She gives fertility, wild food, growth and fire to the islands of Hawaii. Haumea has two moons that were discovered in 2005 using a big telescope on Hawaii and it was during this time that the name was chosen by a chap on the American team. The planet was known to be made of solid rock and the Hawaiian goddess of that name has close associations with stone. It was also recognised that the planet had been hit by something big that had knocked lumps of rocky ice from her body. These surround her orbit and two of them are even big enough to be moons. In Hawaiian myth Haumea is the mother of many other deities that are formed from pieces of her body. Haumea is also the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth and Mike Brown was prevented from announcing Haumea’s discovery because his wife went into labour and gave birth to their daughter. These things by themselves make the choice of name appropriate, but there was significantly and coincidentally much more to come!

When the suggestion was put forward for the name Haumea, no one could have dreamed that 2 years later, just as the name was finally being announced, a young mixed race senator would run for the office of President of the United States of America and win. President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Astrology needed to symbolise the changes that happen when the world’s most important superpower changes it’s leader, so sure enough the strange hand of fate worked it’s magic. Synchronous with the arrival of a Hawaiian president was the arrival of a Hawaiian planet!

Haumea is the strangest object found to date in the solar system. She is shaped like a cigar and actually spins end over end, completing a full circuit in just 4 hours. Another strange feature is a red spot on her icy surface. The discovery team reported that planet Haumea must have been in a catastrophic collision at some point. They had found 5 small parts of the planet plus 2 moons all in her orbit and these bits were remarkable because they are so shiny. Even more remarkable is the co-incidence that this means there are 8 pieces of Haumea the planet. There are also 8 main islands of Hawaii, the American state.

Haumea has several different guises, all to do with creating or giving birth. In one she is a human, confusingly called ‘Papa’ and married to a guy called Wakea. She is thought to be the first woman on Hawaii and therefore original mother and ancestor to the royal family who always inter-bred to maintain their pure bloodline. According to Beckworth, she is also the feminine principle or goddess who creates the islands of Hawaii. The 8 islands are all volcanoes along a fault line, some of which still erupt. When they do the lava spews out, which then cools and adds to the landmass. The fire within the volcano is Haumea in her Fire goddess form called Pele. The old Hawaiians have watched the process of land being formed from volcanoes and it has provided them with a wonderful metaphor or model for understanding how the Earth was created. They equate the fire with Spirit, which is exactly right in spiritual terms. So then they see that Earth is formed out of Fire. The old Islanders said that the Islands rose up as the body of Spirit. They were the material form of spiritual force……. and this means that land has an animate nature.