Overview

The Ceres asteroid represents the rhythms in a woman's procreation cycles. In her role as mother, the Ceres woman treasures family heirlooms. The biology of life cycles and female passages are within Ceres' domain.

The asteroid, in charge of mothering and the family tree, rules the blossoming of a young girl's body into womanhood. Eating disorders that result when a woman resists this entrance into fertility also have their place under Ceres' skirts.

Ceres looks after the reproductive issues of an adult woman -- her menstrual cycles, her choices concerning birth control and her pregnancies and childbirth.

Breastfeeding begins the process of nurturing, creating physical bond between mother and child. This gesture, which supplies literal survival for her child, exemplifies the role of Ceres as caregiver.

When a woman's body changes with menopause, Ceres guides her as she leaves physical fertility behind and finds a new freedom. When she no longer has to take care of her family, she often finds tremendous energy freed up to create artistically, to travel and explore her spirit.

The relationships between women in the same family make an intriguing study -- for example, Christina and Joan Crawford, or Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Anne and Zara Phillips. The earlier relationships may say something about how women will treat themselves and mother their own children.

On the darker side, Ceres rules those frazzled days and the feelings of isolation that being alone with children can bring. Family miscommunications and patterns of abuse, as well as the empty-nest syndrome, are also sorted out by this asteroid.

TV moms like Shirley Jones of The Partridge Family and Florence Hendersonof The Brady Bunch make mothering look easy. These women, representative of Ceres' sphere, concentrate on child-rearing and the relationships between mother and child. Real-life moms have to focus on things like single parenting, juggling work demands with bills, carpooling, play dates, being home with their kids and somehow finding a moment for a haircut.

Tied into all of these issues of sustenance is a woman's relationship with food and diet. Oprah Winfrey and Sarah Ferguson, who were overeaters, overcame their patterns of self-abuse to become inspirations to many. Eating disorders can also end in tragedy, with women like Karen Carpenter, who starved herself to death.

Our relationship with food is about how we nurture and look after ourselves, and we pass on our eating habits or our issues around food to our children. Whatever we use food for -- nutrition, escape, revenge or comfort -- says something about our relationship to ourselves and to those we love.

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