I don’t know anything about trees. Next to nothing about trees, planting trees.

Except now I live in Florida again and it’s not uncommon to buy a small tree of your choosing and planting it in your yard. Just like that. I don’t come from a green thumb family. We were city (Jewish family, wandering, Exodus, diaspora) and we love restaurants and we get our food from the supermarket. We don’t grow it. Later in life my mother had many plants, adored her plants, but in her Miami condo there was no yard and certainly no trees of her own.

I forget how I discovered it, why I thought to plug the asteroids in because I don’t usually — that my 2016 Solar Return included my Ceres Return and now I’m obsessed. What could this possibly mean? Ceres is currently transiting the first sign, Aries. If you google this placement, you’ll read that I (we) nurture by inspiring independence in others. I think this is one reason why I like to work with Libra so much. Go ahead and Google Ceres astrology. Remind yourself of the Ceres/Persephone myth. Go to astro dot com and find out where your natal Ceres is (or you can hire me and we can discuss it!).

Here are some excerpts from a Goddess Asteroid class I did back in 2013. 

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CERES is where you lost something or someone, but then you get the opportunity to… have it again, have them again. Rebirth.

Other keywords/themes: mothering/nurturing, what makes you feel nurtured, how you nurture, what you nurture, what nurtures you.

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Ceres is the mother. Ceres as the mother we had. Ceres as the mother we are (to ourselves or others). All nourishing earth mother.

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Connection to eating disorders or other “food complexes” dieting, etc… Ceres restricted food when her daughter was kidnapped. From Demetra George’s Goddess Asteroid book:  “Obsessive attachment generates the LESSON of non attachment. Ceres’ unwillingness to give Persephone the freedom of self-determination, and the equally strong attachment of Persephone to her mother unconsciously attracted Persephone’s rape and abduction.”

Me: Extreme closeness plus loss… BUT then getting the beloved back but… on a cycle… If only we could all get our loved ones returned to us even for half the year (those who have passed on).

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Possessive and loss is what my teacher said about Ceres. Goddess of Agriculture, Goddess of the Harvest. Find Ceres in your chart. YOU PROVIDE THERE. YOU PROVIDE FOR OTHERS THERE. THEY TAKE FROM YOU. YOU GIVE. YOU KEEP ON GIVING.

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And in my 8th House we find my Ceres. From my 8th House I keep giving – RESOURCES, energy. And it is regenerative.

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From Demetra George: “….there she was irresistably drawn to the lovely fragrant beauty of the hundred-bloomed narcissus. As Persephone plucked it and inhaled… the earth suddenly split open and formed a deep abyss from which emerged Pluto, God of the underworld…”

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Some may say where we have Ceres is where we feel nurtured. But I think it’s also where we nurture. And where we feel deep pain. But it’s a cycle. Also…. lessons of non-attachment. How painful it is to be attached. How painful it is to lose that attachment. What to do, what to do..

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The Ceres Return requires self-insquiry. Who am I mothering? How? Do I feel mothered? Am I being fed? Who do I feed? Am I starving? Can I be fed all year? Who are my children? Who is my mother? Who takes care of me. Who do I take care of? 

My mother died before my Saturn Return. My father was already dead. I have been alone a long time and no one took over. I was not married and am not married now. I wasn’t taken under anyone’s wing although there were people in my life “like a mother to me” but it’s not the same. To lose a parent in the 20s… – you aren’t a “kid” so legally no one is responsible for you but you, but you ARE a kid. If you are older, reading this, think about that – who you were at age 26, 27. Your mother dies and no one sends you care packages anymore. I used to get a lot of care packages. That was one of the hardest things, I remember. No more mail.

I also noticed (how could I miss it?) that Saturn is square my Moon in this Solar Return and Saturn is transiting my 4th House while in Sagittarius and… it has come to my attention that, well, I am wondering what now. 20 years after the fact, what do I need to know about this loss and my place in the world. A long time without a mother. What am I supposed to do NOW. And what do I want to do. And what has happened over all these years. Will she come back? She can’t come back, not in body. But as witches, we know quite well there are other “options” and we are not limited by the physical.

To be continued (?)…

xx