#But veiling it for some reason... having fits and wreaking havoc... one of his hero friends is lamenting and he has to hide his grin

[solidaritygaming-fanblog]

(using u as my own personal soundboard rubber duck method yada yada ya if anyone wants this u can have it)

SO villain/vigilante jimmy au

like no one suspects him. why would they? it's jimmy. sweet jimmy, harmless jimmy, can barely keep himself alive jimmy. jimmy the normal guy, the civilian in this au (which I have now decided is a modern day superhero au ig)

Jimmy? a (kind of) villain? dude cries over babies and kittens and despite being afraid if spiders always asks that they get taken outside rather than killed. the man is so oblivious. he isn't even. aware that basically all of his friends are involved in the superhero life (hero, antihero, vigilante, villain or otherwise) obviously he must be protected. everyone on all sides agrees that Jim's little shop (birdie bakes? codfathers chippy? big man flowers idk dude I'm bad at names u choose) is a neutral zone. everyone has to play nice. can't break poor timmys heart after all

but canary? the harbinger if chaos? oh he's bad. the domino that sets everything in motion leaving destruction in his wake. it's not so bad, most of the time. sure there's a lot of injuries and trauma but rarely any death. except when there is. except when ur reminded that canary isn't just a prankster who likes causing property damage but someone who has a body count. someone who is truly terrifying when he wants to be. someone who's casual, friendly disarming demeanor should not EVER be mistaken for harmless.

his identity is anyone's guess really, no other villain has seen what he looks like or gotten even a hint if a name. most are too afraid to ask and the ones that aren't (or so they insist) haven't asked either. not because they're afraid of having the canary on their bad side of course they just not interested. totally that and nothing else

(they're terrified. after all, he's an unknown that everyone knows isn't all that stable. a ticking time bomb. a canary in the coalmine, that has everyone afraid they'll miss his silence until death catches up with them. no one knows anything, and it is only human nature to be afraid of the unknown)

somehow, canary is able to thwart almost any plan aimed at him. this makes him all the more terrifying. after all, the man seems to know their every move. is he a traitor? does he have access to their plans their bases, their identies? even the villains are unnerved. after all, they haven't exactly escaped unscathed either. sometimes, canary is gunning for them explicitly and many a villain has lost a base or two to the man

(the small listening devices planted in bags, within gifted potted plants, wherever, are too small to be discovered unless one is looking very, very carefully. but why would they? it's just a gift from jimmy. lovely, sweet, harmless jimmy).

and the heroes about to plan a big bust of canary's base? well they've come down with a little bit of food poisoning or smth. nothing too harsh, just enough for them to be taken out of the field. just enough time for canary to catch wind and pack up and move before anyone can prevent it. big villainous plan going up in literal flames that not only steals Ur thunder but leaves u on bed rest bc of the burns? at least jimmy gives out free stuff and a hug when ur down

(and Jimmy loves his friends, cares for them a lot. but he is a survivor and will do anything to make sure he never has to feel powerless, to feel like he is less than anyone or anything. he loves his friends but he knows they see him as less, as an outsider, as weak. as a thing that needs to be protected, rather than protected against. so the addicting rush of adrenaline from pulling of a heist, destroying a whole street, from leaving a trail of blood in his wake whenever he's feeling particularly villainous is made so much sweeter when it's done right under their noses

it's a wonderful feeling, testing the limits of your power when no one, not even you, knows where they lie - especially when they're terrified to find out how far you're willing to go)

rubber duck method! I can't wait to see this

Yes. 100 hundred percent yes.

Its just Jimmy! He would never hurt them :)

[wilddragonflying]

Wild goes full-on conspiracy theorist

EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

SERIOUSLY, EVERYTHING

AND IT STARTS

WITH THE EVANURIS AND THE FORGOTTEN ONES(IE POSSIBLY THE SCALED ONES)

This get really freaking long(like just under 3400 words long), so I’m going to put it under a cut to save your dashboards from being cluttered with my rambling

Okay so

Long ago(in a galaxy far far away), there was a land not yet called Thedas, but there was a war. Modern history has no name for this war, because it has been all but forgotten(for many reasons, one of which being it was so fucking long ago, but also racism because lbr most history is written by humans for the past couple of Ages), but it was fought between the ancient elves, led by the Evanuris, and those who would come to be known as the Forgotten Ones.

As the name implies, history has forgotten about the forgotten ones, but from the few lores mentioning them, we can conclude that they got their asses kicked and were driven from elven lands - quite possibly below ground, to become the Scaled Ones, who were seen and fought by the ancient dwarves.

Again, very little is known about the Scaled Ones, save that they were - obviously - scaled, able to see in very low levels of light, and quite stealthy; possibly a matriarchal society, as a couple of ancient dwarves managed to witness part of a ritual led by what appeared to be a female Scaled One.

Now, the Evanuris were, as explained by Solas in Trespasser, elves - but very powerful mages. They became generals during the war against the Forgotten Ones, and as time went on, they became revered more and more until they were considered gods.

They were not gods as in completely immortal and invulnerable to harm, but they - like the rest of the elves in the time before the Veil was erected - were immortal thanks to their connection to the Fade, which at the time permeated everything, rather than being kept separate.

This, quite obviously, went to every Evanuris’s head for quite some time - until, that is, Mythal was murdered.

“But!” I can hear you saying now, “Mythal was an immortal Evanuris!” Yes, yes she was - however, Solas himself says that she was murdered, and Flemeth, Mythal’s vessel(more on that later), says that Mythal was betrayed as she was betrayed.

Now, how could Mythal continue to live, even in fragments, after being murdered?

Because when she was murdered, it was her physical body that was destroyed, not her spirit. That lived on - though, I suspect, greatly weakened - and thus was able to later possess a being through that being’s connection to the Fade

Though being an Elven Goddess, one would think she would choose, you know

An elf

Now, here’s where we get to the interesting bit, where everything in just about every culture is related.

Namely, in this case, the elven history and the human history.

I’m talkin’ bout Andraste

What was her story?

Oh yeah; raised up to the level of Prophetess of the Maker(Bride of the Maker, she was called), betrayed by her human husband…

You see where I’m going with this?

Andraste=Mythal

Maferath, Andraste’s human husband=Elgar’nan, Mythal’s husband in elven lore, and one of her murderers, if Solas’s story in Trespasser is to be believed.

The Maker=One of the Forgotten Ones, and quite possibly Mythal’s lover

Oh yes, here’s where I start entering “crazy conspiracy theory” territory, but I have evidence!

Now, why was Mythal murdered, is the question? Well, here’s where we start really piecing together things from Inquisition. At one point, an elven Inquisitor has the option to ask Flemeth “why the fuck would Mythal choose you?” to which Flemeth responds with a rant, but the most important part of this rant is this: “She was betrayed, as I was betrayed, as the world was betrayed!”

We get it, lots of betrayal

Now what does this have to do with the “everything is connected” theory?

Flemeth was married to a Bann of long ago, and when she took a lover, her husband was - understandably - pissed. Flemeth and the poet she’d fallen in love with fled, and remained hidden for years, until they received word that Flemeth’s husband was dying and wanted to see his wife’s face one last time

I’d be suspicious, wouldn’t you? I mean come on, I’ve run out on the guy with someone supposedly younger than him, and I’ve been hiding from him for years; he’s dying, and now he manages to get in contact with me and wants to see my face one last time before he dies?

I don’t know about you, but I’d be thinking he wants to see my face so I can be in range of a hidden archer with a poisoned arrow, so he can have his final revenge

I wouldn’t go, is what I’m getting at, but for some reason, Flemeth went

So, apparently taking pity on the poor old Bann and believing that they couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to be caught in a trap, they went.

Spoiler alert: They were that stupid

Because as soon as they were in range, the Bann killed Flemeth’s lover and took her prisoner, trapping her in the highest room of the tallest tower of his castle, where she promptly went mad with grief and a desire for vengeance.

No points for guessing what happened next

She summoned a spirit - presumably by using blood magic or something suitably dramatic - and demanded vengeance. Here’s where I’m going to differ from the Legend of the Korcari Witches lore:

This spirit did not turn Flemeth into an abomination who then wreaked havoc on her husband and his men, slaughtering them all before vanishing into the woods to then take men prisoner and get daughters with them who would in turn take more prisoners for more daughters, and so on and so forth until some hero or other slaughtered them all - except for Flemeth.

No, what I propose instead falls more in line with what Flemeth rants about in Inquisition: Mythal, having waited for her chance to return to the mortal realm from where she had been inadvertently trapped along with the rest of the Evanuris, seized her opportunity to take a body for her own. She came into a world several centuries further along than when she had been forced to leave it, and without enough power of her own to truly possess Flemeth and take her body for herself, and so proposed an alliance: Mythal would help Flemeth get her vengeance on her traitorous husband, in return for Flemeth carrying Mythal, helping her to regain power to exact her own vengeance, for what happened to herself and the world.

Now here, “... as the world was betrayed” could mean one of two things, as I see it:

Theory 1: Mythal is referring to how the rest of the Evanuris betrayed the world they essentially ruled by allowing the people they ruled to turn other elves into slaves. Essentially, by allowing their heads to become so lodged up their own asses, egos inflated with the power they held and the reverence with which the rest of the elvhen treated them, the Evanuris betrayed the world they had once protected, presumably, from the Forgotten Ones.

Theory 2: Mythal is pissed at Solas for creating the Veil and essentially dooming the elvhen to the life they now live in the time of the Dragon Age games. Nomads or little better than slaves(or actual slaves, if they’re unfortunate enough to be born in/get too close to Tevinter), and had Solas not created the Veil and blocked the elves from the majority of their power, they would not have fallen to infighting

No, the elves did not fall to humans - Abelas says so himself: “We destroyed ourselves, long ago” and when you read through ancient Tevinter lore, even it agrees that while there were scattered groups of elves, the elves had seemingly destroyed themselves through infighting, presumably, after the disappearance of the Evanuris.

Personally, I believe that Theory 1 holds more weight; Solas fucked up, there’s no denying that, but was it truly a betrayal of the world? Reading through the lore offered in Trespasser, particularly the lore around the first location you come to, the forgotten vale in the mountains with the spirit guardians, I don’t think so. If the Evanuris had been allowed to continue, things could very well have turned out far worse for all of Thedas, not just the elves. Theory 1, however, also fits in with the claim that Flemeth and Mythal were betrayed in the same way: By those they once trusted as family. Solas implies in Trespasser that he and Mythal were close - we can see that for ourselves in the post-credits scene of the base game. However, while Mythal calls Solas “old friend”, the body language between the two appears much more like what one(or this one, at least) would expect to see of two people sharing a close familial relationship.

What exactly am I suggesting?

Well, during “What Pride Had Wrought,” if the Inquisitor brings Solas along to the Temple and asks him for his opinion on Mythal, Solas will state that she was much more than simply the goddess of justice or vengeance - that she was the mother.

What I am suggesting is that Mythal - the original Mythal, not the one she’s become after sharing centuries with Flemeth, who is most definitely the more dominant personality here - is Solas’s birth mother.

But who would be his father? I don’t believe it was Elgar’nan, mostly because of one simple fact:

Solas, as stated in a couple of pieces of lore, was welcomed among both Evanuris and the Forgotten Ones, who he also sealed away with the creation of the Veil.

I believe that Solas’s father was one of the Forgotten Ones.

Would that not be reason enough for the Evanuris to turn upon Mythal, if they discovered that she had carried on an affair with one of their enemies? A wounded Elgar’nan, who is stated to have one hell of a temper, would not be out of character to call for her head - or for the stripping of her spirit from her body. And the betrayal of his mother would be enough to push Fen’Harel into finally executing the plan he had been concocting, quite possibly for a very long time.

But what became of the Evanuris and the Forgotten Ones? Current elven lore states that Fen’Harel locked the Evanuris into the heavens, and the Forgotten Ones into the abyss, but… From Trespasser, we know for certain that the ‘heavens’ is merely the Fade - that by erecting the Veil, Solas managed to trap the Evanuris - or their consciousnesses and powers, at the very least - behind the Veil, while the Forgotten Ones had most likely already been banished by the Evanuris, at the conclusion of the war that led to the rise of the Evanuris in the first place.

But would Solas - enraged by the loss of his mother - settle for merely trapping the Evanuris physically in the Fade?

I think not.

No, I think that he trapped them the way that they had killed Mythal: By stripping their spirits from their bodies and trapping those behind the Veil.

But what was to become of the bodies left behind? Hidden by Fen’Harel and his agents, there were eight bodies that needed to be sealed away. And they were, deep within the earth, never to be seen again.

And then the infighting began, and the elven empire fell - to be discovered later by the humans of ancient Tevinter.

Humans who saw the records of powerful mages revered as gods, at least one of whom was strongly associated with dragons, and the humans took the records of the elven gods and made them their own. They gave them different names and shapes, but took them nonetheless. And when they discovered where the spirits of their gods were being held, they became determined to retrieve them.

However, the ritual went wrong, and instead unleashed a powerful tainted magic that would come to known as the Blight; those it corrupted became known as darkspawn, and were driven belowground, where they multiplied and spread, until they found one of the prisons that held the body of one of their gods - of one of the Evanuris - and corrupted it, changing its form and driving what was left of its original consciousness mad, transforming it into an Archdemon.

I will take a moment to note that, per the Dragon Age Wiki, David Gaider has hinted that this theory may be correct, but that the Old Gods may in fact be the Forgotten Ones. However, since there is no information available about the Forgotten Ones, certainly not enough to truly disprove this theory, I’m taking that with a grain of salt.

Now, Chantry lore states clearly that Andraste was betrayed and executed by Tevinter, however - the humans have already made it clear that they are more than willing to change or even erase history to fit their needs or wants.

Case in Point, per Jaws of Hakkon: the first Inquisitor, Ameridan. Nobody ever told you he was elvish until you came face to face with him, did they?

Therefore, could Andraste have truly existed as told in the tales, or - yet again - was the elven lore adapted to fit human desires?

The Cult of Andraste, that held the Urn of Sacred Ashes in Dragon Age: Origins, believed Andraste to be the High Dragon that had taken up residence on the mountain above Haven. Now that was probably just a regular old High Dragon, but why a dragon?

Hint: What Evanuris is explicitly related to dragons?

Hint #2: Starts with M, ends with -ythal

The Chantry speaks of Tevinter magisters starting the Blight and becoming the first darkspawn, which has been confirmed via Coryphshit. But, if the Archdemons and the blights are so bad, then why does Solas Greatly Disapprove of you saving the Wardens, not punishing them, even if you give the excuse that they were only tricked and were trying to do their job before they all, you know, died.

Because, I believe, that the Old Gods are his family. And he still holds out hope of perhaps one day redeeming them, perhaps reuniting with them, but even if not, then they are all that is left of his family, of his people. He makes it clear that he does not consider the elvhen of today his People, that he believes them little better than Tranquil.

Which brings me to the next point:

Dwarves.

Ah, dwarves. I love them, even if I don’t love how they’re animated when you play as one in either Origins or Inquisition.

Now, while I was talking with a friend, they brought up quite an interesting point: If, by being made Tranquil, human, elven, and even Qunari mages lose their emotions through loss of their connection to the Fade, then why do Dwarves, canonically stated to not have a connection to the Fade, and thus cannot be mages or dream, have all of their emotions and are - for lack of a better word - whole?

Because they were created by a different race of beings.

The Titans, I believe.

Dwarven religion centers around the Stone, which - so far as I can tell - has little to no similarity to any of the other religions of Thedas. That leads one to believe that thus, they must have had a different origin, and what do we learn in Descent?

That Dwarves were created by the Titans - or at least, the Titans consider the dwarves their children. The Titan disturbed by the Breach does not rest easy until it has established a connection with Valta, who then explains that it needed the connection as a reassurance.

In one of the Ancient Elven Writing codexes, there is a mention of the Evanuris and ancient elves preparing “to hunt the pillars of the stone”, and makes mention of how they have watched the workers scurry about as though mindless and witless; it makes clear their opinions of Dwarves, while also making clear that the Titans cannot be the Forgotten Ones. If the Titans and thus their children are not connected to the elves through the same creators, then they have no need of the Fade to survive as whole creatures.

There are also several statues of Mythal in the Deep Roads - there is a broken one in the Bastion of the Pure, during Descent, and while disrupting the mining organization, the Inquisitor comes across several statues of Mythal.

If the Inquisitor detours back to the now-submerged mines after gaining the next Anchor upgrade - Anchor Discharge - from the Shattered Library, they are able to destroy a blocked entrance to another eluvian, which leads to an elven ruin with a fresco depicting the death of a titan, confirming the possibility that Mythal was most likely responsible for the deaths of more than one Titan, whose corpse was then mined for lyrium.

Not much is truly known of dwarven history beyond a certain point, and the Titans were stricken from any record in the Shaperate during the First Blight. Conjecture states the Titans were the original children of the Stone, of the earth itself. What is known, however, is that the ancient elves were some of the first to use Titan blood - lyrium - to enhance their powers, though they eventually collapsed their own mines for fear of the power lyrium could grant. While regular lyrium has no effect upon dwarves, it does have an effect upon other races: It enhances their powers, most usually in connection with magic. For Templars, it grants them the ability to dampen the magic of others around them, and for mages, it replenishes and boosts their mana, allowing them to cast more powerful spells. But dwarves are not easily affected by even raw lyrium - it takes direct exposure, such as through the eyes, mouth, or an open wound, for lyrium to effect a dwarf. Attributed to generations of living near the mines for ages, surface dwarves are said to lose this resistance over time - but why would they be able to build up a resistance in the first place?

Because they share the blood of the Titans, because there is lyrium in their blood.

Not much is known about the Qunari in any form, either through codex entries or conversations, not enough to truly add a lot to this theory list, but from circumstantial evidence, the question must be raised: Are Qunari immune to the Blight?

We see no records of Qunari having a strong presence in any place affected by the Blight before Sten joins the Warden in Origins, and he gives no indication that the Qunari even have much information about the Blight. He does indicate that they do consider it a threat, but, well - if not stopped, the Blight will consume the entire world. Anyone with half a brain would consider that a threat.

However, if playing as a Qunari Inquisitor and speaking with a Kieran who possesses the soul of an Old God, he makes a comment about how “your blood doesn’t belong to you”, and even Bull suggests that there is a theory that somehow, the original Qunari - before they were the Qunari - had their blood mixed with a dragon’s.

Now, poking around Origins lore, apparently Broodmothers and Ogres are connected to female Qunari, which suggests that they aren’t completely immune to the blight.

However.

Dragons have the ability to slow the blight in their own bodies; if you recruit Frederick the researcher and do a specific war table mission with him, he will say that he has observed dragons a) avoiding red lyrium, and b) with cysts that appear to be blighted, suggesting that their bodies are able to entrap the blight within certain areas to slow and perhaps even prevent its spread.

If the Qunari have dragon’s blood in them, if that is what created the Qunari as we know them today, then it suggests that - even if not completely immune - the Qunari would be more than a little resistant to the blight.

This is all I have for the moment on my Dragon Age theories, but I’m sure I’ll eventually be adding more to it.

[circe-poetica]

Eris conjunct Sun

SKIP AHEAD to April 10, 2008. The Sun was conjunct Eris in an impressive aspect structure that brought in Uranus, Neptune, Chiron and Jupiter. Eris was discovered in 2005 and named in the summer of 2006. Note, this is just the second Sun-Eris conjunction since we found out about the existence of Eris.

In mythology, she represents the castaway aspect of the feminine: the one who is not invited to "the party" (that is, life), and who wreaks havoc on the world as a result. That havoc, in the case of Eris, happened to be the

Trojan Wars

, which lasted 10 years some time around the 10th or 12th century B.C.E. Many of the great heroes of Greece perished and the city of Troy fell. Note, this was probably not a mythological war.

There is a connection here: the phenomenon of casting off part of oneself and the subsequent creation of havoc and turmoil was covered by Carl Jung in the 20th century. That which we do not accept about ourselves causes chaos, first in ourselves and then in the world.

Psychologically, Eris becomes the one who does not (for whatever reason, probably conditioning) accept herself, and projects that lack of acceptance onto the world; she casts herself off and lives in a state of panic, fear, suppression, ignorance and/or pain. Or she is actually different, openly sexual, authentic, or revealing of her inner emotions, and this can breed resentment and exclusion. Openly sexual women are considered a threat because "someone else's man" may respond to their vitality, so sexually open women tend to be smashed by less open women. It would be nice to see the ladies call a truce here -- If you're interested in them, there are plenty of guys to go around.

Eris fits into the cycle of mythology very close to the Lilith myth, one of those missing stories from The Bible. Lilith, though not mentioned in the version of The Bible you find at Motel 6, was the original counterpart to Adam. When God created humanity out of clay, presumably being so smart, He created a man and a woman. That would make sense, right? But Lilith wanted to be Adam's equal, and that was not going to cut it. So she was cast off, and a new woman was created from one of Adam's ribs -- she was called Eve.

Here it is from Genesis, King James version, in case you have not read it lately, Copyright by Disney, all rights reserved:

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he the woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

This by the way is from the bestselling book in history, the truth of which is unquestionable: women were cloned from men. Note, there is a reference to Adam going to sleep, but nowhere is there a reference to him waking up.

Soon after, this serpent arrives. Hmmm, could she be Lilith, in another form? Who is this serpent, exactly, who teaches Eve about the bees and the birds? It would be the perfect role of Lilith to do just precisely that. So this perfect little top-down, codependent monogamy between Adam and Eve triangulates (as monogamy often does) into a menage-a-trois with a serpent, who has all kinds of information. Here is the transcript:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

Is everyone following along here?

The original woman, Adam's equal, is cast off; a clone of man is created in a surgical procedure to be Adam's "help meet" -- basically, his assistant. Adam is put to sleep for the procedure but he doesn't wake up.

Eve seems to be pretty awake; she knows the rules, which she explains to the serpent. The serpent entices her to touch the fruit and then eat the fruit, and (influenced by el serpente) she gets Adam to do the same. And after they do this, Adam and Eve are ashamed of their genitals. And they hide themselves from God.

You do not need to be a comparative literature Ph.D. candidate at Yale to figure out the meaning of this. It is veiled in a story, but it's not exactly cryptic. You might need some substantiation that Lilith existed, and that can be found throughout literature.

She even has a Wiki page

which will get you started.

Let's speculate for a second. If God is going to create humanity, he's just going to make dudes? What, is everyone going to be gay? I guess the whole Bible hadn't been written back then, so being gay was still allowed. Clams were OK too, since they are banned somewhat after Genesis in the same paragraph as being a fag.

Or what, in God's original plan there was just going to be one guy on the planet, walking around with all these beasts and birds and the Devil? With this whole big garden to jack off in? And nobody but God and the Devil around to watch? It makes somewhat more sense that God would create a pair of mates together, so that they could frolic, explore, make babies and so forth. And presumably, being equal most other ways, they would share responsibility, take part in activity more or less equally, and build the world together.

Remember -- as Adrienne Rich said, "a language is a map of our failures." Myths are the stories that we have either made up or accepted about ourselves. Most of them are utterly dead. They bear no relevance to our lives and provide no constructive source of nourishment, except when we deconstruct them and take back the elements that work for us. The same is true of the ego concept. It is a dead myth that we need to take apart, reclaim and set aside for some other, better notion of who we are.

The chances are that if you are casting off part of yourself, you must do it every single day. It will usually arrive as a conscious decision to deny part or most or all of yourself. It will often arrive as some form of a purity or piety campaign. It will come in the form of what Adrienne astutely described as lies, secrets and silence, which are how we falsely establish a state of supposed purity.

* * *

SO WHO OR WHAT is Eris? If we take a structuralist approach, that is, looking at the structure of the myth, she is a psychological component we have suppressed or denied. Given that the Eris myth involves a competition for which goddess is the most beautiful, and the prize (Helen of Troy) is the most beautiful woman in the world, we may have something about sex, sexual imagery and desirability.

Eris, greek goddess of discord.

The opposite of Eris is pious. The opposite of piety is being real, being in your body, expressing your needs. If you do not do this, then there are few possibilities -- some version of the Trojan War (usually acted out in divorce court), the abdication of one's personhood (that is, a tangible sense of one's existence, followed by community, purpose and creative mastery), and generally, depression and misery.

That is to say, fragmentation. Most people do in fact walk around fragmented, in chunks of themselves.

Eris is in Aries and I think that in many respects, Aries in our era is about Eris. Aries is the sense of self and the right to exist. We do a lot of experimenting with identity these days, but most of it is virtual. It is fast arriving at the point that anything that occurs in the physical world is perceived as, or sold to us as, a kind of threat -- unless it involves spending money.

Eris is here to teach us to return to the roots of our identity. I do not mean identity as an abstract concept; I mean identity as the direct experience of self and of existence. We may be so far from this that it sounds like an abstraction. We may feel like we can express our "true self" more in our Second Life than we can in our First Life.

Now, you may think this is a cool idea, and I make it sound appealing and logical and even practical. The question we have to ask ourselves is: what exactly do we do? How do we identify these cast off parts, and what do we do with them once we find them?

Moreover, how do you relate to others -- your partner, your friends -- when you're changing and accepting things about yourself that they don't accept about themselves? What if you're asking questions others are not asking? What if you notice things that nobody else seems to notice? What if you're looking for answers but nobody is willing to raise the questions? Well, there are a lot of ways to avoid a meaningful dialog. There are a lot of ways to avoid receiving meaningful information about ourselves.

I would like to leave that question open for now: It is the question of our age, and I leave that one to you.http://www.planetwavesweekly.com/dadatemp/272199354.html