Names: Juno (Roman), Hera (Greek)
Asteroids: Juno (#3), Hera (#103)
Mythology: Goddess of women, marriage, family, and childbirth. Patroness and protectress of married women. Queen of the gods and wife of Jupiter (Greek, Zeus). Mother of Ares (Mars), Eris, and Hephaestus, among others.
Light Expression: Committed, loving, confident, and loyal in partnerships. Regal, noble, powerful, and stately. Ability to bring the feminine and masculine together in a balanced, egalitarian, and mutually empowering way.
Shadow Expression: Relationships with unfaithful and disrespectful partners. Allowing the wrong relationships into one’s life out of a place of powerlessness or empathy. Jealousy and revenge in relationships and/or toward other women. Disempowerment of the feminine. Repressed and misdirected pain and anger.
Exploration: Asteroid Juno (#3) is named after the Roman goddess of women, marriage, and family (Greek, Hera), and queen of the gods. The most popular month for weddings, June, is named for her, and she was called upon by the ancient Romans for luck and protection in love and marital relationships. Ironically, in mythology, Juno is the wife of Jupiter (Greek, Zeus), but not by choice. After Juno declines Jupiter’s first marriage proposal, he creates a great thunder storm and takes the form of a bird flying in distress outside Juno’s window. Juno has a strong love of animals, so she opens the window and warms the bird in her embrace. At this point, Jupiter returns to his human form and rapes Juno; thereby stealing her virginity and taking her as his wife. Once married, Jupiter begins philandering and impregnating countless other goddesses and mortal women. Juno, now trapped in the role of wife to Jupiter, takes her pain, anger, disempowerment, and jealousy out on Jupiter, his lovers, and their children. Most notably, Hera attempts to thwart and kill the hero Hercules with his 12 Labors, and forces Leto to give birth to Diana/Artemis and Apollo in isolation and without support. With regards to Juno and Jupiter’s own offspring, most of them bear the archetypal mark of this warring, painful, and discordant relationship; including Mars/Ares (the god of war) and Bellona/Eris (the goddess of strife and discord).
In astrology, the qualities associated with Juno’s asteroids are linked to these mythological and historical underpinnings. Those who have her asteroid(s) prominently placed in their birth chart may find marriage to be a highly important institution and may be committed, loving, confident, and loyal in partnerships. In marriage, these individuals may have the ability to bridge the divide between the feminine and masculine in a balanced, egalitarian, and mutually empowering way. They may also find themselves working in the wedding and/or marriage industry as wedding planners, relationship counselors or coaches, marriage officiants, divorce attorneys, etc. Alternatively, they may enter into committed and/or marital relationships with unfaithful, philandering, and disrespectful partners. The Juno native may feel manipulated or tricked into an unhealthy relationship by partners who appear wounded and evoke their empathy. This archetype can also manifest as strong feelings of jealousy and revenge in relationships, a sense of being at war with a spouse or partner, jealousy and disempowerment of other women, painful and drawn-out divorces, and repressed and misdirected pain and anger.
It’s worth noting here that there is some evidence Juno may have originated from the matriarchal Great Goddess cultures that predated the Greeks and Romans, and that by turning the “Great Goddess” into the jealous wife of Jupiter/Zeus and the patroness of marriage, the Greeks intended to undercut her influence and promote patriarchal rule. The beginning of patriarchy was also the beginning of women being disempowered. For millennia, women have been oppressed, abused, treated like property, and stripped of their rights. During this era, women could only accrue power and stability through men by becoming a wife or a mistress. If a husband was unfaithful, there was nothing the wife could do but attack the other woman. If they attacked their husband, they could lose their livelihood or even their life. There were few protections for wives and even fewer for a mistress; they could be abused, raped, and even murdered with no credibility to their name in court. If the husband acquired a sexually transmitted disease, the wife did too, and was often blamed and maybe beaten for it. Women had to fight to keep their husbands if they wanted to have a home, sustenance for their children, and their basic survival needs met. When we remember that women were only granted the right to vote in the United States in 1920, we realize just how limited our grandmothers, great grandmothers, and all of the women who came before them were in their rights, and the legacy of pain, fear, and powerlessness they’ve passed down as a result. When we learn that this seemingly archaic treatment of women still persists in other countries today, we see how prominent these shadow Juno themes are in the collective unconscious. No wonder we struggle with these less than desirable Juno qualities!
That said, I find Juno to be an especially important archetype for women to work with if they have experienced infidelity or disempowerment via relationships, if they feel anger and rage toward men, if they feel trapped in an unhealthy marriage, and/or if they regularly find themselves comparing themselves to other women and experiencing jealousy and envy as a result. Similarly, if a woman has a familial and/or cultural history of these experiences and emotions, Juno is a wonderful goddess to work with. The best place to start is by owning and healing our personal experience of the Juno archetype, then we can work to heal and release any ancestral karma that haunts us from Juno’s shadow, and, if we feel so called, we can work to heal and evolve her archetype on a local and even global level.
To find out if Juno’s myth is prominent in your astrological birth chart and psyche, see if she is making any major aspects (e.g. conjunction or opposition) to your luminaries (e.g. the Sun and Moon), planets (e.g. Venus, Jupiter, etc.), the Moon’s Nodes, OR to any significant dwarf planets (e.g. Ceres: #1) or asteroids (e.g. Aphrodite: #1388) in your natal (birth) chart. It’s also helpful to look at Juno’s sign, house, and other planetary aspects to better understand how she shows up in your personality, subconscious, and life experience. If asteroid Juno is not significant in your chart, but you feel liker her myth is prominent for you, try looking up asteroid Hera (#103) – the Greek version of Juno – to see if it plays a larger part. If not, you may be experiencing Juno by progression, transit (personal or collective), solar arc, or in your solar return chart. Whatever you find astrologically, if you feel Juno’s presence in your life, it’s time to work with her myth, meditate on her light and shadow attributes, and see what she is hoping to awaken in you.
If you would like some guidance and support in understanding the Juno archetype, or other goddess archetypes, in your astrological chart and personal experience, feel free to reach out to me and we can do a goddess astrology reading, mentorship meeting, or archetypal coaching session to further explore her purpose in your life.