She was stunningly beautiful and irresistible. Hephaestus, the god of fire and craftsmen, created her out of clay and each god and goddess on Mount Olympus gave her a gift. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, gave her beauty and grace, the wise goddess Athena taught her needlework and weaving, Apollo, the god of arts gave her musical talent and the gift of healing. Then they called her Pandora ("all-gifted").

She was something the world had never seen before - she was the first woman on Earth and she was to become humanity´s most notorious femme fatale. She was a gift from the gods to mankind, but she was the same kind of gift, that the Trojan Horse was to the Trojans. The supreme god Zeus had ordered the other gods to create her as a plaque for humans.

Prior to that, the silly titan Epimetheus ("Afterthought") had given all the best traits to animals, so there was nothing left for humans (if one has a pessimistic view of the world, it may look as if there could be some truth in this particular myth). His wise brother Prometheus ("Forethought") wanted to give humans something of value. He stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. Once given, the gift could not be taken back and humans kept the fire, but they were to pay dearly for it. Zeus, known for his short temper became furious and decided to punish men for it - with the most wonderful thing they had ever seen - Pandora.

As she stood on Mount Olympus, ready to depart, the gods gave her a box and told her never to open it. Then the mischievous god Hermes gave her the last gift - an insatiable curiosity. They sent her down to humans, and waited.

Foreseeing Prometheus had warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gifts from Zeus, but then again, Epimetheus wasn´t much for thinking and things went exactly as the gods expected. Once Epimetheus saw the breathtakingly beautiful Pandora, he lost his head completely and married her on the spot. And just as he couldn´t resist Pandora, she couldn´t resist the box, which the gods had given her. She thought of it constantly, it seemed to call upon her, it kept tempting her with all its secrets. What was this mysterious thing that had such power over her? Why was it impossible to forget it? Why wasn´t she allowed to open it? Such beautiful design… What treasurers were hidden inside? Was it gold and precious stones? Was it the wisdom of the gods? Was it great strength and power? What on earth was inside of it? It seemed to whisper her name, it almost begged to be opened… She kept going back to it, staring at it, sniffing it, knocking on it, until she could no longer bear it.

One day she finally raised the lid - and all hell broke loose.

The cover flew open with a bang and all the ills, that the gods had cursed mankind with started to fly out of the box, one after another. Crimes burst out like a pack of black demons, one uglier than the other, howling and thundering and knocking screaming Pandora off her feet. She jumped up and tried to get to the box to shut it, but before she reached it, all the diseases had flown out and thrown her into the air, groaning into her ears until she felt sick and dizzy. Greed came out, stinking of something rotten, then envy, followed by lies and deceit. The curses, which were already out, were blowing a gale in the room, making a terrible noise and smashing the furniture. They formed a dark and violent tornado, rotating furiously across the house and blowing out windows and doors. Horror-struck Epimetheus rushed into the room, yelling to Pandora to shut the box, but was pinned to a wall by a red cloud of anger, which was showing its teeth, growling at him and releasing bad breath odor. All kinds of fears stormed out of the box, wailing and crying and frightening the couple out of their wits, with their staring eyes and wide open mouths. Head-clutching worries followed, lamenting and wringing their hands in despair, giving them a headache and a feeling of doom. Finally, when the ills were busy blowing Epimetheus out of the house, terrified Pandora threw herself over the box and managed to shut it. The curses flew out of the house and spread among people all over the world. Only one thing was left in the box - hope.

Until then, people had been innocent and had lived in paradise, but now the time had come for them to get to know pain, fear and anger, diseases and worries, wars and all kinds of other ills. That was the price of fire.

In astrology, the asteroid Pandora has some of the most difficult and frightening lessons to teach us. Its negative expression is controversy, scandals, dirty secrets that come out, shame, loss of face, shocking revelations, public humiliation and becoming a scapegoat.

Wherever we have Pandora in our chart, we will open a can of worms and more often than not, it will be a challenging experience (for us or for those around us), which is likely to stir up some controversy, at least in the beginning. We will either do it willingly or it will be done for us, no matter how desperately we try to stop it from happening. Pandora was created by the gods for one purpose only - to open that box and release what was inside of it, and she is going to do it, one way or another. If we fight against the archetype, somebody or something will find its way to our darkest room and smash open that forbidden closet - with a bang, so that all the skeletons will fall out, for everybody to see. And the more we resist the process, the more difficult and painful it becomes.

As a symbol, Pandora has a lot in common with Saturn and it´s not surprising, that one of Saturn´s moons has been named after her, as well as the asteroid no 55. Both Saturn and Pandora have the difficult task of forcing us to get real - more honest, more truthful, more genuine - more of our true self. But before we can be that, before Pandora´s lessons are learned, we have to open that box and let the devil loose, no matter how terrifying it is. We finally have to face those parts of us, which we pretend don´t exist, we have to own up to the lies we have told, we must take the responsibility for our own shadow and stop fooling ourselves and others, that it´s a curse from the gods, which has nothing to do with us. We are likely to feel shame and fear and in the end - great relief. No more lying, no need to put up a performance, no more hiding, no more pretending, that we are not who we really are. It´s only then, when Pandora is done with us, that we can look back and see how exhausting it was to live a lie and we will be asking ourselves how we could manage to do it for so long.

If Pandora has a prominent position in the horoscope, the native is likely to be the black sheep of the family or of the society. It doesn´t have to be negative - the black sheep has its rightful place and an important role to play in the society, as it acts as a kind of mirror for the entire group it´s a part of. The problem with Pandora is that she often mirrors things, that we would rather hide and that´s why she is likely to cause controversy, make some people uneasy or attract some anger sometimes. If the archetype is expressed negatively, the native can become a scapegoat for all the ills of the society, that the others just don´t want to know about. Even with positive expression, there is often an air of notoriety around these people, a feeling of something dark and a bit dangerous, something controversial and sometimes - something strangely attractive.

A good example of Pandora´s sometimes hair-raising workings is Heather Mills, a former wife of Paul McCartney. Her Pandora is very prominent and in such way, that it affects a big part of her psyche and much of what she does, as well as having a lot to say about what happens in her life. Pandora in her chart is in conjunction with her Sun in Capricorn. As the Sun symbolises personal identity and the ego, Heather´s whole being radiates this particular archetype. This position suggests both controversy around and some revelations (possibly shocking ones) about the native´s very identity as well as about the father - which is what already has happened in her life. In her book "A single step", published in 2002, she described her father as a violent tyrant, who abused their whole family. When her and Paul McCartney´s separation was announced in May 2006, her Pandora´s box really blew open - within days revelations about her identity, about who she used to be, started to emerge, one more controversial than another, putting her in a very awkward position (no pun intended).

First came the allegations, that Heather had posed for pornographic pictures. There was no point in denying it. The pictures themselves were published soon after and they were followed by claims, that she had been a prostitute as well (as of today, June 2008 it is unknown whether these are true or false). In the months to follow, several people from her life would come forward with further revelations from her past, showing her in a negative light and adding to the fuss. Soon it was found out, that some of the things she had said weren´t true. The media were frequently going over the top in their constant and merciless criticism of her and engaging in what could only be described as a modern-day stoning, prompting some people to ask how many people Mrs. McCartney had murdered. They called her a hooker, a liar, a shoplifter, a gold-digger, a fantasist and many other things. Once her Pandora´s box was open, it seemed there was no end to all the curses that were flying out of it.

Heather Mills – modern Pandora

Distressed Heather didn´t know how to deal with the situation and it soon became a vicious circle - the more they attacked her, the more erratic her behaviour became, she became increasingly prone to outbursts, which in its turn caused even more criticism from the media.
Her prominent Pandora is not only in conjunction with her Sun, but with her Mercury as well. As Mercury symbolises communication and self expression, Heather has a somewhat unfortunate tendency to cause controversy every time she opens her mouth to express herself. What´s more, the unruly asteroid is in an almost exact square to her Nodal Axis (the general direction in the soul´s development in this life), making it impossible for her to avoid this archetype playing a crucial role in her life, one way or another. In Heather, this symbol has got a life of its own - she has become Pandora personified for our modern society, annoying many of us, because she shows us what we hate in ourselves, while we want to continue to pretend, that we have nothing to do with it.

How dare she? Coming to our perfect society and contaminating it with all her ugly plaques - lies and pornography, short temper and outbursts and maybe even prostitution or greed and heaven knows what else. We didn´t know any of it until she came along. We are not like that. Where did she come from? She can´t possibly be one of us. Why do the gods punish us like this?

There is nothing, that infuriates hypocrisy more, than somebody, who holds up a mirror to its face. Most critical of her pornographic past are those men, who quietly buy the magazines, which publish the same kinds of pictures, as those Heather posed for, or those gentlemen, who in secret pay for the services of prostitutes. And the ones, who are most indignant at her lies are… the tabloids and people, who themselves repeatedly distort truth. A person, who has opened his own Pandora´s box and who already has started to examine his own curses, will not be as upset as the others. He will shrug his shoulders and say, that he, too, has lied - more than once in his life. And even if it´s proven, that she was a prostitute in her past, isn´t it called "the oldest profession in the world"? Haven´t we been tolerating prostitution among us for thousands of years already? There must be many millions of prostitutes globally. Why should he be upset by one of them, while he accepts all the others?

Heather is not doomed though. She can´t escape from the archetype of Pandora, it is going to play a big role in her life, no matter what she does. Whether she matter-of-factly takes off her prosthetic leg on Larry King Show, puts it in front of him on his desk and happily tells him about its beautiful design or pours water over the head of her husband´s solicitor and cheerfully announces that she has been baptised in court, Heather will always be able to effortlessly raise some eyebrows. But Pandora, like everything else in astrology is a symbol, and as a symbol she is neither good nor bad, she has an equal potential for both the positive and the negative. The same horoscope can be heaven on earth - or hell, as well as everything in between. That´s why most of us experience all those different states during one lifetime, even though our natal chart never changes in any way.

If Pandora is expressed positively, she is liberating, exhilarating, thrilling, intelligent, ingenious, adventurous and wonderful in every way. She is like a brilliant teacher, who pushes us over the edge into the abyss, so that we can discover, that we can fly. It´s her, who makes the homosexual man get out of the closet or the public figure to admit, that he has a mental illness, so that they finally can experience how it is to be free and accepted for who they really are. How can we experience true acceptance without being true? As long as we live a lie, if anything is accepted, it´s our lie about who we are, not us.
In this, Pandora is one of Saturn´s clever executives, Saturn being the managing director of the Department of Truth.

There is a big pile of rubbish in the middle of the house. It has been there for ages and it smells. Every member of the family walks around it pretending that it´s not there. There is an unwritten code of conduct in the house - nobody talks about it. If somebody from the outside mentions it, the whole family cries out angrily: "There is no rubbish in this house! What smell?! What are you talking about?!" If the outsider tries to explain, they all yell "Shut up!" and they throw him out of the house.

Enter Pandora.
What is this huge pile of rubbish doing here? Why does it smell so bad? Why don´t they take it away? I wonder what can be hidden in it… Perhaps they have something valuable there… Why are they so angry when one mentions it? It must be some treasure, for sure… How fascinating…

She starts to dig in the pile, spreading the garbage everywhere and making a terrible mess. The family become hysterical. They run around in circles, yelling and gesticulating wildly, swearing and throwing things at her and screaming at the top of their lungs: "There is no garbage here!", which makes her even more curious. They drag her away from the pile, but she keeps coming back and digging in it vigorously. No matter how much they rave and attack her, she doesn´t stop until she has dug through the entire pile and found out all about it.

After they have recovered from the shock, they discover, that she is holding something sparkling in her dirty hands. There was indeed a treasure among all the rubbish. It has been there, forgotten, for thousands, maybe millions of years. It´s something they didn´t even know existed, because they were too busy denying the presence of the trash, that covered it, to notice anything else. It´s the divine fire - the gift, which once given to their ancestors, could not be taken away from them. It´s the divine sparkle within each and every one of them, which they weren´t aware they had. They can feel it now. Soon they will start to express it, one way or another. They had to go through fear, pain, shame, and despair for it to be rediscovered.

And now it has finally been paid down.

It´s theirs to keep.

* * * * * * * * *

On 21 December 2012 Pandora will be in conjunction with the North Node in Scorpio. Scorpio is the sign of death and rebirth and North Node symbolises the direction in which things will develop (or are meant to develop, in accordance with some higher plan).



Copyright © 2008 Aida Gundersen
7th June 2008

Parts of the horoscope expressed:

Pandora in exact conjunction with the North Node
Pandora conjunct "the Gate of Men"
Pandora opposite Prometheus
Pandora semisextile Epimetheus
Pandora trine Saturn
Pandora semisextile Jupiter
Pandora in the 2nd house