets
The madness of being in love clearly shows many characteristics of soul activity: interference with plans and projects, long periods of time spent in daydream and reverie, projection of ideal fantasies onto the loved person…confusion about personal goals and values, a weakening of willpower—all of these reveal an activation of the deeper strata of the soul.

--Thomas Moore ⁶⁰
The aspects link the planets, points and angles in the natal chart creating an indivisible bond between them. They consist of the angular division of a circle, 360 degrees, into different sized pieces of pie. Some of the divisions form stronger or more harmonious links than others, although the vital point is that they are linked at all.

One way of viewing the aspects between Eros and the other bodies in the chart is to consider that Eros is holding a festivity and the other planets the guests. How would Venus enjoy a feast with Eros? How would Saturn? Would he dive in or nibble the edges? Would he simply lose his appetite altogether? Each planet has a different orientation towards the experience of Eros. Each will taste, digest, assimilate or reject that experience in different ways. Whether it inspires arousal or repulsion, a connection by aspect to Eros will have its effect.

Aspects between planets bond them for better or worse. Usually it is a unique combination of both. If we have a grand cross between Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter,⁶¹ we only have to evoke one of the planets to activate them all. If we assert ourselves against a threatening situation (mars) we will automatically evoke the containment or authority of Saturn, the expansive enthusiasm of Jupiter and Venus’s desire to create harmony or extract value. We can not do one without the others when they link by aspect.

This sheds light on the effects of any unaspected planets in the chart. If Mars is unaspected, the act of assertion may evoke nothing but the aggression itself. It may function in isolation because it has no links with the other bodies. Once awakened, it may be hard to integrate any self or external control (Saturn), any arbitration or diplomacy (Venus), or any sense of meaning or purpose (Jupiter). The pure and possibly raw aggression may be one big event all to itself with nothing to modify the energy in any way.

The nature of the aspect, whether it be a trine, square, inconjunct or opposition, holds some significance yet it is more important to first established if there is a connection of any kind, and what that connection may represent. If the Moon aspects Mars, their will be an ignition of the feeling nature quite different from the Moon in aspects to Neptune. It matters little if the aspect is so called soft or hard, good or bad. There are differences certainly, yet the primary signification of the planets being connected to each other remains unchanged. This holds especially true with the transits of the outer planets. A sextile from transiting Pluto can coincide with every bit as profound an emotional experience as a square or opposition. It matters more that one is being touched by the god and less from what angle that god is doing the touching.

With that in mind for Eros, the conjunction and opposition are the most consequential in the natal chart, although the ‘lesser’ aspects should be considered and evaluated as well. As far as orbs go, use what works best and what brings the most consistent and reliable results. A larger orb may be preferable for the conjunctions and oppositions, perhaps up to 10 or even 12 degrees when involving the Sun or Moon, with progressively tighter orbs for the square, trine, and tighter still for the sextile and inconjuncts. The minor aspects would want orbs of no less than 1.5 to 2 degrees, the parallel being 1.5 degrees to exact. The most important consideration to keep in mind is that if Eros, or any planet, acts like it is in aspect to another planet, even if the orb is wide, then it probably is. Results speak louder than rules.

For greater depth of information and individual delineations, please see the soon to be released text: Asteroid 433 Eros: The Astrology of Love.

Eros by Transit or Progression

“Eros remains a power beyond our social order and morality; he stalks, goads, ruins, and transforms us, and sometimes he lifts us as if on the palm of a huge hand into regions that astonish and terrify us and that we would never, otherwise, have entered. For desire appears to us from the corners of the earth or the depths of self with a force and urgency and sometimes a destructiveness so powerful we cannot help ascribing them to a god, for nothing else--no psychologizing, no moralizing--makes any sense.”⁶²

Some aspects and particular planet combinations appear to have a greater impact than others, corresponding to more specific inner and outer events. Watching the transits to and from Eros over a variety of charts is the best way to familiarize oneself with the various possible results.

If, on the other hand, the needs and wants of the figure are denied by consciousness, we will met them in the daily life as a person, place or thing. In this case, the event is often disruptive although it can also be exhilarating. This assures, one way or another, our experience of the waking archetype.

In the case of Eros, the intensity of emotions, the sensations of physical longings and the potency of desire wanting to express quite frequently manifests itself as an attraction to an enticing other. This can range from another real life human being, to a long distance or otherwise impossible contact, an idealize public figure, a creative project or set of glorified beliefs or doctrines. Most frequently, it has a human component which often makes the compulsive feelings of love merge with the desire for sexual intimacy. In this case, transits involving Eros may coincide with the appearance of a specific individual that captivates the heart and enraptures the soul.

For greater depth of information and individual delineations, please see the soon to be released text: Asteroid 433 Eros: The Astrology of Love.