The Asteroid Belt is a part of our solar system that lies between Mars and Jupiter, and it is made up of many thousands of shattered fragments of a once important archetype (planet). The largest of these asteroids, Ceres, was upgraded to dwarf planet status on September 13, 2006. On the same day Pluto was ‘demoted’ to the same dwarf planet category. These two archetypes are profoundly connected to each other through the experience of rebirth.
Ceres carries the 5D consciousness of inner midwife because she is the first archetype to be restored to wholeness and undergo her own rebirth. Her presence signifies a certain lifting of the Self out of the ashes (similar to the energies of Pluto). But Ceres is all about birthing us into a new part of our life on Earth, whereas Pluto brings a more metaphysically oriented rebirth.
Discovered on January 1, 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, Ceres was named after the Roman goddess of growing plants, the harvest, and motherly love. Ceres is known to the Greeks as Demeter, the mother of Persephone. We know Persephone as Venus. The myth of Persephone ties both Ceres and Venus to Pluto. The Persephone myth reveals one obvious and immediate facet of Ceres’ archetype: our natural instinct to nurture and protect.
According to the myth, Persephone (Venus) was abducted by Pluto (Hades) and taken to the invisible realm while the young girl was playing outside her mother’s home in the garden. Ceres, the Mother, was so distraught at losing her daughter that she torched the Earth and made it impossible for crops to grow. Hades agreed to allow Persephone to go home to be with her mother for 6 months of the year and to return to the invisible realm for the other 6 months. While Persephone was with Hades in the underworld, Ceres would torch the earth and prevent the crops from growing. This how the seasons, which so powerfully define human life on earth, began.
From the Cosmic Consciousness perspective, Ceres is related to the quality of Emotional Power (Cancer, the Earth Mother). She serves to restore our connection to the mystery and power of Mother Nature. Her presence points to the place where we will go the distance to reclaim what is rightfully ours: a secure, supported, and celebrated divine inner child. Additionally, Ceres points to the place in our energy field where we can slowly but surely integrate the Mother Earth energy with the new 5D Divine Mother vibration that is now being restored to our consciousness. According to Emily Samet, “There is a focus on children: taking care of the world’s children as well as the vulnerable child within us all. If memories of separation surface, Ceres makes possible the opportunity to view the past in a new light, detached from the immediacy of the moment.”
For now Ceres serves as the only 5D planet that lives inside our inner solar system –that is, she is a part of the consciousness of our personal Self. Because she exists just outside of Mars, she is deeply connected to our physicality. She represents the part of each of us that always has the power to reach into our emotional/physical/mental depths and lifts us up out of the ashes into a new leg of the journey. That new chapter is always related to our physical existence, and once rebirthed, can take on much more spiritual dimension. Her archetypal energies promote a deep, intuitive and transformational quality influenced by the sign and the hour where she appears in the birth chart.
Wherever Ceres is involved, there is a very particular love of the Earth. Ceres is the great nurturer, the inner midwife to all beings going through a major transformation, and that includes our planet. There is a major rebirth going on, and that is everything that Ceres is about. Pluto is the great rebirther, and he delivers us to the transitional moment that we call death, which is actually the Soul’s transitional journey to the invisible realm. Since we no longer have to leave our bodies to undertake resurrection, it seems that Ceres is ever available to midwife us back to the physical embodiment that we are in the midst of. Ceres is a very important archetype when it comes to nurturing life on earth, in all its forms, and Pluto is, of course, the archetype that delivers the soul to wisdom after going through the profound experiences of an incarnation. Ceres is the midwife attending the birthing of the new consciousness.