Juno (whose Greek name is Hera) is an ancient Queen of Heaven Goddess dating from that matriarchal period when the sovereign Deity was female and reigned alone, presiding over the mysteries of birth, motherhood, and the various phases of reproduction. Mythology relates how she was seduced by Zeus, married him out of a sense of honor, endured a marriage characterized by power struggles over issues of fidelity and bearing a line of descent, as well as how she went into retreat occasionally in order to renew and center herself. Her myth parallels the history of social upheaval in the lands where she was worshipped. Northern invaders struggled to impose traditions of patrilineal descent and the worship of their chief god, Zeus, upon the indigenous matriarchal cultures of Mycenaean Greece and Crete. Over a period of hundreds of years of cultural conflict, the two divinities were forced to share the altar. Thus, in addition to her authority over matters pertaining to childbirth and motherhood, Juno has come to be associated with issues of socially acknowledged relationship, legal marriage, marital fulfillment through commitment and fidelity, and the struggle for equality within a relationship. She represents, also, the kind of power struggles that involve controlling the partner through control over offspring, or through the withholding of sex or emotional intimacy. Juno can also represent committed relationships entered into out of a sense of duty, guilt, or for social reasons.

Juno represents both the need for relationship and the refusal to accept inequality within the context of a relationship. She represents the struggle to balance the need for intimacy with the opposing need for freedom - needs which both partners have, although one of these needs may be projected onto the partner. She can also represent the need to take marriage as a sacred trust, a way that leads to spiritual fulfillment through the reconciliation of the opposites in a state of union.

On another level, Juno can represent the way in which one feels rendered powerless by conflict in spite of sincere effort and irreproachable conduct on one's own part. The harder one tries, the more inadequate one's efforts seem to be, for there is a tendency to cling to old methods when circumstances have changed and a whole new paradigm is needed before the way clear can be seen. This frustration can sometimes lead to self-depreciation and loss of faith in oneself. Juno thus symbolises the transition state between old and new ways of being, where the old fails to meet the needs of the times and the new is not yet manifest. She describes the need for a kind of spiritual self-rejuvenation that is needed in order to see oneself through times of utter disintegration into the future that awaits. Juno in the horoscope thus represents the ways in which we need to renew ourselves, and where our ability to adjust to changing circumstances is most tested.

Since marriage proved to be this goddess' testing ground, Juno in the horoscope also indicates the qualities associated with one's marriage partner and the ways in which one handles intimacy/freedom needs as well as the jealousy and insecurity that often accompany this balancing act. Juno's position describes the nature of any control issues, the ways in which such power struggles get enacted, and the type of sacred cows that need to be relinquished so that the path to marital fulfillment can unfold. Juno's placement in your chart can refer not only to your mate (or the way that you perceive your mate), but to the relationship and to your own behaviour in a committed relationship as well.